Action research, grounded

theory and the ethical

approval of projects with
evolving methods
George Ellison
Research and Graduate School
g.ellison@londonmet.ac.uk

Klaus Fischer
Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Languages
and Education
k.fischer@londonmet.ac.uk
 Context
Most research ethics committees will only
approve detailed
and specific research proposals and require
that applicants
re-apply for ethics approval if their proposal
changes:
When conducting research the principal investigator
must ensure that the agreed protocol is adhered to. Any
changes to the protocol must be agreed with the
research sponsor and, where appropriate, the research
ethics committee. UK NHS Research Governance
framework
Normally projects would be expected to start no
sooner than three months after the formal notification
of funding from the ESRC, to allow for recruitment of
staff and ethics approval within the RO. Initial payment
of grant will only be made once any necessary REC
approval is secured. Approval for minor changes to a
project following REC review is delegated to the RO,
 Case study - background
Seminar participants are asked to consider
the following case study:
Maria, a TESOL specialist and English teacher, is in the midst of a PhD
exploring the effectiveness of English teaching in her home country
of Caldovia. Her hypothesis is that the poor performance of
Caldovian secondary school children in English, despite strong
institutional support (ca. 6 periods @ 45 minutes per week from age
10), is a result of the traditional teaching methods used (teacher-
centred, abstract rule learning) rather than other factors such as
lack of motivation or the linguistic distance between the Caldovian
and English.
Marias research aims to test this hypothesis and to improve Caldovian
teaching practice in the process. She identified Action Research as
the methodological approach that best suits her needs, and this will
involve carrying out her full professional role and researching the
impact of her performance and any changes/innovations she
introduces. As the research progresses, its findings will be feed
back into her teaching, leading to a successive alteration of her
teaching method (e.g. the proportion of interactive and student-led
activities) and her teaching environment to identify the most
appropriate teaching approach for the Caldovian context.
 Case study scenario I
Seminar participants are asked to consider
the following scenario:
After one year of research, the end of year
examinations show a much better performance for
Marias class than the traditionally taught parallel
class. While Maria is initially very pleased, a
careful analysis of student and parent
questionnaires suggests that other factors, namely
her own enthusiastic approach, dynamic teacher
personality and superior command of English in
comparison to the somewhat lacklustre approach
and performance of her colleague might play a
bigger role than her methodological innovations.
To isolate teaching style as a factor, Maria
suggests to the school that she should teach two
 Case study scenario II
Seminar participants are asked to consider
the following scenario:
While Marias interactive teaching leads to a better
overall result of her class in the end of year
examinations, individual students of the
traditionally taught class outperform the best
students in her form. Knowing all the students
personally, Maria suspects that the students
personalities play a greater role in their reaction to
the different teaching styles than she had
estimated. In particular, more extrovert students
seem to thrive on interactive teaching, while this
approach seemed to work less well with more
introvert students than traditional teacher-centred
teaching. To test her new hypothesis, Maria
 Key ethical concerns
Research projects in which the methods
evolve in response
to the projects findings (such as those
involving action
research or grounded theory) raise a two
key challenges
for research ethics committees:
1. Proposed methods are open-ended
applications to research ethics committees
usually require applicants to specify
methods in advance and in some detail
2. Proposed interventions are initially
unknown any experimental or quasi-
experimental interventions need to be
 Potential solutions
1. When proposed methods are open-
ended
(i) Can all potential methods and tools
be specified in
advance? If YES do so and okay; if NO
(ii)
(ii) Do the revised methods constitute a
new research
project? If NO okay; if YES (iii)
(iii) Do the revised methods change the
actual or potential
risks to participant(s) or researcher(s)?
If NO okay; if YES reapply
2. When proposed interventions are
initially unknown
(i) Can all potential interventions be
specified in