The preliminary feedback I received on my ethics form during a group tutorial was positive. Changes I made before submitting my final form included making my research question more reflective of my own agency as a practitioner. I also reviewed my preliminary set of questions and rephrased a number of questions to make the overall set more critical and less leading. For example, I rephrased one of the questions from how students might feel connected, to how they might feel disconnected during the exercise. By not presuming that student partners would feel connected and by flipping the question, this then gave me an opportunity to double-check students’ understanding of the question and their response. It also then allowed for students to give a more ‘negative’ response if they so wished. I reviewed the remaining questions with this in mind, making some further changes. I then added additional opportunities for student partners to expand on their responses to likert questions on page 2 of the questionnaire and made my request for open-ended responses at the end of the survey more explicit. In the instructions, I also highlighted to students to read questions carefully, as I did not want them to skim over questions and misunderstand them.
I have included here my signed off (via Moodle) Ethical Enquiry Form.
Following on from the formal and final feedback I received on my ethical enquiry form, I revisited the order of questions once more and reviewed some of the phrasing of my questions to eliminate any ambiguity and clarify specific questions.
For example, I was asked about the notion of an activity ‘making’ someone feel a specific way, which made me think about the agency of my participants in the process. I rephrased my final set of questions to reflect this.
I also had a closer look at the idea of ‘trigger warnings’, which are commonly used but can also evoke negative feelings for students. The feedback I received made me reconsider the use of an explicit ‘trigger warning’, review project risks, and decide to take a softer approach. The final draft of my project information took this into account by explicitly talking about the possibly of strong feelings and emotions arising in the project, however I did no longer label these messages with a specific ‘trigger warning’. I also included a more explicit project etiquette and forms of support, including support with studying online, within the project invitation and documentation.
I wanted to make sure that the research would take place in a supportive environment, even though the learning activities themselves were designed to creatively challenge student partners. Macfarlane (2003, p.59) writes that while we want to make students into critical thinkers, “it is important to establish a clear, stable and supportive environment in which this enquiry can take place”.
Bibliography
Macfarlane, B. (2003). Teaching with Integrity : The Ethics of Higher Education Practice. [online] London: Taylor & Francis Group. Available at: http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=182731.