Ethics of Action Research

Ethical responsibilities:

1. Determine if research requires review board
2. obtain approval
3. seek participants’ informed consent
4. consider confidentiality,  anonymity and avoidance of harm
5. no deception
6. develop an ethical research perspective
7. ensure accuracy in data reporting

The action researcher teacher must above all ensure her research is conducted ethically.  Without this, the research becomes tainted and possible invalid.  After a developing a well thought out research plan, including data gathering techniques and intentions concerning the dissemination of information, one should determine if approval IRB is needed.  This approval will give the researcher validity and professional backing.  Next, the researcher must inform all parties involved in writing of the intended study, its intended audience, and level of confidentiality and anonymity of participants including the administrators, peer teachers, parents, and students involved in the research.  It is advisable to obtain written permission from all concerned.  To help guide the researcher’s methods, she should develop an ethical research perspective which clearly defines the researcher’s ethical position.  Finally, the researcher must ensure accuracy and transparency in reporting all data. 

The two student researchers in the videos were polar opposites in their approach to creating a structure of ethical action research.  Doug was very methodical and professional in his approach.  He began with a letter to the parents and administrators stating his intent, parameters of his project, and his intended audience.  He obtained permission from all involved and allowed his students to have a voice in the process of information dissemination.  In contrast, Jeannette displayed a lack of regard for the ethical considerations of action research.  In her own words, she admitted to deception of intent and failure to obtain consent from the primary parties.  Due to her lack of preparation, she set her research up for failure.  Had she obtained permission and been forthcoming with her intent of research topic, she very likely would have received cooperation from her peers and the school administration.  Yet, due to her deviousness, she set up a potentially hostile and defensive environment which will certainly limit her ability to gather data in a neutral environment and frame of mind.

Critique of Curtis Elementary School Case Study

1. Area of focus:  Does not define what type or the subject of “performance” that the researchers are interested in.    The teacher, Jonathan, states that the area of focus will “describe the effect of an ‘altered curriculum” on student achievement in reading.”  How will “altered curriculum” be measured?  These should be spelled out in the original plan, or modified and quantifies throughout the research.

2. Research questions:  What is the effect of “altered curriculum” on student performance?   This research question should be better defined.  What student performance is being measure?  What types of altered curriculum are being considered?

3. Locus of control:  Jonathan defines his research as ocurring on his own students.  This is within his locus of control.

4. Data collection:  The teacher originally declares three methods data collection:  comprehension/recall activities, cloze procedures in reading passages, and reading and retelling of specified passages.  However, he ends up using data collected from student journals and anecdotal observations, as he indicated in his “Data Collection Ideas”.  These other sources should have been formally declared and quantified if he intended to use them.

5. Ethics:  No mention of informed consent from parents or students or IRB.  No mention of how the data will be used.  The measures of anonymity or confidentiality are not stated. The intended audience is not declared.  Information is not provided regarding how data about the participants will be disseminated.

6. Reflective stance: 

Jonathan observed and reflected.  He seemed to use these reflections as a way to make sense of his observations.  He seems willing and eager to use what he is learning to make positive changes to his teaching.

7. Action:   The teacher clearly takes action in his classroom as a result of the research.  He makes positive changes that support student achievement and growth.

8. Action-data connection:   Many of the proposed actions involve vocabulary development.  However, it seemed that the basis for the research was to try to improve student scores on state reading comprehension tests.  In particular, the teacher wanted to improve how students constructed meaning from a reading.  Due to the vague nature of the research question, the teacher researcher wandered from his original query.  He does propose action based on positive correlations found during his research but the actions suggested are primarily vocabulary comprehension and development. 

Researcher Biases

Proposition statements (potential researcher biases)

1. Use of talking to learn increases memory retention.

I fully expect to find that talking to learn will increase memory retention.  However, this may only work when the atmosphere or situation is favorable for the student.  Furthermore, I am assuming all students learn like I do.  Perhaps this may not prove valuable to a kinetic learner.  Perhaps a test of memory with and without the voice-echo device can give feedback to whether this is a valid statement for different types of learners under standard classroom settings. 

2. Use of voice echo will create a neuro-memory echo and gather the learner’ attention to the sounds heard.

It seems that my research already supports this statement.  The question is whether the learner will use the attention to the sounds as a tool for converting them into written symbolic forms (I.e., letters, and words).

3. The use of voice echo technique will improve emergent writer’s attention to sound and increase student independence when sounding out words.

I need to assume if there is an increase of writing using the voice echo technique, that the learner has had an increase of attention.  I find in my own experience, that I want the students that are working with the voice echo devices to succeeded and thus give them more attention.  If I provide the students with a standardized training program with using the voice echo devices, then I can step back and let them work.  This will provide an opportune occasion to collect qualitative data collection by documenting each time a student asks for help while using the voice echo technique (by a running tally chart).  I may want to have collected data regarding students requesting help before my research begins, as well as collect data on students not using the voice echo technique to provide a comparison.   In addition, the use of audio or video recordings and observational notes may allow me to gain insight to learners using peer mediated techniques rather than relying solely on the voice-echo technique.

4. The use of talk to learn will improve the learner’ ability to sound out words and thus encourage the use of more extensive vocabulary rather than a strong reliance on sight words.

Creating a chart/code to quantify the types of words writers’ use may help with quantifying this data.  Perhaps if the student correctly uses a sight word or environmental print word (i.e. color words posted in the room) the writer gets a point.  The writer will also get a point for each phoneme of words correctly sounded out that are not in these categories.  Perhaps also noting the ratio of sight words/environmental print and other words attempted may give me a good alternative perspective to how the learner is using words with the voice echo device and without.  

5. Learner’s ability to do above will improve sentence form and length rather than relying on known words and formulaic sentences.

Creating a point scale to quantify the writer’s use of sentence (thought) length and varying description will help to make valid the learners’ use of the voice echo technique.