Introduction: Ethical issues in educational research

Abstract

This special issue of the European Educational Research Journal (EERJ) addresses the issues surrounding current concerns regarding the ethical conduct of research in education. The impetus for ethical regulation of educational research has come from our institutions; therefore, by its very nature it is bureaucratic and often perceived by researchers as obstructive and even unethical. The papers herein tackle these problematic matters by interrogating the difficult questions surrounding ethical processes and charting academics’ experiences of and reactions to them. The issue argues that academics need to take possession of this debate through practice so that it becomes an aid to research, enhancing the conduct of research and the dignity, privacy and humanity of researchers and their participants.

The requirement for a special issue grew out of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) Council’s response/contribution to the deliberations regarding the ethical conduct of research in the social sciences, including educational research. Acting on concerns in social science research generally, the EERA Council set up a working group consisting of some of the authors of the papers contained in this volume. The working group decided to conduct a survey of academics’ experiences of ethical processes, the results of which were presented at a subsequent European Conference on Educational Research and responded to by one of the authors. The papers contained herein are the group’s analysis of and responses to the survey. Each author tackles the common issues from their own perceptions, thereby bringing a range of perspectives that elaborate our understanding of the place of ethics in educational research and the role of review boards and researchers themselves. Whilst the views in the papers represent those of the authors only without prejudice to the EERA, collectively, they constitute an element of the EERA’s contribution to the ongoing discourse with regard to the ethical conduct of research and ethical procedures within our institutions.

Raykov’s paper reports on the results of the survey conducted by the group. The starting assumption was that whilst research ethics reviews were an integral component of the research process in education, there was still little known about educators' perceptions of and experiences with this process. The study examined educators' perceptions of and experiences with the reviews of research ethics and in this way contributes to a better understanding of this significant, but often challenging, component of the research process. The study is based on the integration of quantitative findings and the thematic analysis of the open-ended responses from an online survey. The study found a distinct pattern of participants' responses related to issues in the ethics review process concerning ambiguity in the purpose and process-related matters in the review process. The study also found that a significant number of educators faced difficulties during the preparation of their applications. Analysis of the open-ended responses provided some insights that enhance findings from the survey by contributing to a deeper understanding of researchers’ experiences with and attitudes towards research ethics. Results of this study indicate that the complexity of the research process and ethical, context-specific research actions require a comprehensive preparation of researchers and an efficient support system that will facilitate rather than hinder the quality and efficiency of research in education. Ethically acceptable research in education requires a broader understanding of the nature of research ethics, including professional duties and codes of research practice, the ability to identify hard-to-anticipate consequences of research actions and the development of ethical judgement to choose the most virtuous research practice. In short, as Oancea (2016: 43) stated, it is not sufficient "to achieve technical compliance. . . but also to develop . . . personal understanding of ethical principles and contexts" or, in short, to facilitate the full understanding and application of deontological, teleological and aretaic principles applied to research in education.

Madalinska-Michalak’s paper considers the role and responsibilities of a scientific association in promoting and supporting high-quality research, particularly with regard to providing guidance on research ethics. The study provides insight into the role and activities of the EERA in fostering high-quality educational research. The analysis reveals the perception of academics that the EERA might further high-quality educational research for the benefit of education and society in the following ways: (a) leading the development of guidelines on ethical education research that are applicable across Europe whilst recognizing varied transnational contexts; (b) promoting free, open dialogue and critical discussion on ethics in educational research; (c) taking a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to ethics in educational research and informing the public about current developments in educational research; (d) developing practices of reviewing educational research in the context of research ethics; and (e) promoting debate on ethics in the academic field of educational research. The paper concludes with some recommendations for the EERA related to its role and responsibilities in fostering quality research.

Zgaga argues that contemporary academia is marked by a paradox: a growing emphasis on ethical issues in research, while simultaneously ethically dubious academic practices are increasingly commonly reported. Are codes of research ethics ineffective? Is it necessary to tighten existing codes? Questions formulated in such ways contain a danger of simplification: this paradox requires far more thorough consideration. The problem cannot be addressed just to research; it must be considered in the context of the contemporary academic sphere as a whole and in the context of its transformations. Ethically controversial practices occur not only in educational research but also in teaching and learning; this is not a rarely disregarded challenge in educational research. The fact that research and academic activities have become a subject of public scandals indicates a revised relationship between academic institutions and society at large, while simultaneously pointing to the changed relationships within the academic sphere. The 2016 EERA survey on ethics reviews in educational research, presented and discussed in this issue of the EERJ, points directly to dilemmas encountered by individual educational researchers, but indirectly also to a number of other issues in the background. In connection with the results of the survey, this article will shed light on these very issues and point to the wider problems that cannot be avoided and should be considered when dealing with research ethics.

The present trend in research ethics indicates that an increasing weight has been attributed to formal rules and procedures; it is increasingly difficult to discern the difference between institutional codes of ethics and institutional legal regulations. The key problem seems to have shifted from the sphere of legitimacy to the sphere of legality. “Many ethics review policies and procedures are potentially measures of governance and regulation” (Sikes and Piper, 2010: 211) and not a support to reflecting one’s own research – ongoing research, not just a research proposal – through an ethical lens. Moreover, it seems that we have been caught in yet another paradox: “few, if any, researchers set out with a deliberate intention to bring about harm” (Sikes and Piper, 2010), but, nevertheless, severe measures have been taken at almost all institutions in order to prevent any, even the smallest potential “ethical sin” of their researchers. Ethical codes are designed predominantly negatively: as a means of preventing harm and providing security, “ethical security” in the “risk society”. This occurs at the expense of neglecting academic freedom.

Formalizing the rules of ethical behaviour of researchers can turn against the good intentions of their authors, if, and when, the space that should encourage and protect constant dialogue is turned in a closed space – that is, a place where norms and rules override critical discussion and consensus-seeking. The dichotomy of the legitimate and the legal is also true in the field of research ethics. The dominance of the legal over the legitimate forces researchers into a mode of conformism. “Long-term [. . .] development of knowledge, nonconformity and originality are some of the values” (Bennich-Björkman, 2007: 335) that need to be protected even when we are faced with a moral panic and demands for tighter rules. Last, but not least, research ethics cannot be a means of limiting knowledge, but should encourage its responsible broadening and progression.

Taylor et al. widen the context geographically and culturally. As a respondent on the panel at ECER 2016, Taylor had the sense that European researchers were looking to models in North America and other countries where ethics regimes are more developed (and enshrined). Accordingly, this paper emerged from the following question: What can European researchers learn from the way ethical review structures and processes have developed in Canada? As they approached this question, however, Taylor et al. encountered a more immediate question: To what extent is it possible to address a diversity of research-ethical concerns via a single, bureaucratic policy? How do standardized ethics regimes fail to account for non-standard research – and thereby fail researchers, participants and communities? And what is the alternative? In this discussion, the authors argue that efforts to regulate the diversity of social sciences research via a uniform policy almost inevitably miss the mark: one ends up trying to “square the circle”.

Drawing from both the existing literature on ethics policy and from collective experience as researchers, this paper considers how the focus of Canadian universities’ Research Ethics Boards (REBs) on possible consequences of research manifests as risk-averse conservatism. Building upon Palys and Lowman (2010), Taylor et al. suggest that this ethos of risk aversion may, in fact, undermine the university’s capacity to carry out a social research mandate. Research ethics protocols, by definition, “constrain scholarly research and, in so doing, structure what truths can be spoken and by whom” (Haggerty, 2004: 392). Taylor et al. revisit existing critiques of the ever-expanding ethics regime and recruit an historical analysis of “ethics creep” in the Canadian context in order to illustrate that the conservative, risk-averse nature of Canadian Tri-Council REB policy is inherently at odds with research that aims to bring about social change.

This paper is organized as follows. Firstly, the authors discuss the aspirational aims of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) – a key federal granting agency for the social sciences and humanities – in order to provide a counterpoint to the conservative framework impelled by federal ethics policy. Secondly, in order to indicate how “ethics creep” comes into tension with the aspirational mandate of social research, they examine how federal government research granting bodies have fomented an ethics regime in Canadian universities over the past 20 years (in this section, Robert K Merton’s (1957) reflections on function and dysfunction illuminate the complex and often contradictory role of the REB).

Thirdly, to illustrate the practical consequences of REB standardization and conservatism, the authors examine specific cases in which REB guidelines have come into conflict with socially engaged research projects. This penultimate section discusses REB constraints on research that aims at social change through its approach to knowledge production, including the problematization of research relationships.

In concluding, Taylor et al. encourage European colleagues to think carefully before adopting the kind of university ethics regimes that have been developed in Canada as well as the USA, Australia and the UK, largely in response to concerns about biomedical research ethics. While there has been much tinkering with standardized protocols, the current regime continues to emphasize the risks over benefits of research and its inherent conservatism discourages research aimed at progressive social change.

Head reflects on the fact that educational research, and research in the social sciences more generally, has experienced a growth in the introduction of ethical review boards since the 1990s. Increasingly, universities have set up ethics review procedures that require researchers to submit applications seeking approval to conduct research. Review boards and the rules and conditions that they operate have been criticized as obstructive (Parsell et al., 2014), unnecessarily bureaucratic (Sikes and Piper, 2010; Velardo and Elliot 2018) and even unethical (Henderson and Esposito, 2017; Parsell et al., 2014). At the same time, review boards and their procedures have been acknowledged as contributing to consideration of the ethical conduct of research (Breckler, 2005).

Head’s paper addresses current issues regarding the place and role of ethics in educational research. Academic researchers and professional associations have argued that current ethical procedures in the form of ethics review committees are often lacking in knowledge and expertise of particular ethical contexts, including education (Sikes and Piper, 2010). Still others argue that procedures such as filling in a form seeking approval to conduct research are bureaucratic and restrictive and their main concern is one of compliance on the part of the researcher with sets of institutional regulations (Henderson and Esposito, 2017). Indeed, Velardo and Elliot (2018) argue that the restrictive nature of review processes encourages a “single event” conceptualization of ethics. Furthermore, they argue that, consequently, doctoral students in particular are not encouraged to consider ethical issues that may arise during research, including their own well-being. More importantly, critics argue that ethics reviews prior to the conduct of research often constrain research activity and can impose restrictions and conditions that may actually result in unethical research conduct (Henderson and Esposito, 2017; Parsell et al., 2014).

This paper draws on literature to explore researchers’ experiences of ethical procedures and to interrogate the issues surrounding the role of ethical review committees. The paper argues that whilst researchers’ experiences confirm some of the critical arguments found in the literature, there is also a perception that having to go through an ethical approval process helped researchers to think more deeply about the conduct of their research (Sikes and Piper, 2010; Velardo and Elliot, 2018). The paper further explores the wider ethical contexts and issues that are not covered by review board procedures, but which researchers encounter in the process of their work. The paper concludes that the ethical conduct of educational research is more complex than adhering to a set of strict “rules”, but rather is an issue of resolving ethical dilemmas, which is beyond the scope of a single event review process (see, for example, the Economic and Social Research Council’s (n.d.) Research Ethics Framework (http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding/guidance-for-applicants/research-ethics/). Ethics in educational research, therefore, is part of a continuous process of learning and development in research and, therefore, constitutes an issue of pedagogy.

The first part of the paper explores the emergence of ethical review boards in social science and educational research and illustrates some of the problematic issues that have arisen. The second section uses ethical theories of utilitarianism and deontology to understand why review boards operate in an apparently constrained context. Furthermore, a case is made for the necessity of virtue ethics and an ethic of care to be the foundation of ethical research. In the final section, the issues discussed earlier in the paper are presented as a series of ethical dilemmas that require resolution. In particular, the complex relationships between researchers and their participants (including power relationships) are addressed. Finally, it is argued that ethical issues are more than dilemmas for research but rather also an important element of researcher development and identity.

The papers in this special issue highlight several salient matters for our understanding of the ethical conduct of educational research. Whilst the experience of ethical review varies through countries and continents, there is a common concern that the processes can be difficult, sometimes unclear and obstructive. Nevertheless, there is recognition that the ethical conduct of research is a moral and professional imperative and that ethical review boards have some role to play in its development.

The task for the research community, therefore, is to consider how a system based on compliance and the safeguarding of institutional legal positions can be engaged with in such a way as to emphasize the moral and ethical conduct of research. It is the intention of this special issue to stimulate discourse, and thereby raise a series of questions. If the relationships that researchers have with their institutions and participants is currently based on presumptions and fears of negative experiences, how do we build different relationships of reciprocity, co-inquiry, creativity and innovation? What role does the research profession have in re-taking academic freedom? What role does the academic community need to assert in order to ensure that ethical considerations and conduct of educational research are foremost in the researcher’s mind? Finally, what role do other interested bodies, such as the EERA, have to play in this process?