Negotiating ‘ethically important moments’ in research with young people: reflections of a novice researcher

Abstract

The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed a surge in interest around ethics in research. Originally focused on the compilation of ethics guidelines and the importance of having all research approved by institutional review boards before commencement, discussions of research ethics have more recently centred on how such guidelines translate into ethical practice during the research process. Leisure research has been no exception to this trend. Using as an example, a research project in Ireland centred on focus groups with young people (aged 15–19) regarding their physical activity behaviours and preferences, this paper explores the situated judgement of the interviewer, a novice researcher, as she attempted to navigate four ethically important moments. Discussions centre on moments where the interviewer’s situated judgement resulted in research ethics being compromised and moments where the interviewer experienced difficulty reconciling personal and research ethics. Our intention in sharing the situations and resulting questions from this research is to shine a light on the decision-making which takes place during the research process and consider how researchers might prepare adequately to make decisions in an ethically sound way.

Keywords:

• Ethics
• research
• reflexivity
• focus groups
• young people
• physical activity

Acknowledgements

This work was made possible through joint funding received from Limerick Regeneration, Limerick City Sports Partnership and the Irish Sports Council and an internship position within the Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences at the University of Limerick.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.