Chapter 3: The Ethics of Research with Young Children

Research ethics, aiming to respect and protect children and promote their interests, is very important for the following reasons. Research is not designed directly to benefit child research subjects, although research is often discussed as if it does benefit them. “They enjoy taking part. It is good for them. It raises their self-esteem.” All this might happen, but it might not, and it cannot be the purpose or the guaranteed promise of research. Some children may be bored or confused, anxious or exploited. Research involves collecting, analyzing and reporting data, processes that cannot directly benefit the children who take part. Instead, unlike the children’s relationships with teachers and other professionals who work to help them and promote their interests, it is the children who benefit the researchers by giving their data. When teachers and other professionals do research about their own services for children, they always take care of to being honest to themselves, to the children, and to their colleagues when they are acting as a researcher or as a practitioner. This can be especially complicated in action research. It is vital to see the difference between research-experiment and the service (such as the educational or psychology program) that is being researched. Too often, children are pushed into consenting to research “because it will be so helpful to you.” Yet if it is certain that the program is helpful, then the point of researching and evaluating it is unclear.