Considering that for ethics reasons participants need to know that they are being recorded in a spontaneous video-mediated conversation (ex. a Skype call), I need to find relevant studies that show how/when/to what extent such data can be considered as reliable, or really spontaneous.
Any relevant research literature you can direct me to?
Many thanks!!
In a dialectal morphology field research project, we sidestepped this issue with post-hoc permission-to-use granting.
Thanks Asterios, I always have my participants sign permissions and informed consent forms, but my problem is not with ethics but with methodology: if your participants know that you're somehow recording them, wouldn't you say that this is impacting on their language use?
Yup, it would. But they didn't know they'd been recorded. We got in, probed for the material we were looking for and when we felt we had enough we stopped recording, informed them about the project and asked permission to use the recorded material. We only used material we were given permission for and deleted the rest. Most, even if surprised -or even annoyed- at first, were more than eager to allow use of the 'bootleg' recordings when we explained why we needed them, some asked for anonymization, only a few downright denied involvement.
This is very interesting, thanks for sharing your method with me Asterios! However, in my project it's impossible to withdraw such information from my participnats, I need to have all permissions signed before recording (and I actually already have my video datasets, with all participants being informed with all details beforehand. It's part of the ethics procedures of the involved universities, so going about with recording without telling the participants would be considered as unethical and data would be impossible to use for research.
That's why I said 'sidestepped'. It's borderline ethical to some, unequivocally unethical to others. Luckily, our supervisor was more of a go-getter and was willing to let it slide. ;)
If you already have the material, I don't really see anything you can do about it, except for explicitly mentioning your reservations on 'spontaneity'. Listing research limitations is good practice anyway.
I agree with Asterios. other wise, you will face the problem of social desirability.best regards
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