This week, I am learning the steps to get institutional approval for an action research project from the school's Institutional Review Board (IRB) and how to draft the participant consent communications that would be used to inform students of the research and provide their options for participation. These are important ethical steps when we do any interventions that affect other humans.
As educators, we are entrusted with the responsibility of not only imparting knowledge but also ensuring that our educational research is conducted ethically. One of the critical aspects of ethical research lies in the concept of participant consent. In simple terms, if we're going to test something with students, we ought to be respectful enough to let them know and ask them to be a part of the test.
That's just being polite, right?
Well, this got me thinking about the impact it can have on the validity and effectiveness of the strategies being studied for students to know their actions are being studied.
The concept of the "observer effect" in psychology posits that people change their behavior when they know they're being observed. It follows that when participants are aware that they are being monitored as part of research, their behavior and performance may be altered.
As an educator now engaged in research, I find myself grappling with the ethical dilemma posed by the transparency of our intentions. While informed consent is essential for ethical research practices, the very act of participants knowing that they are part of a study can inadvertently alter their behavior, creating a ripple effect on the validity of the research findings.
In higher education, where research plays a pivotal role in shaping pedagogical practices and a high percentage of participants are adults capable of comprehending the nuances of educational strategies, the ethical implications of participant consent and the observer effect are even more pronounced.
Participant consent is required in our commitment to ethical conduct. But we must be diligent in our interpretations of data, since we know that measured changes could merely be validating the observer effect, rather than suggesting an impact from the interventions we're seeking to measure.
In a perfect world, every educational research project would include a control group of participants that know they're part of a study, but don't actually have any intervention applied. That way, the results of any observer effect can be quantified.
But I'm not convinced that's an ideal approach when it comes to education research. Afterall, an intervention is being evaluated because the course is not as successful as desired. And the intervention that's being applied is a sort of educated "best guess" or intuition of what might be better. How ethical is it to withhold that from half the students just so the data can be stronger?
When I think about ethical questions, I try to imagine myself as all the actors in the scenario. Would I want to be the student in the control group being presented a known inferior educational product? Or would I prefer to be in the group testing out something that might be better?
For myself, I'd take the risk every time. To me, a chance at better is worth the risk of worse and always preferred to accepting mediocre. Perhaps this is the true purpose of participant consent. Maybe you'd choose differently.
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