Looking beneath the surface: a critical reflection on ethical issues and reflexivity in a practitioner inquiry

Abstract

This paper is a critical reflection on the interplay between four elements of a particular practitioner inquiry and the impact of this interplay on the research process from a research ethics point of view. The four elements are: (1) particularities of the research context/relations; (2) the analytical framework; (3) guiding principles; and (4) epistemological and ontological assumptions. The interplay between these elements became an important (and usefully uncomfortable) focus of researcher reflexivity as the project progressed. Referring to two ‘ethically important moments’ in the project, the paper explores the tensions between the four elements and the implications of these tensions in terms of the ways in which ethical issues that emerged in the project were conceptualised and addressed by the researcher. In exploring these tensions and implications, the role of researcher reflexivity, the limitations of procedural approaches to ethics and the conceptualisation of research as praxis are considered.

Keywords:

• reflexivity
• ethical research
• praxis
• critical reflection
• research relations

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Dawn Penney, Sharon Fraser, Jane Wilkinson and anonymous reviewers for their feedback on drafts of this paper. I am indebted to those who participated in the study, especially my teacher educator colleagues.

Notes

1. I have chosen to use the word ‘uncomfortableness’, rather than ‘discomfort’ throughout because, much like the experiences that I am trying to portray, the word itself has a jarring effect.

2. ‘Close-knit’ professional community’ is meant here in the sense of a small group of academics who work closely together and know each other well.

3. This discretionary power was also explicitly ‘entrusted’ to me by the participants (see Pendlebury & Enslin, 2001, p. 363).

4. ‘Professional community’ in this context means community of practitioners who share the same profession.

5. This issue has been raised by others in the research literature (e.g. Zeni 2001) challenging the notion that anonymity can be maintained in any meaningful way.

6. I am not the first person to describe such a shift (see also Kuntz, 2010).

7. Since completion, the teacher educator participants have co-authored a manuscript about the project. The collaborative writing process has provided an opportunity to engage differently with my colleagues on the basis of the insights shared in this paper.