Examining your teaching practice with a sound ethical foundation

Reflecting on and examining your teaching and its outcomes is important for both your professional development and the profession as a whole. The Higher Education Act states that all education must be based on “scholarship or artistic practice and on proven experience”. Proven experience refers to insights gained by teachers through systematic work on problems identified in their own practice, which have been reviewed by peers and documented.

Development work or research

When you examine your teaching practice with the aim of generating scientific knowledge or proven experience that you plan to share, you are conducting research.

In that case, you need to consider the ethical aspects of the research. However, if you are examining your own teaching practice, for your development and the development of the courses and programmes you are involved in, then only professional ethics considerations are required. You should consider professional ethics to ensure that your examination of your teaching practice does not negatively affect 1) students’ opportunities for learning or 2) your ability to assess their performance fairly.

Ethical approaches and considerations in research

When planning your research, it is important to remember that issues of research ethics are relevant at all stages of the research process. In the early stages, it is particularly important to plan and design your research to protect both the participants and the knowledge you seek, while also complying with regulations and guidelines. It is essential that you consider the time required for data collection and analysis, as well as the need for cooperation, consent and ethical review.

Time for data collection and analysis

It is recommended that you postpone collecting and analysing data relating to your students until you are no longer teaching them and your assessment of their performance is complete. For example, learning platforms provide access to a lot of data before you have reached that point and when there are still considerations to be made. For instance,1) whether students' learning opportunities will be adversely affected when they know that you are accessing such data, and 2) whether you can remain fair in learning situations and assessments if you access the data.

Need for collaboration

If you want to collect information from students while teaching them, it may be wise to collaborate with a colleague who will be responsible for the data collection. Students are dependent on you and may feel that participation in research is beneficial or detrimental to their studies and assessment. And you run the risk of compromising both your students' learning and your research results. Once teaching is complete and you have assessed student performance, you can analyse the material.

Consent

You must obtain consent from participants in your research, whether or not you are required to submit the research for ethical review.  Participants must give their consent in writing using a consent form. The form must include information about the purpose of the study, how it will be conducted (e.g., who will collect the data, when it will be collected, and when and by whom it will be analysed), and how it will be disseminated. It must be clear that participation is voluntary, that it is possible to withdraw from the study at any time, and that, in the case of students, participation will not affect their learning opportunities or the assessment of their performance.

If personal data is going to be collected, there is a lot of additional information that participants must be provided with under GDPR (see further reading below).

Ethical review

If you plan to use material containing sensitive personal data in your research, you must submit an application for ethical review before beginning your research. Consent alone is not sufficient. Examples of sensitive personal data include information relating to health, ethnicity, sexuality, religious and political beliefs.