about the research - working with students
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working with students
As part of this project, we employed eight students from the MSc in E-learning programme as postgraduate research associates. These were part-time, fixed term posts, running alongside coursework during the academic year 2009/10. Each research associate had two main roles:
1. to act as a virtual ethnographer on their course, keeping detailed field notes and contributing to a community blog alongside the other research associates, with a focus on issues of assessment and feedback.
2. to support and facilitate the development of an “assessment stories” wiki, to which all students on the programme were invited to contribute.
The specified courses were:
Semester 1 (September-December 2009):
An introduction to digital environments for learning
E-learning and digital culture
Psychological and social contexts for learning
Semester 2 (January-April 2010):
An introduction to digital environments for learning
Introduction to digital game-based learning
Online assessment
This was the first time that colleagues on the MSc in E-learning programme team had worked together formally with students from the programme on a research project. We approached the project in a spirit of experimentation and openness, but also made some decisions specifically because of the ethical issues involved in employing people we also teach and assess. Involvement in this project had absolutely no bearing on the academic standing of participants and research associates on the MSc programme, or on the courses they were taking. Furthermore, the principal investigator (Jen Ross) managed the work of the research associates on a day to day basis, and did not act directly as a tutor for any of the research associates during their time on the project.
We were also aware of the issues inherent in researcher presence on courses, and the impact this could have on the culture of the courses involved. We fostered discussion and reflection about this within the programme, and especially tutors on the affected courses. To this end we made the researcher/ethnographer guidelines and duties transparent and available to all interested programme members, and ensured that the presence of the ethnographers was well publicised to everyone taking affected courses.
This project followed the ethical guidelines set down by the British Educational Research Association. The key principles we were concerned with in this project were aimed at ensuring that no-one was harmed or disadvantaged by their participation:
Transparency and informed consent – we wanted all programme participants to be aware of the project and its aims and methods. It was made clear who the research team and research associates were, what they were doing, and why. All tutors gave consent for ethnographers to be present on their course. Anyone choosing to participate in the assessment stories wiki was made aware that it was part of a research project, and was informed about how their contributions might be used.
Anonymity and confidentiality – publications arising from this project have student- or tutor-generated data fully anonymised. However, issues of anonymity and confidentiality are more complex than that because all of the project team and research associates had dual roles in relation to the MSc programme. We therefore anonymised extracts from the outset in our conversations with each other as far as possible. Furthermore, our discussions and the material we created was treated confidentially at all times.
Respectfulness – All MSc programme participants are our colleagues, and we were therefore extremely careful to be respectful of all contributions and participants at all times during the project. Critical perspectives were welcome, provided they were communicated professionally and considerately.
updated 1 November 2011
contact jen.ross@ed.ac.uk for more information