Supporting Pedagogic Researchers: The Development of a Model for Exploring the Ethical Systems at Play in Contemporary Learning Spaces
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14297/jpaap.v4i1.177Keywords:
Ethics, academic staff development, supporting scholarship of teaching and learning, contemporary learning spacesAbstract
Pedagogic research has been described as a fundamental obligation of all university teachers yet many find the process of applying for institutional ethical approval to be challenging or negative. One way to address this is to look to the underlying thinking, practices and philosophies that the existing formal processes are trying to capture. That is, what is really happening in contemporary learning spaces, and what are the ethical issues that need to be uncovered and understood for formal ethical review processes to generate positive experiences and outcomes? This paper traces the development and early application of a model designed by the authors to enable an exploration of the ethical systems at play in contemporary learning spaces. Emerging findings from the model development process suggest that many tertiary learning spaces are innnovative and are displaying features such as student co-creation of knowledge, teachers as guides and facilitators, a growing openness to incorporating an indigenous worldview, and the blurring of classroom boundaries with the use of open-technology and community partnerships. Furthermore, when teachers highlighted these features on the model, they also identified unexplored, underexplored or context-specific issues at play in ethical systems and relationships in their pedagogical research.These emerging, dynamic and complex ethical relationships and challenges include anonymity, recognition, reciprocity, vulnerability, power and cultural sensitivities. Despite its exploratory nature, the development process outlined in this paper offers some insight into the understanding of ethical systems at play in learning spaces. Further research is now needed to test the applicability and usefulness of the model with implications for supporting scholarship of learning and teaching, as well as institutional policy and strategy.
References
Buissink-Smith, N., Mann, S., & Shephard, K. (2011). How do we measure affective learning in higher education? Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 5(1), 101–114.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/097340821000500113
Chang, R., & Gray, K. (2013). Ethics of research into learning and teaching with Web 2.0: Reflections on eight case studies. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 25, 147–165.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12528-013-9071-9
Diamond, P. (2013, 1–4 July). Te Mauri Pakeaka –The third space. Presented at the meeting of the Higher Education Research Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA), Auckland, New Zealand.
Frielick, S., Smith, N., Whitehead, E., & Wyse, P. (2015). Investing in innovation: The Learning and Teaching Development Fund at AUT. Presented at the meeting of the THETA: The Higher Education Technology Agenda, Brisbane, Australia.
Gibbs, A. (2013). What would a scholarship of publication look like? Higher Education Research and Development (HERD), 32(4), 687–689.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2013.803310
Goodwin, M., Kramer, C., & Cashmore, A. (2012). The 'ethics committee': A practical approach to introducing bioethics and ethical thinking. Journal of Biological Education, 46(3), 188–192.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00219266.2012.688846
Harland, T. (2012). University teaching: An Introductory Guide. Abingdon: Routledge.
Jickling, B., Lotz-Sisitka, H., O'Donoghue, R., & Ogbuigwe, A. (2006). Environmental education, ethics and action. Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Kember, D. (2003). To control or not to control: The question of whether experimental designs are appropriate for evaluating teaching innovations in higher education. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 28(1), 89–101.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602930301684
Locke, T., Alcorn, N., & O'Neill, J. (2013). Ethical issues in collaborative action research. Educational Action Research, 21(1), 107–123.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2013.763448
Lofstrom, E. (2012). Students' ethical awareness and conceptions of research ethics. Ethics and Behaviour, 22(5), 349–361.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2012.679136
Mann, S. (2011). The green graduate: Educating every student as a sustainable practitioner. Wellington, New Zealand: New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER).
Mann, S., & McKewen, K. (2013). mPortfolios in constructivist tertiary vocational education: Developing the use of mobile devices to increase student engagement. In Frielick, S., Buissink-Smith, N., Wyse, P., Billot, J., Hallas, J. & Whitehead, E. (Eds.), Research and Development in Higher Education: The Place of Learning and Teaching, 36, 302–316. Auckland, New Zealand, 1–4 July 2013.
Marvell, A., Simm, D., Schaaf, R., & Harper, R. (2013). Students as scholars: evaluating student-led learning and teaching during fieldwork. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 37(4), 547–566.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2013.811638
McKay, D. (2014). Learning for survival, resilience, well-being and continuance: An epistemology and pedagogy for environmental education/education for sustainability informed by Māori culture. University of Otago.
Murray, L., Pushor, D., & Renihan, P. (2012). Reflections of the ethics-approval process. Qualitative Inquiry, 18(1), 43–54.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1077800411427845
Pecorino, P., & Kincaid, S. (2008). Research and experimentation in teaching effectiveness: The ethical review process and the IRB. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2(1), Article 22.
Pittella, R., & Rotstein, P. (2015). Creating an ethical classroom. Teaching.com.
Schmidt, K., McKay, J., Wilson, D., Dick, G., Silvey, S., & Mann, S. (2012). Audaciously enterprising students. Presented at the meeting of the Computing and Information Technology Research and Education New Zealand (CITRENZ2012) incorporating the 25th Annual Conference of the National Advisory Committee on Computing Qualifications, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Smith, N., Frielick, S., & Mann, S. (2014). 'Getting ethics' for pedagogical research. Presented at the meeting of the Tertiary Education Research in New Zealand (TERNZ), Auckland, New Zealand.
Tolich, M., & Fitzgerald, M. (2006). If ethics committees were designed for ethnography. Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, 1(2), 71–78.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/jer.2006.1.2.71
Toombs, A. (2015). Enacting care through collaboration in communities of makers. Presented at the meeting of the Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2015), Vancouver, Canada.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2685553.2699326
Toombs, A., Bardswell, S., & Bardswell, J. (2014). Becoming makers: Hackerspace member habits, values and identities Journal of Peer Production, 5.
Toombs, A., Bardswell, S., & Bardswell, J. (2015, 18–23 April). The proper care and feeding of hackerspaces: care ethics and cultures of the making. Presented at the meeting of the Computers and Human Interaction (HCI), Seoul, Korea.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702522
van den Hoonard, W. (2011). The seduction of ethics: Transforming the social sciences. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
van den Hoonard, W., & Tolich, M. (2014). The New Brunswick Declaration of Research Ethics: A simple and radical perspective. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 39(1), 87–97.
Wright, R., & Ratsdorf, T. (2014). Project Ping Pong: Evaluating the costs and consequences of employing Project Based Learning (PBL) within tertiary education. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the Tertiary Education Research in New Zealand (TERNZ), Auckland, New Zealand.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice has made best effort to ensure accuracy of the contents of this journal, however makes no claims to the authenticity and completeness of the articles published. Authors are responsible for ensuring copyright clearance for any images, tables etc which are supplied from an outside source.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
