Ethics of Researching Student Feedback: A Workshop for Academic Reps and Staff

These are open-source workshop resources developed by Magnetic Ideals for The Student Engagement Partnership for use in colleges and universities.

This session has been designed to give an opportunity to discuss ethical issues relating to researching student feedback in-depth, and to spend time jointly problem solving and developing a shared understanding of these issues from multiple perspectives. Ideally this session will bring together a variety of stakeholders, including students’ union staff, provider staff (e.g. quality staff, senior staff and teaching staff), student officers, course reps, school/faculty reps, and anyone else who has been involved in the academic representation system. By the end of the session, participants will have

The materials below should provide everything you need to deliver the workshop yourselves at your institution, and they can be adapted to suit your local context – we just ask that you reference TSEP when delivering your final content. These materials were developed with Magnetic Ideals, through a project funded by the Quality Assurance Agency.

Facilitator notes

Facilitator notes

These notes will guide the workshop facilitator through the materials, timings and exercises for the session.

Presentation

Workshop presentation

This presentation provides instructions on the exercises outlined in the facilitators notes, and can be adapted depending on how you like to structure your visual prompts.

Exercise 1: Ethics Cards

Ethics Cards Exercise

This exercise helps delegates to consider what ethical principles are most important when it comes to the work of academic reps and staff in researching and reporting on student feedback.

Exercise 2: Ethics Scenarios

Ethics Scenarios Exercise

This exercise prompts delegates to identify research ethics issues that relate, or could relate, to the work of academic reps and staff that work with them, by considering a range of different scenarios.