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2.10. Ethical challenges in The Play Observatory project

Source: ©Play Observatory PL65A-S007-p1

Seminar on the 17th May 2023

Ethical challenges in The Play Observatory project

In this seminar, John Potter and Michelle Cannon discuss how the complex and unprecedented ethical challenges associated with The Play Observatory project were negotiated.

In the middle of the pandemic, a project was conceived to collect and archive instances of children and young people’s play at that particular time of crisis. By means of a carefully designed online survey, members of the public contributed texts to a database by uploading personal photos, anecdotes, jokes, comments, film clips and drawings, and more. Even as experienced researchers in a variety of disciplines, we were faced with constant ethical dilemmas relating to: safe-guarding and privacy, copyright, contributors’ rights and ownership of the donated materials, and the subsequent archiving and dissemination of the data. With multiple research partners and stake holders involved, the moving parts were many and constant. John and Michelle will present some of the ways in which ethical procedures were meticulously problematised and in most cases, resolved.

Download the presentation slides.

John Potter is Professor of Media in Education at University College London Institute of Education. His research, teaching and publications are in the field of: new literacies, media education, play on and offscreen, curation and agency in social media, and the changing nature of teaching and learning in the context of digital media. He is co-editor of the journal ‘Learning, Media and Technology’. He is a founder member and director of ReMAP (Researching Education, Media, Arts and Play) a research collaborative based at the UCL Knowledge Lab. He has recently directed the ESRC funded ‘National Observatory of Children’s Play Experiences during COVID-19’, a collaboration with colleagues in the School of Education at Sheffield University and the UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis.

Dr Michelle Cannon is Programme Leader of the MA in Digital Media: Education, at the UCL Institute in Education. Her research focusses on film, moving image and creative media production as they relate to new literacies and the media arts in primary and early secondary education. She has worked extensively with the British Film Institute on national and international projects and is interested in the creative and critical learning that occurs in the processes of digital making, through film production, editing and digital animation.

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2.9. Ethical guidelines for educational research in a changing world

Photograph of Dr Alison Fox. A white woman wearing a black-and-white striped top, a necklace and a lanyard.

Source: AFox

Seminar on the 3rd May 2023

Ethical guidelines for educational research in a changing world

Drawing on her experience in the recent BERA guidelines review, Dr Alison Fox explores how changes in the world affect ethical guidance in educational research.

In 2021/2022 Dr Alison Fox brought together a diverse group of colleagues to reflect on the question What is changing in the world which should affect our ethical guidance for educational research? as a mechanism for reviewing the 2018, 4^th edition, of the British Educational Research Association ethical guidelines for educational research. This session will highlight the key issues considered topical by the group which are now being used to guide the development of a 2024 edition of the BERA guidance. This will be a space to reflect on how these issues are affecting your research and practice, as well as thinking about the how to keep ethical guidance responsive to contemporary times and the unknown challenges for enquiring educators into the future.

Download Dr Fox’s presentation slides.

Dr Alison Fox moved into educational research after starting off as an environmental scientist and then secondary and further education science teacher. Since her Masters in Education in 2000 she has been supporting other researchers through Masters and Doctoral study alongside educational research into professional learning and research ethics. She is currently Associate Head of School for Research and Knowledge Exchange in the School of Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport and Chair of the Human Research Ethics Committee at The Open University and holds a number of roles with BERA (on Council, on the Publications Committee, as a member of the blog editorial team and for 9 years as a special interest group convenor).

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2.8. Ethics in practice – a panel discussion

Image of the logo for the Practice As Research PAR network Seminar on the 26th April 2023

Ethics in practice – a panel discussion

As Practice As Research takes many forms, the practicalities of engaging in research ethically also vary greatly. In this online seminar, the panelists draw on their personal research practices to discuss how to engage with research ethically. Dr Jo Collins focuses on the context of research in counselling and coaching practice, Dr Alison Finch explores participatory, egalitarian research with young adults, and Áine McAllister highlights ethics in the context of Poetic Inquiry with refugees.

Dr Jo Collins is a practicing coach and Senior Lecturer in counselling, coaching and mentoring at the Christ Church Canterbury University.

Dr Alison Finch is a registered nurse and nurse-research-practitioner. She is a cancer nurse, assistant chief nurse at UCLH and a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Academy member.

Áine McAllister is a Lecturer at UCL working in the context of Languages in Education and in Refugee Education. Find Áine on LinkedIn.

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2.7. The intricate ethics of participatory research: issues and challenges

A photo of Prof Banks with her hand on her chin

Source: SBanks

Seminar on the 1st March 2023

The intricate ethics of participatory research: issues and challenges

In this online seminar Professor Sarah Banks reflects on ethical challenges arising in participatory research.

Participatory research is becoming increasingly popular amongst academics, community organisations and research funders. This is research that involves people with direct experience of the issue being studied (e.g. homelessness, domestic violence, asylum seeking) in designing and carrying out the research, often in partnership with academics or other professionals, with the aim of influencing change in policy or practice. This type of research raises distinctive ethical challenges, particularly relating to power dynamics, partnership-working and social activism, and may not always be fully understood by institutional research ethics committees. This presentation will outline some of the main ethical challenges arising in participatory research, arguing for the importance of ‘everyday ethics’ focusing on human relationships and reflexivity as a counter-balance to the ‘regulatory ethics’ of institutional review processes, which emphasise rule-following and impartiality. It will also introduce the revised guidelines for community-based participatory research recently published by the Centre for Social Justice and Community Action, Durham University and the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement, www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/social-justice-community-action/research-areas/ethics-consultation/

Click to download Prof Banks’ slides in PDF.

Sarah Banks is Professor in the Department of Sociology and co-founder of the Centre for Social Justice and Community Action at Durham University, UK. The Centre promotes participatory action research for social justice in partnership with community-based organisations. With the Centre and members of the International Collaboration for Participatory Health Research (ICPHR), she has developed ethical guidelines for participatory research and offers training/events for academic and community-based researchers. She has coordinated several participatory research projects, including research on debt, poverty and community development, and leads the Ethics Working Group of the ICPHR. She is co-editor of Ethics in Participatory Research for Health and Social Well-Being (Routledge, 2019) and Co-Producing Research: A Community Development Approach (Policy Press, 2019), and co-author of Participatory Research for Health and Social Well-Being (Springer, 2019).

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2.6. Hooks and pain: Ethical concerns in practice-based research on body suspensions

Source: FManfredi

Seminar on the 1st February 2023

Hooks and pain: Ethical concerns in practice-based research on body suspensions.

In this online seminar Federica Manfredi reflects on various ethical dilemmas relating to practice-based research on body suspensions.

Body suspensions are a challenging fieldwork of investigation because, according to research partners, “words are not enough” to express such intense experiences.

A body suspension consists in the elevation of a protagonists inserting hooks in the skin as temporary piercings; hooks are connected to an above scaffolding with ropes and pulling the main one, the suspendee leaves the floor for a variable amount of time. Body suspensions are realized in contemporary Europe during festivals and private events by a trans-spatial community of practitioners, that often privilege privacy and online invisibility to prevent stigmatization. Suspension experiences are delegitimized by non-suspendees because of the voluntary pain: it is elected as evidence of mental deviancy, even by a pathologizing bibliography, delegitimating the voices of practitioners.

The anthropological research “Learning to Fly” investigated meanings associated to suspensions by regular practitioners through a tailor-designed experimental methodology to overpass logo-centric logics. In a creative laboratory, participants co-created symbolic objects with metaphorical meanings to express one or more aspects of their hook-experiences. Handcrafts became referents of oral narrative during interviews, being able to express more than what the suspendee (or the ethnographer) pre-established to investigate, and exploring more than what words were allowed to share before. Ethical concerns emerged in several moments of the ethnography, especially concerning the desire to circulate the handcrafts to support the spread of a restored image of body suspension. Illustrating exhibition contexts and the consequences of the handcraft circulation, this presentation aims to discuss the militant use of the ethnography, the limits of the outsider positioning of the ethnographer, and the use of research’s results by epistemic partners.

After a Master Degree in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Turin (2009), Federica Manfredi started her militant approach to anthropology in Switzerland working for the visibility of local farmers, the defense of women and children rights, and the prevention of suicides. Upon return to Italy she received a post-master degree in Migration and Psychopathology developing a research on meanings associated to the “good death” among migrants. In 2014 she published her first monograph “I volti celati di Civitavecchia” about the trance experienced by penitents during Holy Friday and, between two kids, she was awarded a grant for her doctoral project on body suspensions in contemporary Europe. During the PhD in Medical Anthropology at the University of Lisbon (2022), she explored experimental methodologies of qualitative investigation, in balance between online and offline interactions, developing the theoretical proposal of the trans-spatiality. As member of the scientific project Excel – The Pursuit of Excellence, Federica investigated body modifications and body hacking, and she worked on the dissemination activities of the project with the workshop series The Hacked Barbie. Part of the organizing committee of the art exposition “Being F**king Perfect – The Pursuit of Excellence” (Lisbon 2022), she engaged for the promotion of the scientific labour in an accessible format for the non-academic public, cooperating with visual facilitators and artists. Federica is currently scientific consultant for private medical companies in Italy and Denmark as behavioral specialist, and she is working on new projects about the anthropology of pain.

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2.5. Still Moving – Ethical considerations in embodied practice

Source: SYork-Pryce

Seminar on the 11th January 2023:

Still Moving – Ethical considerations in embodied practice.

In this online seminar Dr Sonia York-Pryce reflects on ethical considerations within embodied practice and dance research.

To reflect on ethical considerations in her work, Sonia will begin with outlining the context of her work and what inspired her research. She will then explore the taboo of ageing and aesthetics and highlight the difference of the older dancer’s body. She will draw on her expertise in ageism and embodiment to talk about Practice As Research, which for her meant the creation of dance films with national and international senior professional dancers, but also with herself as a dancer.

Sonia York-Pryce, Dr Visual Arts, (Griffith University, Australia), Ba. Digital Media, (Honours; (Griffith University), Ba. Visual Arts (Southern Cross University, Australia), dancer, photographer, videographer, and interdisciplinary artist. From the 1960s to the present-day Sonia has trained and danced extensively in ballet and contemporary dance, initially in the UK then settling in Australia in 1994. She studied classical ballet at Elmhurst Ballet School, the Royal Ballet School, the London School of Contemporary Dance, and the Laban Centre, in London, UK. Sonia’s doctoral research, “Ageism and the Mature Dancer” examined how senior professional dancers, aged over 40, still performing, navigate the dance-by-date perpetuated within Western dance and consumer culture’s obsession with youth. Across a survey conducted through interviews and by email to over 35 participants, based nationally and internationally, York-Pryce discovered what drives these dancers to continue, and how they maintain their bodies.

Click here to access a PDF with more information about Sonia’s work and career.

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2.4. Ethical dilemmas in 20 century British music education history research

Source: Dr Ross Purves

Seminar on the 16th November 2022:

Ethical dilemmas in 20 century British music education history research.

In this online seminar Dr Ross Purves reflects on various ethical dilemmas relating to research projects into aspects of twentieth-century British music education history.

Dr Ross Purves will explore the benefits and creative possibilities of technology-mediated research practice in this area, but also some of the potential blunders and ethical dilemmas. Technology has enriched both research projects, enabling rich sensory engagement and fresh analytical insight. Yet the ease, immediacy and sheer power of contemporary technology may also entice the researcher towards rash, inaccurate or in some cases ethically-complex actions. For instance, the vast resources of the British Newspaper Archive have been used to trace the lives and careers of those within projects’ scope, but careful manual cross-referencing has still been necessary to avoid misconnecting reports of multiple individuals whose details matched the search terms. Without such checks there could be serious implications for an individual’s reputation and legacy, not to mention the quality of the research. Moreover, there are some who argue that such individuals – even though possibly deceased for some time – have a ‘right to be forgotten’. Yet by triangulating rich online resources with those held in offline archives and paper documents, Ross potentially casts ‘‘a shaft of brilliant light’ over what had been ‘in historical darkness’ (Crossen-White, 2015). What are the implications of these kinds of activities for living descendants and their own ‘life narratives’? In another example, how should the researcher make appropriate use of resources such as Ancestry.com, which combine access to digitized official archives with amateur genealogical projects created and shared within families. Since both research projects explore the twentieth-century, some individuals who are referenced might still be alive, invoking data protection regulation. Their immediate descendants will certainly be alive, and might inadvertently come to learn of project outputs published online. How should the researcher react if contact is made, or should the researcher set out to proactively make contact? These are historical projects, then, but not that historical – and technology can serve to warp this relatively small passage of time still further, bringing forgotten events to the fore and linking past lives to the present in potentially unexpected ways.

Dr Ross Purves is Associate Professor for Music Education at the UCL Institute of Education and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He was previously Senior Lecturer in Education at De Montfort University, Leicester, where he led modules in music and arts education, computing and educational technology. Ross has presented research at various UK and European education and music conferences and is an experienced performing musician and arranger. Between 2016 and 2018 he was a member of the Musicians’ Union Teachers’ Section National Committee. He currently serves on the Music Education Committee of the London Music Fund and is a school governor of Bedford Road Primary School. Ross received De Montfort University Vice-Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award in both 2017 and 2018. Ross’s research interests include: various aspects of music education and instrumental learning; the application of GIS and geospatial analysis to education research; children’s computer programming; the educational and creative applications of Lego and making; the history of education; teachers’ initial education, early career transition and professional development.

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2.3. Ethics-Research-Practice: Two is company, three is a crowd

Source: Dr Tragou

Seminar on the 2nd November 2022:

Ethics-Research-Practice: Two is company, three is a crowd.

In this online seminar Dr Elena Tragou, a systemic psychologist-psychotherapist the relationship between ethics, research and practice.

How can we understand the three from a systemic point of view? How does “Aesthetics” clarify (if it does) the intertwining relationship of the three? A tour de force has been unfolding during the last four decades where professionals of mental health, researchers and educators have been opening up the dialogue on ethics, practice and research from an epistemic and ontological point of view. It seems that unless we contextualize the meaning of these ideas in a systemic epistemology we, as professionals, will be losing the great significance of their connections by focusing on the divided, Cartesian way of understanding them. May the tour go on…

Click to download the presentation slides.

Dr Elena Tragou is a systemic psychologist-psychotherapist, researcher, educator and a writer. She has published two books on clinical assessment, numerous research articles and has been participating in European and International conferences presenting her work on systemic research and therapy, human communication, and supervision and therapy. She is a clinical member of APA and AAMFT, Registered MHT, and a member of ELESYTH.

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2.2. Ethical considerations when researching language learning processes

Source: Dr Sánchez-Pellicer

Seminar on the 12th October 2022.

Investigating cognitive processes in language learning: The use of eye tracking and related ethical considerations

In this online seminar Dr Ana Pellicer-Sánchez from UCL explores ethical considerations in research into vocabulary and language learning.

In the last decade, the field of second language acquisition has witnessed an increase in the number of studies using eye-tracking to examine the cognitive processes involved in language learning. Eye-tracking allows researchers to record learners’ eye movements while completing a task on a computer screen and provides a very rich record of online processing behaviour. It is increasingly used in the field as a measure of cognitive effort. In this presentation I will provide an introduction to the eye-tracking technique, as well as a brief overview of some of its applications in language learning research, with a particular focus on vocabulary learning. The last part of the presentation will discuss the ethical considerations in this type of research.

Dr Ana Pellicer-Sánchez is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and TESOL at the IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, UK. Her research focuses on the teaching and learning of vocabulary in a second/foreign language. Her recent research has used eye tracking to examine cognitive processes involved in vocabulary learning, with a particular focus on learning from reading. She is co-author of An Introduction to Eye-tracking: A Guide for Applied Linguistics Research (CUP) and co-editor of Understanding Formulaic Language (Routledge).

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2.1. Ethics and ethical considerations in practitioner research

Seminar on the 7th December 2022 from 11 to 12 UK time:

Ethics and ethical considerations in practitioner research

In this seminar Prof Kate Wall from University of Strathclyde offers a brief introduction into concerns around ethical practitioner research. Professor Wall comments on the relationship and tensions between research ethics, approval committees on the one hand, and professional ethics, standards and responsibilities on the other. In this context, she further explores the researcher’s ethical duty to not only listen to, but to adhere to children’s rights, thus to fully include and involve children in research processes. She argues that “pedagogical appropriateness” drives good practitioner-research, thus shows how practice informs methodological and practical choices in research.

Professor Wall’s work focuses on the development of pedagogies and research methodologies that facilitate effective talk about learning (metacognition). She has worked extensively in partnership with teachers of all ages and stages, using practitioner enquiry approaches and has a growing interest in how tools with pedagogic and methodological origins can be used to support theorised practice.

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