A structured questionnaire is a useful, cheap and quick method to administer across 36 schools and to 50 children. It is a convenient way to collate anonymous data from the sample children. The questionnaire contains a wide variety of question types. It is an appropriate method because systematic and comparable data are needed; which can …
Confidentiality and informed consent underpin any discussion of dignity and rights and the welfare of participants is at risk if dignity and rights are not respected. The Ethical statement by the British Sociological Association will be followed. Power differences are acknowledged and participants (adults and children) will be treated respectfully, fairly and as equals in …
E835, 1997, Educational Research in Action pp33-35 Validity By ‘validity’, we mean truth: the extent to which an account accurately represents the phenomena to which it refers. There are few concepts that have led to more controversy than ‘truth’. Indeed, many educational researchers reject this concept as inapplicable to the assessment of their work. One …
There is a drive to involve children and young people as researchers (Alderson, 2000) This is in recognition of unequal power relations between adults and children and the potential for unintentional exploitation or coercion which is recognised as a potential risk to participants as well as posing methodological risks (Coyne, 1998); Jones, 2004). The notion …
Some thoughts on Ethics, as it is always on my mind as I’m research I’ve been thinking more about this, following lots of reading and wanting to collate my thoughts for my research proposal revision. Can the children understand the questions? Will answering the questions make them upset or angry? Which interview questions work best …
Ethical issues involved in the Channel 4 Television Production ‘Boys and Girls Alone’ I have found that looking at other research and reviewing the ethical issues has helped me improve the ethical considerations in my own research. Here’s one such example. The British Sociological Association published a new set of guidelines in 2002 (“the Statement”). …
Here’s a look at the start of my search plan and shows my brainstorm of key words.
Thoughts on Ethics and online research and the British Sociological Assocation’s Statement I’ve been working through the British Sociological Association’s statement in more detail and produced this summary diagram of what I think are the key points. Online research presents particular problems for researchers. There are some contexts that become really quite complex ethically, involving …
Rebecca Ferguson is an Associate Lecturer in the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) at The Open University and is my tutor on the D845 Research methods dissertation course. You can read more about Rebecca and her variety of research interests at https://r3beccaf.wordpress.com/
Starting out on the MRes The first tasks on the MRes are Literature Review and writing the research proposal. I’ve been reading the book, Doing your research project by Judith Bell and summarise below the different functions that a literature review may have: To gain knowledge about the subject area and to find out about …