Ethical issues in shadow education research in Hong Kong

Abstract

Ethics is a crucial consideration in the whole research process. Researchers face dilemmas at times when adhering strictly to specific ethical rules may affect what is being studied or even make it impossible to conduct research. This also determines how the research methods are designed and used. In social research, there has beencontroversy about the basis of making ethical decision, as ethical guidelines are made intentionally vague to allow researchers flexibility to adopt a “situational relativist” approach where researchers make ethical decisions based on their own moral standard. While shadow education research has been expanding rapidly in the recent two decades, discussion in relation to ethics is still scarce. In this regard, this presentation discusses ethical issues in researching shadow education based on the lessons learnt from a one-year longitudinal study on Secondary 6 students’ English learning experience in a large-scale tutorial centre in Hong Kong. It addresses ethical issues arising from the research process, including informed consent and the use of incentives in participant recruitment, building trust and sustaining relationships between the researcher and the participants during data collection, and researcher positioning and how confidentiality and anonymity can be ensured throughout the study.