The Ethical Action Plan (below) was written before the project had properly begun, when I assumed the enquiry would centre on the design and testing of a feedback toolkit. As the project developed inductively, the focus shifted, but the plan remained a useful reference point for thinking through ethical responsibilities as they emerged in practice.
In practice, I did not encounter significant ethical issues during participant recruitment or interviews. Participants engaged willingly and the Participant Information Sheet and Consent Form (below) were designed to foreground voluntary participation, withdrawal and the non-evaluative nature of the project. However, as data generation progressed, my primary ethical concern shifted from participation and towards analysis and representation. Ethics is an ongoing, deliberative process rather than a one-off procedural requirement (British Educational Research Association, 2024). My shift aligns with Banks’ (2016) account of “everyday ethics”, in which ethical judgement is understood as emerging through practice rather than bounded by formal approval processes.
I was cognisant of existing and historical collegial tensions and other frustrations about the course due to my relation with the course. It was a possibility that these accounts or emotions might surface or impact relations to feedback, and I was conscious of my responsibility to provide appropriate duty of care in how participants’ accounts were analysed and reported. As BERA (2024) note, “dual roles may also introduce explicit tensions in areas such as confidentiality”, particularly where researchers are reflecting on their own professional practice in relation to colleagues. Braun & Clarke (2021) similarly refer to this as being an “insider researcher”. Participants sometimes alluded to sensitive experiences, such as difficulties in communication with close collaborators or feelings of resignation about the potential for feedback to lead to change due to workplace baggage. While these insights were important analytically, I felt a responsibility to ensure that they informed thematic analysis without being disseminated in ways that could create drama, expose individuals or have unintended relational consequences.
A further ethical consideration emerged in relation to the semi-structured interview schedule. An early interview prompted a reframing of the project from a focus on feedback tools to a deeper interest in the conditions required to support collegial partnerships. Despite this shift, I chose to maintain consistency in the interview questions across participants. This decision was both methodological and ethical, helping to avoid leading participants and strengthening the credibility of the thematic patterns, which emerged without being explicitly prompted.
Finally, I was torn over how much of myself to bring into interviews. Unlike previous research contexts, complete neutrality felt artificial. I occasionally shared my own experiences or reflections when they felt directly relevant, while remaining mindful of not steering participants’ accounts. In light of the scholarly positions, it is part of the ethical complexity of conducting research within one’s own professional community, which reflected the situated and relational nature of ethical practice described by Banks (2016).
Bibliography
Banks, S. (2016) ‘Everyday ethics in professional life: Social work as ethics work’, Ethics and Social Welfare, 10(1), pp. 35–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2015.1126623
Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2021) Thematic analysis: A practical guide. London: SAGE.
British Educational Research Association (BERA) (2024) Ethical guidelines for educational research. 5th edn. London: BERA.