Presentation on theme: "1 Ethical Issues in Research into Applied Linguistics and Language Education Dr Malcolm MacDonald."— Presentation transcript:
Research and research ethics Research is defined as any form of disciplined inquiry that aims to contribute to a body of knowledge or theory ‘Research ethics’ refers to the moral principles guiding research from its inception through to its completion and publication of results and beyond
Case study 1: learning strategies The aim of your research is to investigate what learning strategies English language learners in your home country use when they are studying the English language. You are going to administer and analyse a questionnaire to 4 groups of 25 learners in a high school in your home country.
Case study 2: intercultural email communication The aim of your research is to investigate the ways in which cultural identity is constituted within the genre of emails written between people of different nationalities using English as a lingua franca. They have different L1s but are using the English language to communicate, –e.g. a Spanish person using English to communicate with someone from China. You are collecting a corpus of email correspondence between university students from different ‘cultures’, i.e. they are of different nationalities. You intend to collect a corpus of 400 different emails written by 20 different respondents over one month.
Task focus Write down 3 issues do you need to consider in order to ensure that this research project is carried out ethically.
6 Reducing risks to participants (Cohen et al, 2000:51) Protecting the rights of the participants: maintaining privacy, guaranteeing anonymity, guaranteeing confidentiality, avoiding harm, betrayal, deception.
Good practice in Research Confidentiality of information Voluntary participation Reducing risks to participants Informed consent Protection of data
8 Confidentiality of information (ESRC, 2005) The confidentiality of information supplied by research subjects must be respected The anonymity of respondents must be respected Refer to participants by number, e.g. T1, T2 etc. Refer to participants and institutions by pseudonym, –e.g. “Mr. Shakespeare” –e.g. “University of Stratford”
Voluntary participation Research participants must participate in a voluntary way, free from any coercion. They should be informed of their right to refuse to participate or withdraw from an investigation. In cases where research involves vulnerable groups such as children or adults with learning difficulties, the issue of informed consent may need to be managed through proxies who should be either those with a duty of care or who can provide disinterested independent approval. In the case of children, researchers cannot expect parents alone to provide disinterested approval on their children’s behalf.
Informed consent Participants must be in a position or old enough to understand the choice that they are making Disclosure of purposes of research A provision allowing participants to withdraw at any time Disclosure of any risks to participants Signed consent form (optional)
Protection of data Data must not be released to third parties Data must be kept in a secure environment Data may be destroyed after the research project is completed Data Protection Act
Some recent books on research methods in applied linguistics Burns, Anne. 2010. Doing action research in English language teaching : a guide for practitioners. New York: Routledge. Dornyei Zoltan. 2007. Research methods in applied linguistics : quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Holliday, Adrian 2002. Doing and writing qualitative research. London: SAGE. Paltridge, Brian and Aek Phakiti (eds.). 2010. Continuum companion to research methods in applied linguistics. London: New York, NY : Continuum. Richards, Keith. 2003. Qualitative inquiry in TESOL. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.