THE
MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF WHAT WE CONSTRUCT THROUGH QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH
Colin Lankshear and Michele
Knobel
a paper prepared for
The Australian Association for Research in Education Annual
Conference
November
1997
Introduction
In view of our own
circumstances and recent histories we welcomed the invitation to
think about the issue of moral consequences of what we construct
through qualitative research as part of a symposium. In many ways,
issues and 'realities' coalescing around our topic theme have
impacted directly and profoundly on our lives and beings throughout
the past five years. In this sense of 'we-ness', we are married
partners. One of us has recently completed a PhD program comprising a
qualitative study of everyday literacy practices in and out of school
of four adolescents; beginning the process as a scholarship-supported
full time doctoral student affiliated with a research concentration
inside a faculty of education, and subsequently being appointed to a
lectureship within the same immediate institutional setting. The
other has worked throughout this same period as a full time academic
in the same setting, with responsibilities for conducting,
supervising, and coordinating research - much of it making claims to
being qualitative research. What we say here builds on our respective
and conjoint experiences, and the ways in which we have reflected
upon these in the light of contemporary theory, scholarship and
research.
There are, of course,
further domains and levels of 'we-ness' implied in the topic. These
deserve closer attention than is possible here, but for present
purposes we will work with the following.
'We' as denoting membership
of a Discourse (Gee 1996) or Discourse community - namely,
qualitative research(ers), with all the variations and permutation
that are conflated and blurred by this level of generality
'We' as members of more or
less circumscribed 'communities' of research practice - e.g., a given
Faculty, a research unit/centre, a research team
'We' as inhabitants of
larger discursive research fields populated by key agents who are not
researchers (or bearing researcher roles and identities) but, for
example, hirers or funders of research, policy makers, education
bureaucrats, politicians, governments, university administrators, and
so on.
Who and what 'we' are and do
ranges and varies across different 'contextual fields', and any
adequate treatment of the present topic requires taking this into
account.
Just as the 'we' is complex,
so is the 'what'. Once again, much more needs to be said than is
possible here, but a sample range of 'whats' that get constructed
through qualitative research can readily be identified. These include
products, practices, 'politics' (productions of power and power
relationships between parties to the research act), policy
information, values, expectations and so on. Products include, most
obviously, texts: such things as reports, theses, books, sets of
recommendations, etc. Practices comprise ways of doing things. Our
various constructions of qualitative research act out, consolidate,
modify or refine, create, etc., ways of doing 'it'. What we construct
though qualitative research must be understood also in terms of what
we construct as qualitative research. This includes a politics of
some kind or another. Construed as participation in a Discourse,
doing qualitative research inescapably enacts and enlists productions
of power and relationships that 'carry' and 'authorise'
configurations of power. This is inescapable, because any and every
Discourse necessarily involves beliefs, rules, procedures,
regulations, concepts, values, protocols, and the like which position
participants in different relationships to each other and, indeed, to
the Discourse itself (e.g., expert, novice, researcher, researched,
chief investigator, assistant, and so on). 'Doing research' of any
kind is a very significant part of the 'power apparatus' in societies
like our own - albeit in differing and complex ways. Furthermore,
qualitative research is increasingly being procured and undertaken
with a view to influencing, guiding, legitimating, rationalising,
implementing, etc., policies. Hence, part of what we construct - more
or less directly or indirectly - through qualitative research is
often a policy climate, a policy context, or even implementations of
policy (think: teachers as researchers; action research in
classrooms, etc.).
Already the board is
becoming somewhat cluttered. There are, however, further notions to
be introduced briefly as framing devices for what follows. First, we
will refer to what we call 'bearers' of moral consequences. In
addition we will distinguish different 'points' of moral consequence
within qualitative research acts. We will also foreground a more or
less specific context within which constructions of qualitative
research familiar to us are currently enacted.
'Bearers' of moral
consequences are the various agents whose interests are impacted by
(moral) consequences of what we construct in, as, and through
qualitative research. These include those who are researched,
research supervisors and trainees/students, the researcher's craft or
tradition (in some sense, the 'Discourse itself' - as, for instance,
implied in the notion of bringing a field or practice into
disrepute), direct and indirect consumers of research, and the
researcher herself together with the members of her
scholarly/professional community.
By 'points' of moral
consequence, we simply mean (gross) stages or phases within the
processes and acts of doing research where what we do or omit doing
sets up conditions for consequences to occur. In reality, 'points'
comprise practically every moment research is 'going on', but for
purposes of heuristic convenience we distinguish broadly here between
'front end', 'in process', and 'back end' points, corresponding
crudely to planning, implementation, and end of project dissemination
phases.
Finally, the context we will
foreground is that within which we personally work day to day. This
is a context marked by several noteworthy features so far as what
gets constructed though qualitative research is concerned. These
include:
- A diverse array of
education faculties at the national level, ranging from long
established graduate schools of education to former teacher
education institutions reclassified as university faculties
through the creation of the unified national system, via various
amalgamated arrangements and varying degrees of emphasis on
teacher education as the bread and butter economic base. Our own
immediate setting is a reclassified teacher education situation
involving multiple partners brought together under a single
institutional umbrella by an amalgamation. Research capacity at
'national competitive' level is finite, research experience is
uneven across members of the faculty, a little over 50% of
academic staff have doctorates.
- A range of higher
degrees (Masters by coursework, Masters by research, EdD, PhD)
following on from undergraduate teacher education degrees which
are severely curtailed in terms of research and theoretical
engagement, ethos, and emphasis.
- The operation of a
research quantum against which funding is indexed, and which
emphasises commonwealth competitive grant scheme income, research
degree completions, and four key categories of
publications.
- Funding harnessed to
EFTSU and WEFTSU, with the implication that a research student not
enrolled is funding foregone.
- Contracted research and
'research-based consultancies' are increasingly important as modes
of income generation.
- Increasing 'steerage' of
funded research emphases and priorities by government - in
accordance with policy-driven funded programs, formally designated
national priorities, etc. - and growing importance of business and
industry as collaborative research partners and sources of
funding.
- Increasing
teacher-student ratios, intensified teaching and administrative
demands on rank and file lecturer-researchers.
A Note on Moral
Consequences and Research-Related Ethical Concerns
By moral consequences we
mean consequences for the good or harm of human beings within areas
of human activity where people can reasonably be assigned rights and
obligations (cf May 1995; Warnock 1970). There is, of course, endless
debate about 'the nature of morality' and approaches to 'ethics',
(conceived as the disciplinary investigation of moral principles and
moral value), and we cannot get into that here. Quite simply, though
we hope not simplistically, we begin from the fact that the things we
do and say, believe and pursue - or refrain from saying, doing and
pursuing - have, 'intentionally or not, consciously or not, and in
tandem with others' beliefs [actions, behaviours, pursuits,
omissions, etc.] and the institutions in our society, effects on
other people' (Gee 1993: 292). These effects may be more or less
beneficial or benign, more or less harmful or deleterious, or more or
less neutral.
We see effects as harmful to
the extent that they deprive others of what they or the society they
inhabit regard as 'goods', and beneficial to the extent that they
endow others with what they or their society regard as 'goods'
(ibid). Goods range over such things as health, dignity, status,
economic resources, power, esteem, pleasure, material possessions,
security, integrity, and so on. From a moral point of view, we can
see people as having, at the very least, rights to expect others not
to harm them/deprive them of goods, and corresponding obligations not
to harm others/deprive them of goods. More positively, we might see
people as ideally having obligations to believe, think, and act in
ways that actively benefit other people/promote goods for them, and
to have corresponding rights.
At this point, we want to
highlight Gee's reference to the 'in tandem-ness' of what we say and
do with what others say and do and the operation of institutions in
our society. This invokes a characteristically postmodern and
poststructuralist approach to morality, recognising that in important
ways it is not simply human individuals/agents who speak and act
within social contexts, but also that Discourses speak and act
through us; that our acts and words do not necessarily have
effect/consequences on their own, but also in conjunction with other
discursively ordered and arranged states of affairs.
This has very important
implications for how we look at our topic here. For it is not enough
simply to focus on what we as individuals or teams (try/try not to)
do and say within research practices, and the (actual/possible)
effects of these doings and sayings on others - although these things
are very important and bind us morally. In addition, we have to
attend also to the larger discursive and institutional and collective
forces and tendencies that are in play, and that are mediated and
'carried' in and through our myriad 'individual' acts of
participation in qualitative research. That is, we must attend not
only to what our involvement in the Discourse produces directly,
immediately, and on those 'present' in the given research activity,
but also at what we are complicit in consolidating, shoring up,
legitimating, and naturalising as carriers and
co-creators/maintainers of the Discourse at a more general level of
effect(s). In this sense, our 'proper' topic is not just about moral
consequences of what we construct through qualitative research, but
also about what we should aim to construct as qualitative research in
the light of our pursuing understanding of moral
consequences.
Gee (1993: 292-293) derives
from the work of Wheatley (1970: 115-134) two conceptual principles
which are directly relevant to our concern here. These are principles
which can serve as the basis of ethical human discourse, a discourse
we have been drawn into by the very topic under discussion. They
are:
1. That
something would harm someone else (deprive them of what they or the
society they are in view as "goods") is always a good reason (though
perhaps not a sufficient reason) not to do it.
2. One
always has the ethical obligation to try to explicate (render overt
and conscious) any social practice that there is reason to believe
advantages oneself or one's group over other people or other
groups.
The first of these
principles refers to the more obvious sphere of ethical concern about
moral consequences of qualitative research - acts or omissions which
cause harm more or less directly. This encourages a focus on more or
less specific aspects of practice. The second principle, however,
invites us to look more deeply and generally at larger/broader
constitutive effects or 'productions' of a Discourse (or
identity/meaning-constituting social practice). These may include
such things as the way a practice enacts or maintains regulatory
effects, buttresses social hierarchies, differentiates between groups
in interest serving ways, functions to allocate goods unfairly, and
so on.
One Final Conceptual
Consideration
As a final conceptual
ingredient to inform our substantive discussion of moral consequences
of what we construct through qualitative research, we offer the
distinction between 'use value' and 'exchange value' as an especially
important consideration for research activity under contemporary
Australian conditions.
The distinction is most
often associated with marxist economic theory pertaining to labour
and commodity production. A thing's use value consists in its
usefulness in meeting a human want or need through direct consumption
of that thing. The use value of the vegetables we grow at home is in
terms of meeting our need for food through eating them. A thing's
exchange value comprises its worth in a market. The exchange value of
vegetables we grow would consist in its saleability and what we could
get for them. For something to be sellable - to have exchange value -
it must, however, have a use value for someone else ; it must meet a
need for someone else who will consume it, otherwise it would not be
bought.
Human productive activity,
therefore, can be turned to two different kinds of production: the
production of use values (production for direct consumption to meet a
need or a want - whether for 'physical' needs, for 'pleasure', or
whatever), and production of exchange values (production for sale or
exchange in a market). Products created for exchange rather than for
unmediated satisfaction of needs or wants through direct consumption
are referred to as commodities (see Marx 1976: Ch. 1; Fischer 1973:
Chs 2-4; Mandel 1970: 9-11).
From this perspective we can
view engagement in qualitative research along a continuum between
research for producing use values through direct consumption by the
researchers, and research for producing commodities to be exchanged
in some kind of a market. Equally, we can look at our own research
work/activity (not the product, but the act of working on/labouring
at research), and conceive this very work/labour/activity along the
same continuum. Our capacity for doing research work can be for us
more or less a use value, insofar as we deploy it for purposes that
meet our needs or wants more or less directly; it can be for us more
or less an exchange value when we put it on the market in exchange
for money or other credits; or any admix of both.
This distinction can be
developed in diverse ways that bear on moral consequences of what we
construct through qualitative research. These include issues of the
extent to which the research we are engaged in is 'authentic' to us
and draws on our energised commitments to 'doing the job thoroughly
and with the utmost integrity; issues of the extent to which we need
to 'farm' work out to research assistants on the lowest possible
rates, in order to be able to produce the research 'within budget'
or, better still in times of 'income generation', at a tidy profit;
issues of the extent to which some participants in the research get
to endure routine fragmented work of basically an 'executing/carrying
out' nature, while others specialise in conceiving the tasks, doing
what they choose to do (as befits their 'talents' and
'reputations'?), and claiming authorial kudos; and so on. We will
endeavour to weave these considerations through some of the examples
which follow.
A Framework for
Discussing Typical Cases
In what follows we will draw
on our own research experiences, together with our theoretical and
conceptual investments, to cover as broad and illuminating a range of
concrete examples as we can manage. To do this we employ a framework
- a matrix - with 'bearers of moral consequences' (the researched,
trainees/novice researchers, research supervisors, research
assistants, consumer of research, the researcher's craft, the
researcher) on one axis, and 'points of moral consequence' (front
end, in process, back end) on the other. Through the examples we
choose for various 'spaces' within the matrix, we will try to convey
varying constructions (and elements of constructions) of qualitative
research, and link these to what we identify as moral consequences.
Considerations of context will also be woven into our
account.
The
Researched
i. At the front
end
Long before fieldwork
begins, qualitative researchers consciously or unconsciously make
numerous decisions and act on various assumptions which can have
diverse and quite unanticipated moral consequences. Take, for
example, matters of participant selection, obtaining consent, and
establishing trust. Participant selection is always influenced by
project goals and researcher assumptions and worldviews. In a recent
study of children's language practices (Knobel 1997), the researcher
was hoping to identify significant differences in practice around her
subjects. She purposefully selected a family from a low socioeconomic
area, and for a long time persisted in describing this family in
terms of the local community, rather than in relation to what the
participants actually said and the kinds of activities in which they
engaged. It wasn't until after official data collection ceased and
she was chatting informally to the mother of this family that the
mother said with obvious exasperation, "But you keep writing about us
as though we're poor! My husband makes $60 000 a year!" The 'need' to
have low socioeconomic participants in the study blinkered
observations and interpretations of the everyday lives of the members
of this particular family. The researcher's representation of them
had unintended moral consequences at the point where the 'researched'
experienced the researcher's construction or naming of them as
identitied beings/subjects.
Beyond such occurrences, the
selection process itself is fraught withethical issues, such as: what
selection criteria are to be used, how will they be employed, whether
they will be made available to participants who ask "Why did you
choose me?", and the extent to which the researcher knows the
participants prior to the study. These and similar aspects bear
directly on research outcomes in terms of validity and
trustworthiness, as well as on demonstrating respect for people as
research participants rather than merely scientific subjects
(objects?).
In certain kinds of
qualitative investigations, such as ethnographic-type research and/or
long-term study, there are real risks of participants being put upon,
made to feel inadequate, and so on. Ethical issues here include
dilemmas and trade offs around potential participants' rights to
privacy versus the researcher's need to obtain telephone numbers or
addresses to establish contact. Commentators on the ethics of
qualitative researched have criticised the often uneven power
relations established in research projects where the researcher is
backed by the university or government agencies. Participants,
especially if they are teachers, may feel that there is no room for
negotiation or, that it is impossible for them to decline to
participate. One teacher brought the unevenness of the
researcher-researched relationship out into the open by stating, "I
don't mind if you write up my classroom practices negatively - I know
you won't get the full story, so you can't hurt me". Such examples
demonstrate the necessity to establish participants' trust in the
researcher and in the integrity of the project itself. This includes
letting them know the purpose for conducting the research and to what
ends it is most likely to be put once it is completed. This
information should be conveyed to the participants as honestly and in
as much general detail as possible without jeopardising the integrity
of the project, but in a way that helps them to understand what they
are 'buying into' when they agree to participate in the
study.
Such matters are integral to
negotiating informed consent and applying 'codes of research ethics'.
How we construct and enact such 'front end' components of qualitative
research practice assumes great importance in the contemporary
context of escalating contract research and burgeoning numbers of
research students. Experience here and abroad shows that 'ethical
research practices' are often designed and imposed more to protect
universities from litigation than to seriously address considerations
of participants' wellbeing. Written consent from participants is not
an automatic guarantee that the study will be ethical; indeed, some
researchers now feel 'that consent forms have become like "rental car
contracts" (Hilts 1995)', aimed at protecting the company but not
necessarily engaging with the possible moral consequences of
participating in a study (Denzin 1997: 288). This is especially
pertinent to situations of contracted research, where researchers
work to tight budgets and deadlines and, possibly, for clients for
whom finer points of moral consequence are not of pressing concern.
In such cases pressures and temptations exist to 'get' permission or
consent as 'efficiently' as possible, and to 'honour' it by observing
such procedures as taking reasonable steps to protect anonymity and,
perhaps, by running member checks of the final report.
From a more optimal
perspective, however, seeking, obtaining, documenting, and honouring
informed consent are indissolubly related to issues of trust and
honesty, and bring with it demanding researcher obligations to
protect the privacy and to respect the dignity of every study
participant. This can prove vexing when conducting classroom-based
case study research where, for example, consent has been obtained for
the particular students on whom one is focusing and the teacher, but
not from other students in the class who necessarily become part of
the data collected. Likewise, even if informed consent is obtained
from all class members and their caregivers, dilemmas arise when
other people - such as subject specialist teachers, parent helpers,
teacher aides, and the like - visit the classroom without knowing a
researcher is present and collecting interactional data. This is
exacerbated when collecting data about young people in out-of-school
contexts, and researcher obligations of honesty and obtaining
informed consent become even less controllable 'grey areas' (cf.,
Burgess 1989, Glesne and Peshkin 1992: 111).
Concern here with moral
consequences goes far beyond specific outcomes such as may occur
from, say, unwittingly implicating/compromising in some way or
another subjects who have not consented to participate and/or
potentially exposing the practices of participants to identification.
These are important concerns. At stake more deeply, however, is the
fact that our particular discursive constructions of qualitative
research within concrete contexts are simultaneously lived responses
to a much wider morality that are, in turn, threads within a much
larger social fabric. How we enact 'obtaining consent', 'establishing
trust', 'protecting privacy', etc., are our immediate contributions
to the moral quality of human life and the quality of moral human
life. As acts/responses they do not live and die unto themselves, but
contribute to what such ideals as 'respect for persons',
'reciprocity', 'non exploitation', 'the right to dignity' and so on
actually amount to in the world, and how they subsequently come to be
defined, operationalised, understood, regarded, and practised. For
example, something very substantial and important changed, when - in
conjunction with larger processes and practices - the social ideal of
concern for 'equality' was transformed into a concern for 'equity' as
values and principles associated with a welfare state ethos were
increasingly displaced by those of a minimalist devolved state. This
is the kind of effect we have to keep in mind, together with
consideration of more direct, identifiable, and immediate effects.
At this level of concern,
there is an ocean of difference in terms of moral consequences
between perfunctory enactments of a principle like respect for
persons within contract-driven/time-pressured 'rental car'-type
constructions of obtaining consent, and the highly conscientious and
often agonised negotiations that occur when researchers who are
profoundly committed to research ethics set about - in many cases
guided by past experiences - living out the principle of respect for
persons at every step in their research. At some point, practices of
the latter kind may well run into conflict or contradiction with a
research quantum ethos ...
ii. In process
concerns
Participants' trust brings
with it obligations for the researcher to maintain confidences and to
respect privacy in all sorts of ways that might not have been
apparent or made explicit at the time of framing and obtaining
informed consent.. For example, in different studies in which we have
been involved, we have been told of nervous breakdowns, childhood
traumas, family secrets, and the like which have not been prefaced as
'secrets' in the data collection. What is to be done with such
information, especially if it has significant import for
interpretations and findings? There are moral implications and
possible moral consequences in all directions here. To include it in
reported work risks participants' vulnerability; to leave it out may
compromise rigour; to negotiate it might risk pain or intrusiveness,
or eat into time participants had not reckoned on having to give when
they consented to be researched.
Maintaining trust also
involves reciprocity during and after data collection. In qualitative
research, reciprocity is enacted more in terms of the exchange of
'favours and commitments' that 'build a sense of mutual
identification' (Glazer 1982: 50, cited in Glesne and Peshkin 1992:
122; see also Lather 1991: 60). This is not an easy task, since there
seem to be few things a researcher has to offer that come even close
to equalling the generosity of participants who allow the researcher
to observe for hours, if not weeks, in their classrooms; who open
their homes to observations and inventories; or who endure seemingly
interminable questions about processes, rituals, habits, and other
practices. In our own research we aim partially to enact reciprocity
by recording all actions and utterances diligently and meticulously -
taking special pains to do so when we don't agree with their views or
actions - and respecting their reasons for acting and speaking in
such ways. Reciprocity also includes completing seemingly mundane -
but often appreciated - tasks, such as lending a hand with drying the
dishes, chopping vegetables, child minding, acting as a sounding
board for ideas, actively listening as a participant talks through a
problem he is facing, writing referee statements, accompanying the
teacher on playground or bus duty, arranging visits to the university
for students to use the computing equipment, offering and channelling
obsolete university equipment into resource deprived classrooms
(which can involve much paperwork and negotiation), offering
inservice sessions, and so on (see also Glesne and Peshkin 1992).
Here again, these are not simply individual acts whose enactment or
omission issues in more or less direct or immediate effects, but are
also simultaneously part of what our construction of qualitative
research lends to the moral character of human life as a
whole.
Moral consequences arise in
the most invisible and unlikely places as we construct qualitative
research in our practice. One example we have become increasingly
familiar with has a habit of occurring in studies of cases where the
central focus of investigation is someone who seems typically and
otherwise to be marginalised within the social context of
investigation. Our experiences have been of two quite different
outcomes: (i) at times the participant becomes even further
marginalised as a consequence of cooperating in the project; (ii)
more typically, the participant gains short-term kudos, or even a
hint of glamour, in the eyes of certain groups. The latter seems to
occur most when a marginalised student is the focus (cf. McLaren
1993; Walker 1988). In one case from our local experiences, Michele
noted how one young man she was observing at school over a two week
period rapidly become popular in the eyes of the 'in-crowd' of lads
in his class (Knobel 1997). Usually these upper primary boys would
not let him play with them during breaks from class; however, during
the two week observation period they allowed him onto the tennis
court that was previously 'barred' to him, borrowed his jacket, and
sat next to him in class. Much of their conversation with him centred
on what they would be called in the 'book' that was being written
about him. Michele watched helplessly as this young man publicly
abandoned his staunchest long-term friend, who was also a
marginalised member of his class. She reports how she felt she had
breached her duty of care obligations in terms of this young man and
his real friend, and found she had no strategies at the time for
dealing with these events as they unfolded. She spoke at length to
his parents and teacher about what was happening and told them he
might feel socially and emotionally dislocated when the fieldwork was
completed. This was a steep learning curve for the researcher who,
upon reflection, identified her first mistake as having tried to
explain a doctoral research thesis by means of a 'book' analogy. She
also subsequently realised she should have moved more swiftly when
she saw the shift in group membership occurring and discussed what
was happening with the young man she was studying.
iii. Back end
concerns
A crucial dimension of moral
consequence in qualitative research has to do with how participants
and their everyday lives are framed and portrayed in subsequent
reports. Descriptions and interpretations are always written from
finite perspectives, and representations of events can always only
ever be partial and incomplete (McLaren 1995, Soltis 1989). Indeed,
qualitative researchers agree that 'writers [of qualitative research
reports etc.] are always selling somebody out' (Didion 1968: xiv,
cited in Denzin 1997). Accordingly, qualitative researchers have
developed various strategies for addressing questions of
participants' lived realities as seen through their own eyes. Let us
illustrate what is at stake here by reference to 'member checking',
which is a popular strategy for checking the 'authenticity' of
researcher constructions or representations of the interview or the
event, and so on. Briefly, this involves interactions among the
researcher, interpreted data, and key participants that aim at
verifying the researcher's construction of events, interview
responses, and the like (Carspecken 1996, Fetterman 1989). Two
examples follow.
Michele found member
checking an invaluable tool in her own investigations of Jacques'
everyday life at school (Knobel 1997). Her data suggested Jacques was
not interested in school. He completed very little schoolwork unless
constantly supervised, and had developed a range of elaborate
strategies for avoiding schoolwork. These included: looking for items
he seemed to have misplaced, delegating tasks to others (especially
to his best mate in class), 'helping' others instead of working
(e.g., filling glue pots), 'fixing Mum up' to collect resources,
claiming he hadn't heard instructions, spending time planning what to
do, and so on. This interpretation was supported by others'
interpretations of what looked like similar cases published in
articles and books (cf., McLaren 1993, Macpherson 1986, Walker 1988).
After reading this interpretation of her son's actions at school,
however, Jacques' mother commented that rather than merely not being
interested in school, Jacques was in fact extremely anxious about it.
While Michele had been told about some of the trauma Jacques
experienced in relation to attending school (e.g., physical illness
in the morning, nightmares), she had not appreciated the extent to
which this had shaped his actions at school. Jacques' mother provided
additional details about his school-based anxieties, and on the basis
of these Michele revised her initial interpretation.
Member checking nonetheless
brings its own ethical problems. The main 'grey area' at the nexus of
member checking and reporting pertains to whose words and views will
count in the final report, article, or book (cf., Clough 1992, Denzin
1997). At times, participant recall of events is open to
reconstruction on their own behalf in much the same way as a
researcher's field notes or transcripts, and qualitative researchers
are always aware of the fact that what participants say - or think -
they do, does not necessarily match what they do (Cole and Scribner
1974: 122). In our own experiences, even when actions and utterances
are recorded and reported zealously and scrupulously, participants
can take affront at what is written about them on the page.
This was brought home to us
again recently in the context of research involving Colin. The study
in question was part of a commonwealth funded project, and involved
looking at classroom use of a range of new technologies (especially
multimedia applications) in some remote rural schools. The study was
employing an approach designed to produce illuminating 'snapshots' of
classroom practices, based on continuous observations over 2-3 days
bolstered by interviews with teachers and selected students,
collection of relevant documents (e.g., unit plans, school policies)
and artifacts (student work, photos), and the like. The point of the
'snapshots' was not to provide information about typical or
generalised practice but, rather, to capture episodes and events from
which useful ideas and recommendations could be derived via input
from theory, other research, conceptual work, etc.
During the days spent in
these particular sites participants impressed on us the difficulties
they were operating under - limited personal experience of computer
use and little previous professional development in classroom
applications of multimedia technologies, restricted access to key
items of equipment integral to the projects they were doing and great
pressure on the use of these items when they were available, a sense
of isolation from the mainstream and of lagging behind where they
thought city school students were at in using new technologies,
isolation from technical expertise on account of the vast
geographical area covered by the Technology Education Adviser, and so
on. We were impressed with the commitment and enthusiasm displayed by
these teachers in their unstinting efforts, against considerable
odds, to provide their students with curricular experiences of
multi-media and other computer-based technologies. At the same time,
we wanted to theorise and describe what we saw in ways that would
prove illuminating to policy makers, professional development people,
curriculum and syllabus developers, teachers themselves,
administrators and other researchers, among others: as well as to
provide constructive feedback to the participants themselves,
informed by what we had seen in the various other study sites and
elsewhere.
We wrote the draft of this
study component under the thematic title of 'Making Do'. The aim was
to highlight the complexity of access issues when it comes to using
new technologies effectively in curricular learning: matters of
access to knowledge; to notions of how new technologies are employed
in mature (or 'insider') versions of social practices in the 'real
world' beyond the school; to learning theory and relevant research;
as well as to equipment (which is how access and equity issues often
are framed and 'tackled'). The notion of 'making do' was intended to
create the image of classroom participants battling against multiple
constraints and limitations to achieve results which were gutsy under
the conditions, but which were still a long way off the pedagogical
and experiential 'eight balls' we had seen elsewhere (although
considerably more than we had seen in many other cases
again).
In this case, participant
responses to the member checking routine reflected thinly veiled
hostility in some instances and terse disagreement in others. Only
one of the five responses we received accepted our account. 'Making
do' was rejected as a thematic motif, with 'Breaking down the
barriers' and 'Meeting the challenges' suggested as alternatives. Our
interpretations were rejected at several points that seemed to us
very important in terms of what we were wanting to raise as issues,
sometimes on the grounds that the limited time we had spent in the
classrooms did not warrant the judgments we made - since other things
occurred at times when we were not there (which, clearly, is true).
Interestingly, some of our descriptions of towns where we had sought
to enhance anonymity by painting a picture, rather than documenting
the facilities with total accuracy, were corrected.
Having undertaken the member
checking we were obliged to accommodate participant responses as far
as possible, especially since we had obviously not explained
satisfactorily the nature and point of our 'snapshot' approach -
which, clearly, meant that other readers might also read the
snapshots as accounts of 'the essence of practice' in these sites. We
sought the best accommodation we could by reframing the study in
terms of 'Facing the challenge'. We did, however, 'soft pedal' on a
number of points in ways that may not best serve the interest of
research consumers, including the funders, as effectively as the
original version would have.
In many ways, the key
operating variable in this example was budget. The mix of dollars
available and ground to be covered - both literally (geographically)
and metaphorically in terms of literature review, conceptual
development, policy analysis, number of sites in the study design,
etc. - called for an approach based on short intensive 'raids' on
sites. These sorts of issues will be amplified in subsequent
sections. This experience has strongly disinclined us from taking on
any further research of the contractual nature involved here. Our
experience was that the interests of neither the researched nor the
researcher were well served by the conditions under which the work
was done. These included having to find spaces within already
burgeoning day to day work commitments for conducting studies 'on the
run'. This may well be becoming a characteristic feature of what we
are constructing as and through a good deal of qualitative research
under current conditions.
Every researcher who employs
qualitative methods to collect and interpret data needs to consider
carefully the ways in which participants' words and views will be
represented. This includes decisions about representing participants'
speech verbatim, or whether it should be edited in order to preserve
their dignity and integrity. Decisions about transcription must
necessarily take into account the intended audience and the hoped-for
outcomes of the research itself. For example, it may be
counterproductive to report verbatim the responses of interviewees
from marginal/non mainstream social groups if one's aim is to engage
established positions asserting that urban middle class students are
more knowledgeable or academically successful than working class
students from rural areas (cf., Gee, Michaels and O'Connor 1992,
Psathas and Anderson 1990). Hence, when using transcript segments as
evidence in support of claims we are making on behalf of the data
overall, we edit samples of speech taken from transcriptions wherever
possible so that respondents are not made to seem inarticulate or
misleadingly limited in any way. Such editing is difficult but
important work, since the principle of respecting dignity and
integrity of persons cannot be used to ride roughshod over academic
rigour and the integrity of data. And the domains within which
editing recorded texts is in any way defensible are limited. For
example, editing is strictly out of bounds for microanalyses of
speech, although even then, we personally choose not to report any
quotations that may damage the speaker in some way, be misinterpreted
by the reader, or used maliciously by readers - provided always that
this does not detract from the integrity of the overall report (cf.,
House 1990: 159). Demonstrating respect for participants extends into
the writing-up phase; indeed, Ernest House claims that it is usually
in this phase that the deepest disrespect and betrayals often occur.
The researcher's very choice of words can produce morally unwanted
consequences, making this a key decision-making point so far as
ethics are concerned. As we have learned the hard way, there are real
consequences from describing someone as working class when they see
themselves as middle class; or in describing a practice as 'making
do' when participants see themselves as 'meeting the
challenge'.
In defensible acts of
research, qualitative researchers enter into a contract to represent
their study participants fairly and with dignity. While many research
commentators tend to address ethical considerations during data
collection and interpretation (e.g., House 1990, Schwandt 1997), we
are convinced that it is necessary to build these considerations into
the research design of every qualitative study long before data
collection begins. In many cases, we should not be surprised to find
ourselves asking seriously whether a given study might be an instance
of research that should not be done.
Research
supervision: Pressure cooking, commodification and
'apprenticeship'
So far as the study of
educational phenomena is concerned, probably the most influential
single context in terms of consequences contingent upon what we
construct through, as, and within qualitative research is the domain
of postgraduate research training. The more we have thought about our
topic, the more this context has emerged for us as a major focus of
concern.
From a supervisory
perspective, we see a context of construction marked by an
increasingly quantum-driven, client-centred,
income-generating/fund-diminishing culture, in which supervision
resources are in scarce supply. Many postgraduate Education students
come to qualitative research from undergraduate teaching degrees
which are often content-dominated, have been short on 'meta level'
teaching and learning, and where prior exposure to serious engagement
with research methods and literature often approximates to zero.
Whereas undergraduate degrees which draw directly on primary theories
(Gee 1996: Ch 1) and disciplines (e.g., Sciences, Humanities/Arts)
are expected to provide lengthy and, ideally, deep exposure to core
theory, conceptual-analytic procedures, research methods, and
voluminous research-based literatures, undergraduate teacher
education degrees have different priorities. Yet, rigorous research
is grounded firmly in knowledge, dispositions, values, orientations,
priorities, a sense of purpose, etc., which are exemplified in the
traditions of primary disciplines and their secondary/wider
appropriations - within what some educational philosophers used to
call 'forms and fields of knowledge' (Hirst 1974).
While disciplinary and
research landscapes and borders have undergone dramatic changes
during recent decades, the fact remains that a solid undergraduate
apprenticeship in the methods and theories of disciplines provide a
headstart for engaging in systematic research. This is not to say
that such an undergraduate apprenticeship is necessary for successful
induction as a (qualitative) researcher at postgraduate level, let
alone that it is sufficient. The point, rather, is that to do good
(responsible, rigorous, effective, useful) research requires sound
understanding of and commitment to values, qualities, dispositions,
perspectives and the like which are exemplified in a such an
apprenticeship: things like a feel for logic and design, a notion
that paradigms and perspectives are various and that the differences
are significant, awareness that much of what we might want to know
has already been thought about by others, familiarity with analytic
and conceptual tools such as building frameworks and taxonomies,
making purposeful distinctions, and so on. These can be got in all
sorts of ways (cf the problem-solving, conceptual, and design
capacities promoted within communities of practice in various
trades).
Our experience has been that
the kind of 'baseline' understandings, dispositions, etc., we have in
mind simply cannot be presupposed on the part of students entering
postgraduate research programs in teacher education: indeed, it may
well be safer in many institutional contexts to assume the 'baseline'
will not exist. This means that postgraduate supervision often
requires establishing the baseline that would ideally already be well
and truly in place as well, as overseeing the rigorous conduct of a
research study. The fact that we are currently witnessing the
emergence of mass postgraduate research degrees in education means
that production-line approaches often involve trying to address the
need for developing meta-perspectives on research processes and
outcomes by means of 'hit and run', generic, one-size-fits-all
approaches. This limits the scope for engaging closely with and
reflecting upon the particulars of qualitative research projects,
designs, outcomes and consequences - with the effect that students
are often ill-prepared for the hazards, responsibilities, and
obligations incurred in any form of research that involves reporting,
evaluating, or intervening in the lives of others. Also, as we have
intimated earlier, many of those called upon to supervise
postgraduate research are themselves struggling with the 'baseline'
requirements mentioned above.
Supervisors are often faced
with two further conditions which impinge powerfully on what is
constructed as and through qualitative research. First, an
increasingly competitive career market has ushered in another spiral
of credential inflation (Collins 1977; Dore 1976). This establishes a
strong tendency for exchange value to triumph over use value in
postgraduate qualitative research activity. In some cases this is
evident in candidates 'looking for a topic', or having a broad 'area
of interest' but no specific pressing issue such that the research
could issue in 'useful direct consumption' other than, perhaps, being
'interesting' at the time. This is not a new phenomenon, of course.
It is as old as the commodification of research itself. But there is
a lot more of it in postgraduate teacher education than hitherto. To
the extent that completing the research as efficiently as possible in
order to get the degree becomes the priority, a motive exists that
can work powerfully against taking the time and summoning the
disposition and effort necessary to achieve understanding, mastery,
and execution of the key elements of responsible (qualitative)
research: sound research design, thorough conceptualising and
theorising of the study, command of relevant literature, diligent
mastery of appropriate techniques and procedures, due evaluation of
competing research and disciplinary perspectives and, crucially,
allowing the full significance of the moral consequences and ethical
considerations of research to impact on the work.
Second, the client driven
ethos in tandem with imperatives to meet quotas often results in
supervisors taking on students in areas where they (supervisors) lack
adequate experience and expertise. While there is much to be said for
'learning on the job', becoming proficient in a new area presupposes
resources of time and head space that are readily compromised by
escalating teaching and administrative loads, as well as the
regulatory demands of the research quantum (and the ceaseless
reporting it entails). In Colin's case, during the past five years he
has not supervised a single research thesis within his professed area
of expertise. Generic/meta knowledge and understanding helps, but at
nitty gritty points of technological finesse and rigour and content
expertise, problems can and have become acute.
That these experiences are
not peculiar to an individual have been affirmed by our involvement
in examining theses and dissertations and surveying numerous theses
in order to get a sense of the field. In many cases work has seemed
to us under informed theoretically, technically, conceptually, and
ethically: for example, doctoral work ostensibly in case study that
fails even to establish clearly what the case is a case of, what
bounds the case and, even, what turns on the differences between
varying approaches to case study design and conduct as exemplified,
say, in the respective approaches of people like Robert Stake (1995)
and Robert Yin (1989). Finer omissions include absence of validity
and trustworthiness checks being run on data (Carspecken 1996),
inadequate member checking, vague and often inappropriate recourse to
triangulation, redescriptions of data standing in for
methodologically informed analysis and, even, failure to describe and
justify specific procedures for coding and classifying
data.
In a nutshell, what is often
being constructed as qualitative research and within qualitative
research is low quality process and product, and what is being
constructed through qualitative research is all too often a
diminishing of the Discourse and unconscionable wastage of resources
(ranging from people's time and good will to economic and
infrastructural resources). The moral consequences here include
profound violence to the qualitative researcher's craft/tradition,
and to subsequent generations of research students and supervisors
for whom work passed as satisfactory now will eventually come to
represent benchmarks. It also represents violence to communities of
scholarly peers who devote their lives to making their research
traditions respectable and efficacious in a world that desperately
needs high quality research and critical applications and extensions
of that research, yet threatens to get bogged down in an 'ethos' of
'information' (Green 1997; Lankshear, Peters and Knobel 1996).
It may at first seem
contentious to consider seemingly 'inanimate entities' like a craft
or tradition to have moral rights, and to be bearers of moral
consequences. It readily becomes apparent, however, that crafts and
traditions are populated by human inhabitants: they are sites of
human practice where human interests and welfares are most definitely
at stake - whether as participants, peers, consumers, patrons,
subjects, etc. Their interests are most definitely impacted by what
we turn these discursive practices into through our moment to moment
involvement in them. When we take on or are pressed into roles as
research supervisors and students we are, moment by moment, playing
active roles in influencing what discursive practices of qualitative
research become. And this is deeply and inescapably moral.
The
qualitative researcher's craft
i. Front end
concerns
Morally responsible
approaches to qualitative research begin with constructing a
carefully planned and well-designed research project. This includes,
from the very outset, developing a coherent and logically appropriate
theoretical frame for the study, establishing clear and defensible
goals and purposes of the study, and identifying the kind of data
needed to answer the research questions. Taking care with these
requirements goes a long way towards meeting obligations of respect
for study participants by building into the research from the
beginning recognition that participants are very much more than
'scientific subjects' whose lot is to be studied by researchers.
Needless to say, this is an intellectually demanding and
time-consuming exercise, not necessarily well adapted to the
circumstances of many part-time candidates, in particular, who are
often hard-pressed to scrape together snatches of time to 'do their
research'.
ii. In process
concerns
Gathering information for a
qualitative research study should never be an ad hoc process. It
should observe rigorous methods and standards for compiling
meticulous notes that record events or ideas. Times, dates, contexts,
participants and the like should be duly recorded, as should authors,
page numbers and sources in text-based research. Detailed notes or
'thick descriptions' (Geertz 1973: 10) enable the researcher to
revisit and reflect on events and ideas, to try out different
interpretations, and look for corroborating - or conflicting -
evidence and authoritative support. This, in turn, builds a strong
case for making claims about the validity and trustworthiness of
interpretations. In addition, it is also the researcher's
responsibility to ensure that collected fieldwork data is kept
confidential, and any that is shared with colleagues is doctored in
order to maximise participant's anonymity. This extends to finding
reliable storage spaces, returning borrowed artifacts quickly and in
the same state in which they were borrowed, and the like - lost or
damaged data is difficult to explain to study participants and
damages a researcher's credibility.
To maintain ethical
professionalism, researchers should take all care to stick to
time-frames agreed by study participants, and avoid multiple
re-visits to collect additional bits and pieces of data that were not
factored in at the start. This means that data collection methods and
the timeline need to be carefully planned and aligned with research
goals and purposes. Such 'professionalism' strengthens the worth of
the research project in participants' eyes, and plays an
ambassadorial role for the researcher's scholarly community. Acting
professionally does not mean that the researcher maintains a formal
distance from participants - this is impossible when conducting
ethnographic and case study variants of qualitative research. It does
mean, however, that social conventions for interactions are
respected, and learning what these are and how to enact/observe them
may be a protracted and demanding process. Boundaries exist between
what is acceptable and what is unacceptable in terms of researcher
and researched interactions. Interview questions and other data
collection methods must respect these boundaries. Potential problems
can be minimised through designing, for example, interview schedules
that are sensitive to the social conventions followed by the
respondent, as well as those followed by the researcher. Designing
research involves remembering that real people and real lives are
involved, and that very real harm can accrue for them as a result of
participating in a poorly conceived project.
iii. Back end
concerns
The most vexing 'back end'
concern of the qualitative researcher's craft is reporting data
interpretations. Considerations of data interpretations, and their
validity and their trustworthiness, are interwoven with the 'quality'
of the research design construction and the methodology employed for
any given qualitative project. Commitment to morally sensitive and
responsible research means the researcher's interpretations must be
defensible and contribute to our understanding of (complex)
phenomena, not pre-determined by their community of inquirers or by a
funding body.
Such matters are no longer
as clear-cut or simple as once thought. Historically, the internal
and external validity and reliability of a study were concerned with
the replicability and consistency of methods, conditions, and
outcomes. In much early qualitative inquiry evaluations focused on
analysing the accuracy and generalisability of findings (cf.
Hammersley and Gomm 1997), drawing on epistemological positions
according to which validity of interpretations was judged according
to how far the findings showed direct correspondence between evidence
and some external criterion/a typically seen to have universal status
(Kvale 1994: 3; also Romm 1997: 2). Recent developments in
qualitative research have challenged these assumptions on the grounds
that they ignore subtleties and contradictions in data, tend to
construct over-simplified readings of the phenomena being studied,
and usually overlook the myriad different ways in which people -
including researchers - experience and make sense of the
world.
Qualitative researchers
interested in more than simply mapping conclusions onto appropriate
evidence (Romm 1997: 2) evaluate the validity and trustworthiness of
interpretations according to the soundness of argument in the final
report rather than the 'truth' of statements and claims (Carspecken
1996: 55, Denzin 1997: 265ff). This approach repudiates claims that
researcher effect on interpretations is simply a matter of bias,
which can be addressed and minimised - if not eradicated entirely -
by carefully avoiding interpretations that are 'at odds with the
evidence available about the relevant phenomena' (Hammersley and Gomm
1997: 5). This latter position does not engage with the ways in which
evidence itself is a product of research and not an immutable 'given'
or 'truth', and suggests that the researcher can adopt a 'studied
naivete' (LeCompte and Preissle 1994: 168) and be objective
throughout the research process. Indeed, researchers' constructions
of evidence and interpretations are much more complex than this
suggests, and researchers interested in producing sound arguments and
fair representations of participants are committed to ensuring that
'knowledge-construction activities [are] linked to cultivating forms
of relationship which do not unfairly authorise particular ways of
accounting at the expense of others' (Romm 1997: 2).
This is not to claim a
relativist position in relation to interpreting data, implying that
all interpretations are necessarily valid. On the contrary, Romm
suggests that claiming multiple realities in qualitative research
agendas become a means for proffering sound arguments that 'can be
read as invitations to invoke certain discussions in society - rather
than supposedly operating to advance "insight into the nature of the
world" (to use Hammersley and Gomm's terminology)' (1997: 5). In
terms of research outcomes, the moral consequences of adopting either
position - unquestioning recourse to a single truth or to relativity
- may well contradict research agendas committed to social
amelioration (e.g., by enabling traditionally marginalised groups of
people to access mainstream goods and services). Romm offers a
relevant cautionary observation here. She says
[i]t could be
argued - from a moral point of view - that when researchers operate
with a conception of knowledge such as that endorsed by Hammersley
and Gomm, they already might be contributing to a process of
sustaining unnecessarily certain forms of authoritative relationship
in society (1997: 2).
This caution equally applies
to the consumers of research, who often are also instigators of
qualitative education research projects and agendas.
Consumers
of research
According to Jonas Soltis
(1989: 125), ethical decision-making and accountability in
qualitative research occurs on at least three planes: (i) the
personal and interpersonal (ii) the professional, and (iii) the
public. Consumers of research - i.e., those for whom the research has
use value - occupy various intersecting points between these three
planes. They include the researcher and her wider community of
inquirers, theorists, and commentators; participants; groups of
people who have a stake or vested interest in the phenomena under
study (e.g., schools, parents, community, teacher educators,
education departments, the media, etc.); and organisations which have
identified a research 'need' and provided funding for researching it
(e.g., universities, local, state and federal
bodies/agencies).
All too often, researchers
seem to feel their obligations to participants cease once data has
been collected, member checked and written up in ways that are
respectful. We have lost count of teachers who have asked us about
various university-based research projects conducted by other
researchers in which they had participated: wanting to know when it
would be finished, and when they would receive a copy of the final
report. Participants typically have a keen interest - whether for
personal or professional reasons, or both - in what happens to data
they contribute. It is important they have access to tangible
evidence that their participation in a study was valued and
worthwhile. One possible moral consequence of not sending copies of
the final research report to participants is that they may refuse to
cooperate in subsequent research conducted by the same researcher or
even by different researchers. This is already the case in Brisbane
where we have been refused access to a number of schools and
classrooms because principals and teachers are wary - and rightly so
- of the kind of 'cultural thieving' that Glesne (1985: 55) warns
researchers against.
One result of the current
commodification and warehousing of education research is that
research is done increasingly for reasons other than to address
'real' problems experienced and identified by real people (cf. Romm
1997: 2). David Fetterman (1989: 124) discusses the relationship
between government funding and research in terms of identifying who
is in control of the means and ends of a investigation. For
Fetterman, the ethical question to ask in response to a tender for
research advertised by a funding agency is: "Would this study be a
useful and productive research endeavour and would it inform the
public about a socially significant problem?" (ibid.). Responding to
this question depends in large part on 'whether the government
officials were open to the research findings - wherever they led - or
had already formed a political conclusion' (ibid.). Likewise, Romm
(1997: 2) reminds qualitative researchers to resist 'the temptation
to tailor research to serve goals other than the search for knowledge
and/or the temptation to tailor the research process (collection,
analysis or interpretation of evidence) to bolster predetermined
conclusions'.
One example of tensions
between a government commissioning agent and the findings of a
national project has recently been reported widely in the media.
Researchers involved in the National Literacy Survey commissioned by
David Kemp, the federal minister for education, have been surprised
by this minister's interpretations of the findings of the national
survey of Year 5 students (e.g., Dr Andrews, JJJ national radio news,
1 October 1997) and continue to point out that the Minister is
misrepresenting outcomes in order to support the national literacy
benchmarking initiative that was meant to be based on survey outcomes
(Meiers 1997), but was instigated well before survey outcomes were
available (Curriculum Corporation 1997).
Competitive tenders for
research, increased pushes for academics to win ARC research funds,
reduced funding sources for research that does not 'fit' national and
state 'research' agendas, and the like, mean that qualitative
research and its outcomes are no longer necessarily an organic part
of knowledge construction. Indeed, increased workloads for academics
often mean research projects are left unfinished, or that familiar
research problems are revisited over and over again with little
contribution made to the field. One moral consequence of this
situation is that, despite numerous cautions (e.g., Clough 1992,
Denzin 1997, Romm 1997), qualitative educational research in
education in Australia risks becoming a key apparatus of
governmentality, by which researchers are constructed and normalised
more as instruments of the state than as intellectuals and
future-thinking advisers (cf. Foucault 1977).
The
researcher
The moral consequences for
researchers themselves - including student researchers - of what we
construct as and through qualitative research are as important and
complex as those for other groups and agents impacted by research
activity. Here again, it is important to acknowledge that the 'we'
who participate in constructing includes many other actors than
researchers alone. The 'we' is a 'body corporate' or 'public' of
constructors including funders, policy makers and agenda setters,
administrators, offices of research, universities, larger communities
of research practice, as well as those identifiable researchers,
teachers/supervisors of research, and examiners of research who
constitute more specific and localised programs and
projects.
Throughout this paper we
have mainly focused on actual and potential moral pitfalls and
factors and considerations germane to generating and avoiding such
pitfalls. In the highly charged, confusing, complex, and demanding
contexts of 'new times' (Hall 1991) we are regularly exhorted to
'think positive!', and/or focus on possibilities and opportunities
rather than constraints and impediments. This is, indeed, important
to keep in mind - but not to the point where going along with the
exhortation becomes morally reckless, irresponsible, tantamount to
being given a free pass to a moral holiday. Positive orientations
that downplay constraints, impediments, and pitfalls are often doomed
to disappointment, or subsequent regret. One essential component of
any kind of responsible positive agenda (research or otherwise) is an
informed awareness of potential issues or undesirable outcomes
associated with enacting the agenda, or snags that have to be
addressed or transcended in the process. We have played up the
precautionary tone here because we believe we may be pushing on too
often and too unreflectively with a lot of research activity without
attending to conditions that may actually be subverting and otherwise
undermining our intentions and aspirations. Of course, the positive
moral consequences of unfettered and uncompromised high quality
practices of qualitative research are clear enough. They include deep
and enriched understandings of the production of lived meanings that
provide bases and clues for further enhancing educational, cultural,
social, economic, and political life - especially for the least
advantaged. They include involvement by participants who genuinely
'own' the research process, their part in it, and benefits accruing
from it: including the realisation of their voices and namings of the
world (Freire 1972), and their enlarged capacity to demystify
research and enact it in their own behalf. We have sought to identify
some processes and means by which researchers can approximate more
closely to such ideals.
But research always inhabits
a larger context than the immediate research practice itself, and we
see a pressing need right now as researchers to name clearly some
actual and potential deleterious moral consequences for researchers
and their work present in the current Australian context. We will
note just four of these here.
First, the larger contextual
conditions of research training and conduct within our faculties may
well contribute to creating a deskilled field of qualitative research
endeavour, and bring that field into disrepute, if we do not identify
and address them urgently. Education research has typically had to
battle for perceptions of respectability within the wider social
science arena as, of course, has qualitative research per se. We
simply cannot afford to contribute to building a corpus of work which
does not honour the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological
advances documented in any number of exemplary texts and studies.
Yet, almost inevitably, that is what we do when we turn research into
an integral component of market-driven strategies for 'institutional
survival' in tandem with generous interpretations of 'advanced
standing/credit for prior learning' to fill places. We would be much
better advised to emphasise coursework and library-based research and
scholarship where we cannot vouchsafe morally responsible research
training and, especially, where we cannot even be sure if there is
sound local knowledge of the myriad ways in which well intentioned
activity might still infringe moral requirements. With respect to
research training, and the direct and indirect consequences of that,
Soltis (1989: 129) insists we must enlarge students' horizons of
public consciousness. What they will do as individual and
professional researchers may have a far reaching impact on unnamed
and unknown individuals and subgroups in our society. Education is a
public trust. All who are given the power to shape and direct it have
a great responsibility for the that the lives of numerous human
beings turn out.
How completely can those of
us who are research supervisors be sure we have met our
responsibilities here, and in what proportion of cases? Sometimes our
best is not good enough from the moral point of view.
Second, pressures to
generate income and wider market opportunities through 'hired gun'
research have the potential to implicate us in agendas and outcomes
we may later regret. This can occur in at least two ways. Where we
engage in research that entails delivering reports and losing control
of how report contents and results are used, we can end up in
situations like that described above (p. 18) concerning the national
survey of students. Alternatively, our research might be used by the
media in ways we find unacceptable. Whatever unwanted outcomes might
occur from our research, damage control can at least be optimised
when we retain control of our research. We need also to be on the
alert at present for potential uses of our research by our own
institutions to try and establish profiles, credentials, or
'demonstrated capacity' to secure initiatives/delivery
opportunities/consultancies we find morally unacceptable. While we
may not be able to prevent such appropriations in the first place, we
certainly have the option to avoid becoming further implicated in
subsequent agendas.
Third, contract research can
be an invitation to personal alienation in the classic sense of
locking us into productive work from which we are or become
creatively, intellectually, or morally estranged. To the extent one
loses control over the direction of research - which can easily occur
when our research 'progress' is subject to approval by advisory
committees or funder representatives - there are real dangers of
being financially accountable for delivering work that 'turns back on
us' as an alien expression of ourselves/expression of some 'alien'
self. At a time when many funded qualitative research opportunities
are invitations to construct research practice under 'hired gun'
conditions, we need to be careful. Even traditionally 'liberal'
sources of funding are becoming increasingly conditioned by 'national
priorities', with subtle and not so subtle capacity to influence our
perceptions of what kinds of proposals stand better chances of
success - other things being equal. Becoming complicit is often an
unwitting affair. Of course, the more that research is commodified -
that is, the more we engage in research to produce exchange values -
the more unavoidable alienation becomes. Anyone who sells their
labour for wages to others who determine how this labour will be used
and for what is vulnerable to such alienation. And there is certainly
no ground for thinking that academics and other researchers have any
greater right to escape this than any other worker. The fact remains,
however, that academics do retain options here - e.g., contributing
to the quantum through scholarship rather than 'hired gun' work;
taking on more teaching, and so on. If and when it all becomes too
alienating, it's probably time to leave/do something different.
Despite surface appearances to the contrary, this too is always an
option, even if it is a tough option. Chances are it's tougher for
many other categories of workers than for researchers.
Finally, the moral
consequences of our research constructions may include compromising
our own integrity by exploiting others (e.g., participants) or
(unintentionally) failing to respect their interests or dignity
through the conduct of our work; by contributing to discrediting our
craft and/or our community of peers (Romm 1997: 2); by wasting other
people's time and other resources producing unnecessary/otiose or
poor quality outcomes, and so on. Some key ways in which such
consequences can result from what we construct through and as
qualitative research have been addressed above. Here, as elsewhere,
the obligation is to attend with the utmost vigilance to the moral
dimension of research, to be ceaseless in our efforts to understand
this dimension more and more thoroughly - remembering always that it
includes very much more than is accounted for in most institutional
codes of ethical research conduct - learning from our mistakes and
transgressions when we make them, and being strong enough to say 'no'
when our knowledge and experience and moral sense indicates this is
the proper thing to do.
Conclusion
It has not been our
intention to undermine or discourage involvement in qualitative
research per se. Rather, we have sought to contribute something to
our collective awareness of what is involved in taking necessary
steps to safeguard the moral integrity of our research. Our choices
may be tough at times, but they are never 'no choices'. By way of
ending, let us reiterate a constructive suggestion based on a
distinction used by Bill Green (personal communication). Green speaks
of broad kinds of research identified in terms of 'sites': namely
lab, field and library. All too often we forget that research
includes work done in the 'library' - i.e., based on documents. While
the hegemony of 'real science' discourages us from thinking of
anything much as research if it isn't associated with lab, the
discouragement in educational circles is often strongest in respect
of library. In fact, the phrase 'research and scholarship' seems to
legitimate the exclusion of library-sited inquiry from the category
of research. We must resist this: insisting on full and equal
recognition of library-sited research as research in the full sense
of the word.
One way of doing this is by
constructing more of our own research work, and more research work by
students - who often think 'research' implies collecting data
directly from human beings by some means or another - around the
library site. This can become a classic act of value-adding
resistance to forces which would constrain our understanding and
practice. To the value of reducing opportunities for creating
unwanted moral consequences which can bedevil qualitative research,
we can add the further values of enacting a praxis against an
interest-serving hegemonic account of 'research' and, simultaneously,
of encouraging apprenticeships in disciplinary rigour which will
afford many understandings and dispositions that can only enhance the
moral integrity of subsequent excursions into qualitative research.
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