Hi Jonah,

Are you considering interviewing your own current students? If so, I really suggest you reconsider. Beyond concerns of reliability, there are major ethical issues. Students could choose to participate out of fear of repercussions, for example. It has been done, but its not a good idea, in my opinion. I don't believe interviewing after they are no longer your students should be a problem though.

So long as you have no influence on the student's grades, your being a teacher is likely an asset to research in this population, assuming you are interviewing them about an area relevant to your expertise. Having an emic perspective will allow you to ask informed questions that may not be as obvious to an outsider.

Good luck

-Sean

Hi Jonah,

Are you considering interviewing your own current students? If so, I really suggest you reconsider. Beyond concerns of reliability, there are major ethical issues. Students could choose to participate out of fear of repercussions, for example. It has been done, but its not a good idea, in my opinion. I don't believe interviewing after they are no longer your students should be a problem though.

So long as you have no influence on the student's grades, your being a teacher is likely an asset to research in this population, assuming you are interviewing them about an area relevant to your expertise. Having an emic perspective will allow you to ask informed questions that may not be as obvious to an outsider.

Good luck

-Sean

Fair enough. There was grant money available and I was of a similar opinion but a colleague seemed to think It might be ok. Anyhoo I spoke to them again and they seemed to think it wasn't so I have applied to get an external interviewer and to interview them so I won't know who has said what, as well as an external transcriber, but I will do the analysis. We will see what the ethics board say.

I think that if you had interviewed your own students, there could have been bias because they know you; an external interviewer from outside would avoid this. Particularly if the transcripts are anonymised (and the interviewees know that their identity will not be revealed), they will feel able to speak more freely, honestly and not concerned that you would be judging them or - perhaps - hurt by what they are telling you.

It would be good to be aware of things that the students do not like and these would be disclosed more readily to an outsider.

Good luck with this; this argument would be an interesting addition to any future publication and might aid others who are considering undertaking a similar project.

Mary

I agree with Sean N. Halpin - I think it would be fine once you had finished teaching them. Actually, I think this is fairly common in terms of conducting educational research. All the very best.

I wasn't aware that this was something that was fairly common in educational research. It sounds as if, with the contributions from Frank Stephen Thompson and Sean N. Halpin, that this is coming together as an interesting research plan.

All the best with it.

Hi Jonah,

Sean has made very good points and your actions to counteract the main ethics issues are useful in terms of approval application.

However, beyond authority/power and confidentiality issues, it is, in my view/experience, almost impossible to remove bias from a survey or interview set.

Firstly, unless people are forced to respond, only those interested in the specific topic are likely to volunteer. E.g. I've worked a lot with HE students, mostly asking about utility/usability of various new, mostly digital/e-learning, resources but also about how students' perceive the value/impact of their voices. A 25% response rate to any kind of non-identifiable survey is a coup these days. Getting enough people to a focus group is also quite an achievement.

Secondly, (from the perspective of an independent 'hired-in' researcher) the research questions posed by a chief investigator are often based on prior assumptions that may not be obvious to the research team at time of ethics application. These assumptions may also not be picked up by the ethics committee. The assumptions may not hold in practice but are often not easy to negate in terms of the way the research question has been posed.

Suggestions include getting 'outside' analysis of your questions to check your own incipient bias before submitting to ethics approval and, once interviews done, take research conclusions as pointers rather than facts.

Irrespective of incipient bias, if your research looks to improve student outcomes it is almost always worth the effort, so good luck,

Lorinne

I agree with Frank Stephen Thompson that this is done in educational research. Although not environmentally friendly, I have done research on students' anonymous printed reflection essays on class projects that they submitted in a designated mailbox (pigeon hole) in our faculty building.

Totally agree with previous comments. From my part, I would add that it depends on the issue you are researching and the method you choose. On the one hand, ethnographic approach and observations are one thing. On the other hand, social desirability effects may bias your results especially when you are talking to students, so interviewing them. So I'd suggest to better check the concrete objectives and consider different methods of collecting information.

Have to agree with some of the above comments, that interviewing your current students would invite an ethics issue; however, and while not knowing exactly what you want to find out, I think that 'observing' your current students yourself would be ok.

For instance, what people in interviews say they do, and what they actually do, can differ.

This may have no bearing on your intended research, but I'm just putting it forward for possible consideration.

it is very surprising to me that there would be no IRB or equivalent. even at the elementary or hs level. no one can just go in and conduct research with students/human subjects w/ undergoing some ethics review especially MINORS!!

All research with/about students in my institution go through a stringent review process. The Head of the Department and the Dean of the Faculty must give permission for research with students and on educational practices. Only then do the research proposal and the ethics application go to the Ethics Committee for approval. This is the expected conduct for research in this context.

reineth prinsloo EXACTLY!!

To gather more data, you could also include a completely anonymous Survey Monkey - where the respondents' ISPs are not visible and there's no requirement to do the Survey.

yes but survey monkey is for quantitative

you can't really totally overcome bias-- human natrue-- ou can at best protect/use measures to counter bias; have others external individuals work with you

Hello all,

I have submitted an application based upon getting an external interviewer to ask the questions and a company to transcribe the data but I am still seeing what ethics will make of it. Looking for guidance more than anything as I am a total noob.

In answer to Mary-Helen's MINORS!! post above, my previous contribution envisaged teachers observing pupils in the classroom; since teachers have already been scrutinised as proper persons to teach even minors, I doubt that they would need further clearance to observe---or even interview---their pupils in the classroom.

not so philip-sounds like u are not a reseacher- do a little reserch pn thatyou need permissin for anythng when it comes to minors- as far as," teachers have already been 'scrutinized'?? as proper persons to teach even minors" TEACH not research and don't be to sure on this one either or have u not seen any headlines on "bad" teachers? last but not least, for research on humans subjects, any age, there has to be a panel or group to approve it- universities and organizations have them