How educational psychologists conceptualise risk in research

Abstract

The study is aimed at understanding how educational psychology researchers conceptualise risk in research particularly in relation to the informed consent process. Literature from Crow, G., Wiles, R., Heath, S.&Charles, V. (2006); Flewitt, R. (2005); Heath, S., Charles, V., Crow, G.&Wiles, R. (2007) was consulted. I anticipate that the findings will make a contribution to the applications made to the ethical committee when conducting research with children. The research project was qualitative with a thematic analysis being done from an a priori epistemology. The findings of the research study are that educational psychology researchers are not reporting the risk inherent in their research adequately, if at all to their participants. The study revealed a cognitive dissonance between educational psychologists concept of risk and actual risk posed by research. The informed consent form was not made available to the participants as it should have been. Greater reflexivity when preparing research may decrease the dissonance and therefore the risk to participants of research. Copyright