Educational research

Research with students during class time contributes to the development and validation of new methods of teaching and learning and provides students with insight into research practice. Still, educational research entails specific risks due to demands on the curriculum and the dependency of students on lecturers.

To protect students it is therefore required to consider the following points when planning and conducting research in an educational setting.

Guidelines for educational research

If the activities to be tested are performed by some or all students during class time, these activities must be related to the content of the course and contribute to the achievement of its learning objectives.
Students must be informed about planned experimental studies or other data collection for research purposes and consent to the use of their data by signing a consent form (or otherwise recorded). The information must be provided in writing and sufficiently early so that students can decide on the use of their data without pressure. The information sheet must clearly state that student consent is required for the use and anonymous publication of data and that this can be refused without incurring any disadvantages. Further information on the consent form can be found in the application form.
Students should not sustain any disadvantages by participating or not participating in research. It should thus be prevented that data collected or refusing to let data be analysed has any impact on the evaluation by the lecturers. For research in education settings, it is recommended to gather data anonymously so that re-identification of individual students is not possible. If this is not feasible for technical reasons or through study design, data should be anonymised by educational researchers as soon as possible or, if necessary, be coded/pseudonymised. When data is collected in an anonymous form, students should be given the option within the data gathering tool (online survey, questionnaire) to specify whether they would like their data to be used for scientific purposes or not.
Where educational researchers collaborate with lecturers, lecturers may only have insight to consent forms and identifying raw data once course grading has been completed, and only if this is necessary for the use of data before anonymisation.
Generally, principal investigators should not conduct research with their own students. If this should nevertheless be the case, special care must be taken to ensuring voluntary participation and to prevent influencing grading by the data collected or refusals to participate. Consent forms and identifying raw data may only be viewed after courses have been graded and the dual relationship as teacher and researcher to students has ended. In the application to the ETH Zurich Ethics Commission, this dual role towards students should be justified and precautionary measures taken should be made explicit in the proposal and information sheet provided to students.
If (some) participants in an experimental study achieve a greater learning success than the other students, this comparative advantage needs to be redressed afterwards. This can be achieved, for example, by a debriefing or by offering all students the opportunity to go through the experimental activity.
If studies take place during courses, participation should not be compensated as it contributes to the achievement of learning objectives (cf. point a). Participation in studies that take place in student’s free time can be compensated, but not with ECTS credits.

These guidelines have been published by the ETH Zurich Ethics Commission in 2021.

When is an ethics approval needed?

Research projects with students must be approved by the ETH Zurich Ethics Commission before they start. This also applies to the planned collection and use of data from ongoing teaching without intervention for research purposes (e.g., log files from course management systems or exam results). In both cases, informed consent of the students is required. If obtaining informed consent is not possible, however, the ETH Zurich Ethics Commission may waive the requirement to obtain informed consent.

What about reflective teaching and surveys for class feedback?

Studies to improve your own teaching (reflective teaching / instructor development) and anonymous surveys for quality assurance purposes do not require approval but cannot be used for publications (see exemptions).

How can I access other student data?

The use of student data not available to lecturers (e.g., enrolment data, academic origin data, data from academic applications) for research can be requested from the Head of Academic Services. It is contractually regulated and if an ethics approval is necessary is decided case-by-case. For this, please contact the Office of the Ethics Commission.