{"id":53,"date":"2021-03-01T04:00:31","date_gmt":"2021-03-01T04:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/erc\/?p=53"},"modified":"2021-02-25T12:54:19","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T12:54:19","slug":"that-girl-she-hear-what-we-talk-provisional-and-ongoing-consent-in-research-with-4-5-year-old-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/erc\/index.php\/2021\/03\/01\/that-girl-she-hear-what-we-talk-provisional-and-ongoing-consent-in-research-with-4-5-year-old-children\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018That girl, she hear what we talk\u2019: provisional and ongoing consent in research with 4-5 year old children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarah Jane Mukherjee, Research Associate, The Centre for Literacy and Social Justice, The Open University<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rich insights into learning opportunities in playful classroom contexts can be sought through research into children\u2019s peer to peer language.\u00a0 To do this, the language must be captured through recordings before a researcher is able to hold a magnifying glass to linguistic playful interactions, yet ethical dilemmas around children\u2019s consent overshadow the ease in which an audio or video recording can be made.\u00a0 How can a researcher be confident to capture young children\u2019s consent? Flewitt<\/a> suggests provisional consent, to acknowledge that the implications of research are unlikely to be fully understood by young children, and ongoing consent as \u2018negotiated in situated contexts on a minute by minute basis\u2019. Here, I reflect on ways in which I addressed the research challenge of consent in my naturalistic study of children\u2019s learning in classroom role-play with small groups of 4-5-year-old children.<\/p>\n

Empower the children<\/strong> to refuse to participate.\u00a0 For children, withdrawing from a study should be as easy as agreeing to participate.\u00a0 I wanted the children to be able to say to me that they had changed their minds. The time before the study started was important in this; I wanted to build a relationship with the children.\u00a0 Recognising that an adult I may be perceived as a teacher I introduced myself by my first name \u2013 in contrast to the teachers who were all addressed traditionally e.g. Mrs Cook \u2013 to reduce the formality of my presence.\u00a0 In addition, I spent time in the classroom reading, playing and chatting with them with the aim that the children would feel comfortable to refuse to take part in the study should they wish.<\/p>\n

Make the research process visible.\u00a0 <\/strong>Ahead of each recording, I reminded the children about the research and was sensitive to cues that might suggest they were uncomfortable participating. \u00a0\u00a0I positioned the two video cameras deliberately visible for the children, and I asked them to turn on the recorders and place the audio recorder in the space. Although it might be thought that this could draw too much attention to the recorders, and that this might mean that the playful language I sought to capture, would be eclipsed by the children playing for the camera, the recorders were not intrusive in this way. The recordings showed that largely the presence of the equipment did not influence the spontaneity and naturalness of their play language.\u00a0 However, importantly the equipment was not completely forgotten and thus the research process remained visible.\u00a0 For instance, on occasion, the children would look though the viewer to see their peers \u2018I can see you\u2019<\/em>; reference the recorders and research \u2018there\u2019s one there\u2026she has recorded our voices\u2019<\/em>. For me these quotes provided some evidence that the children\u2019s provisional and ongoing consent had been achieved.<\/p>\n

What steps do you take in your data collection to support your child participants\u2019 provisional and ongoing consent?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sarah Jane Mukherjee joined the OU in May 2020 and is a Research Associate in the new Centre for Literacy and Social Justice. Her PhD explored children\u2019s meaning making in classroom role-play using systemic functional linguistics.\u00a0 She is currently Co-I on a project exploring children\u2019s picture fiction.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/wels.open.ac.uk\/people\/sjm2348<\/a><\/p>\n

@sjmukherjee0702<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Jane Mukherjee, Research Associate, The Centre for Literacy and Social Justice, The Open University Rich insights into learning opportunities in playful classroom contexts can be sought through research into children\u2019s peer to peer language.\u00a0 To do this, the language must be captured through recordings before a researcher is able to hold a magnifying glass … Continue reading \u2018That girl, she hear what we talk\u2019: provisional and ongoing consent in research with 4-5 year old children<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/erc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/erc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/erc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/erc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/erc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/erc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/erc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions\/56"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/erc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/erc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/erc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}