Ensuring the participants participate: the role of ethics in promoting impact of enquiry in the workplace

This case study focuses on the dissertations of 53 teachers who had completed smallscale research enquiries in their MA studies in Israel. They had been led by tutors from the University of Northumbria in England and Yeda College in Israel. In particular we explored the data relating to ethics, which the teachers had been specifically asked to report. The findings indicated that most of the teachers had taken a symbolic approach to the implementation of ethics and those who had gone deeper failed to identify issues which inhibited the impact of their enquiries. A review of the literature on the role of ethics and the impact of research, in the light of these findings has been explored. It has led us to the conclusion that there is an important role for ethical considerations to be taken much more seriously within schools, if there is to be a significant improvement in the quality of advanced professional practice.