Transcript Working with English underachieving adolescents

When ethical issues meet
cultural differences
Working with English
underachieving adolescents
Kai Ren
Graduate School of Education, Bristol University
My PhD: a Mixed Methods
Case Study
1.
2.
3.
Quantitative data collection of learning power
data and achievement and demographic data
of 1000 Y9 students in 4 English schools.
Qualitative data collection to gain an in-depth
view of student learning identity and agency.
Intervention study with a sub group of
underachievers, based on the data acquired .
General ethical concerns



Data protection
Participant’s consent and right of withdrawal
Access to findings
More moral concerns
The identification as underachiever may risk
some negative effect on the selected
students.
To adopt
A positive, respectful and caring attitude
towards every participant when working
amongst them.
Real-world ethics: more complex
Episode 1
The story about me directly
emailing my teenage participants…
My ethical dilemma:
Is it inappropriate to write to your
adolescent participants even if you are
trying to help them?
Real-world ethics: more complex
Episode 2
The story about meeting one-on-on
with my teenage participants
My ethical dilemma:
I am only a male PhD student from China
doing research with English teenagers.
Do I really need a criminal record check
before I can talk to them individually?
Reflections

Tensions exist between doing my research
conveniently and strictly following the ethical
guidelines.
Reflections

Cultural differences seem to complicate the
ethical issues in educational research .
Reflections

The researcher needs to develop awareness
of cross-cultural ethics and handle the issues
carefully.
Ethics ~ A beautiful mind

Thanks !