Professor Ian Stronach

Stronach, I (2011) Microdoctoral modelling: a few thoughts on the ‘raw’ and the ‘cooked’ in relation to data, British Educational Research Association online resource. Available online at: [INSERT WEB PAGE ADDRESS HERE] Last accessed [insert date here].

We had quite an animated discussion of the ethical procedures that doctoral proposals were subject to at ECL/LJMU. Several of us had had proposals knocked back for lack of what seemed to us an impossible specificity in relation to qualitative work. Committees wanted to know: what questions were we going to ask? How exactly would the data be analysed? If the researcher was alone with the respondent, what permissions had to be sought? And from whom?  There was even a case when the normal relation of one-to-one was acceptable ethically, being the professional norm, but not if it involved action research – when someone else would have to be in the room, for reasons of ethical research propriety. What forms of recording were to be involved, and with whose permission? Pupils? Parents? Faculty? University?