Ethical behaviour

Ethical behaviour and evaluation research

It is essential that you be ethical in your behaviour when you are carrying out evaluation research in educational environments ( any research in any environment ).

All Australian universities have ethical standards for researchers and they have ethics committees that give approval to certain types of research.

Many professional bodies have ethical standards that include references to ethics in research.

It is your responsibility to check out what is required of you:

• Do I have to get approval to carry out course/subject evaluations?
• What is defined as research versus normal subject/unit evaluation?
• What are the restrictions that are placed on the way I collect data?

Can I ask students to identify themselves?
Can I insist that students answer take part?
Can I offer incentives to participate or is that seen as coercion? (Even chocolate frogs might be seen as coersive.)

• What do I have to tell my evaluation subjects about the nature of the activity?

Am I obliged to give them the opportunity to withdraw?
Do I have to give them a contact point if they feel there are shortcomings in what I am doing?

• What are my reporting responsibilities? Do I have to produce a report for general publication on any evaluation I carry out?

If you infringe upon the commonly accepted ethical standards for educational evaluation, your behaviour is likely to have deleterious effects on other researchers.