Switch course ▾
Session 3. Ethics, Consent and Data Handling
Objective. Write a plain consent text, handle the power teachers hold over pupils, plan safe data handling and respond to difficult moments with a protocol.
Research in your own school differs from research by an outsider because you already hold power over the people you study. Pupils want to please their teacher; colleagues want to avoid trouble with a senior. Ethics is how you make sure that your questions never become pressure. It is also practical: a study that people trust gets honest answers, and a study that leaks a name loses cooperation for years.
Key ideas
Why a school study needs ethics
- You are not a neutral outsider. You grade the pupils, lead the class and may be senior to your colleagues, so they may feel unable to say no or to speak freely.
- Three aims guide everything: do no harm, treat people with respect, and make sure the study does not take something away from any pupil.
- Fairness in design is an ethical choice: rotation gives both classes the change, and a comparison class must still receive good teaching.
Consent and assent in plain words
- A good consent text says: why I am doing this, what I will ask or collect, how long, who will see it, that saying no or stopping changes nothing in marks or in how I treat you, and whom to ask.
- Ask for permission from the head and from parents when you collect more than normal class work (interviews, recordings, photographs), and ask the pupil too, in words suited to the age.
- Follow your school's rules and national requirements for pupil information. Colleagues must agree freely too, and must know in advance that they will not be named.
Handle data like something that can hurt
- Collect only what the question needs. Do you need the pupil's name, or only a code, the class and the score? Never record remarks about home life or health.
- Use codes (P01, P02). Keep the key with the names in a different place, locked. Do not send marks or photos in messenger groups. Keep recordings only until you have written your notes, then delete them.
- Small groups can reveal people: 'the only girl in 7B who...' is a name. In reports, give group results, not stories that point to one child or one teacher. Do not paste pupil data into AI tools.
Difficult moments and a protocol
- If a pupil becomes upset in an interview: stop, thank them, do not press, and tell the class teacher or school psychologist as agreed. The study never matters more than the child.
- If the change seems to hurt pupils (confusion, stress, falling marks), pause and check with a colleague. A study is never a reason to continue something harmful.
- If someone asks for names ('whose class is lowest?'), use a script: 'I can show results by group A and B. I promised that no one would be named, and I will keep that promise.'
Protecting people from first day to deletion
Power and free choice
A pupil asked by their teacher to take part in an interview may say yes only because saying no feels risky. Remove the risk in words and in actions: ask in writing, give time to think, say that marks and treatment will not change, and let a pupil withdraw at any point. A colleague who is junior to you needs the same: an honest invitation, a promise of confidentiality and a way to step back.
For younger pupils, ask the parents and also the child, in words the child understands. If a pupil declines, they stay in every lesson as normal and their work is left out of the study data. A study that cannot work without everyone being pushed to take part is not ready to start.
Data as a duty of care
Pupil information can hurt if it reaches the wrong person: a low mark, a remark about a family, a recording of a pupil's voice. Collect less. Replace names with codes at the point of collection, not later. Keep the list that links codes to names in a different place from the data, locked, and let only you see it. Do not post marks or photographs in messenger groups, and do not paste pupil data into AI tools.
Think about the report too. In a small class, 'the only pupil who joined from another school' identifies a child even without a name. Report group results, round the detail, and keep personal remarks out. At the end, delete what the plan says you will delete, and check that it is really gone.
Examples from the classroom
The interview invitation
Scene. Malika in Tashkent wants to interview six Grade 9 pupils about group work. Instead of choosing them in class, she gives a short letter to all pupils to take home, explains that nothing changes in marks if they decline, and holds the interviews at break time with the door open. Seven pupils volunteer and she draws six by lots.
Insight. Voluntary means an easy, safe way to say no; a public request in class is not.
Names off the sheet
Scene. Jasur in Bukhara used to write pupils' names on his reading-speed sheets. Before the study he assigns codes P01 to P24, keeps the name list in a folder in the head's cabinet, and writes only codes on the sheets that he carries between classrooms. A lost sheet then tells a stranger nothing.
Insight. Anonymise at the moment of collection, so a loss or a glance cannot harm anyone.
The head asks for the lowest ten
Scene. After a Grade 7 study, the head of studies asks Aziz in Fergana for the ten lowest-scoring pupils 'to help them'. Aziz thanks the head, repeats that he promised no names, and suggests that class teachers use their normal assessments to find pupils who need help. He offers to explain the general result at the council.
Insight. A promise of confidentiality binds you even to a respected senior; offer another route to the good aim.
Common pitfalls
- Asking for permission in front of the class so that refusing is embarrassing.
- Collecting names, family remarks or recordings that the question does not need.
- Sending marks or photographs in a messenger group 'just to share'.
- Reporting a single child or teacher in a small group so that anyone can tell who it is.
Write the Consent Text and the Data Plan
- Open the Activity Kit: a SAMPLE consent letter with flaws, five dilemma cards and the data plan form. (5 min)
- Pairs (15 min): find at least five flaws in the sample letter, then rewrite it in plain words for parents of your pupils (about 120 words) with the six elements from the Kit.
- Trios (15 min): take the dilemma cards. One plays the teacher, one the other person, one observes and checks the protocol. Rotate roles. After each, agree one sentence you would say.
- Pairs (15 min): fill the data plan for your OWN study: what data, why, in what form, where kept, who sees it, when deleted. Then find the identity risk in the sample small-group report sentence.
- Second short activity, pairs (10 min): write four lines of assent for a Grade 4 pupil in child's words. Read it to your partner, who plays a nine-year-old and says what they understood.
- Alone (5 min): list the permissions you need in your school and write your school-based task from the Kit.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- What in the flawed letter would have made a parent feel unable to refuse?
- Which dilemma was hardest, and what sentence did you agree on?
- Which data in your plan could you simply stop collecting?
Reflect
- When did you last ask a pupil for permission rather than tell them?
- Where do you keep pupils' marks and notes today, and who could see them?
- What would you do if your study seemed to disadvantage one class?
Try it tomorrow
- Write a consent text of about 120 words and read it to a Grade 4 pupil to see what they understood.
- Replace the names on one of your own mark sheets with codes and store the key elsewhere.
- Ask your head of studies which permissions your school requires for interviews and recordings.
Further reading and links
Ask freely, collect little, use codes, lock the key, never name anyone, and delete when you finish.