How do educational technology developers ensure that their products have positive impact, and don’t cause harm?

Whether they’re driven by commercial interests or not, most developers and companies care about positive impact. Of course, impact helps in selling products, but it’s also a key motivation in...

BERA Bites, issue 5: Research used or produced in schools: Which informs practitioners most?

BERA Bites

The BERA Bites series presents selected articles from the BERA Blog on key topics in education, presented in an easily printable and digestible format to serve as teaching and learning...

Action research: Closing the gap between theory and practice

In order to conduct action research, Elliott (1991) advocates that a tremendous desire to innovate and improve is a fundamental requirement. As a teacher-researcher, I came to my doctoral study...

When ‘good enough’ isn’t good enough: Ethical dilemmas of a netnographic researcher

Independent researchers: The challenges of accessing ethical approval

Ethnography has evolved for digital contexts in the form of netnography – researchers working with data originating from digital imprints of natural, public conversations (Kozinets, 2015). This...

Independent educational researchers: Untying knots of ethical issues and gaining ethical approval

Independent researchers: The challenges of accessing ethical approval

At the request of the Independent Researchers’ Forum (IRF), BERA recently hosted a vibrant event aimed at independent researchers. The topic, ‘Ethical Issues and gaining ethical approval’,...

Ethical review for education research: More than a box to tick

Independent researchers: The challenges of accessing ethical approval

BERA’s Independent Researchers’ Forum’s recent meeting to discuss the challenge of ethical review clearly demonstrated the gap faced by researchers working outside academic institutions....

The 2020 Revision Census: The ambition and ethics of large-scale independent research

Independent researchers: The challenges of accessing ethical approval

What do our children spend their time doing when they put in all those hours studying for big exams? Cognitive psychology tells us that the techniques they choose can have a substantial impact on...

Walking and talking as and for methodological development

This collaborative blog was produced from discussions by attendees of the BERA Walk and Talk event held on 18 October 2019 at the Open University in Milton Keynes. The event’s aim was to...

Using art to represent science: A visualisation of student motivation data

Data comes in many forms, some more accessible than others. At the recent BERA conference, I tried to address this with a poster presenting quantitative data in an unexpected way. The data came...

The challenges and solutions for qualitative researchers in gaining ethical approval and consent

A special series of blogs asks the difficult questions about current informed consent and ethical approval practices and assumptions, critically exploring the work and philosophy of both ethics...

Editorial: The challenges and solutions for qualitative researchers in gaining ethical approval and consent

The challenges and solutions for qualitative researchers in gaining ethical approval and consent

BERA members, through informal conversation, recognised that there was a danger that qualitative studies may become under threat from not being approved by ethical committees in an increasingly...

How do we enact ‘informed consent’?

The challenges and solutions for qualitative researchers in gaining ethical approval and consent

As researchers we have a responsibility not just to inform participants about our research and its possible consequences, but to have confidence that participants are giving informed consent. So...