Ethical Considerations

The chapter on methods and methodology concludes with a section on different ethical considerations I had to deal with during my research. It also contains critical reflections on the roles of researchers and participants and how these roles may have induced biases in the process. More on possible biases and methodological shortcomings can be found in the critical reflections in the discussion chapter.

4.6.1 Handling Research Data

The fact that I planned to record parts of the workshops on video meant that I would handle personal data – information like names and appearances that could be used to identify the workshop participants. Additionally, due to the theme of the exhibition project, the video material would likely also contain sensitive personal data, namely information about ethnic or religious backgrounds, as well as political, philosophical or religious views. The collection of sensitive personal data made the project obligated to report to the Norwegian Data Protection Official, “Norsk Senter for Forskningsdata” (NSD) and to follow required standards for the handling of personal data. NSD provides a website with information on project reporting and a form to send the required project information (Norsk senter for forskningsdata, n.d.). One requirement when processing personal data is that the participants must consent to the processing. I, therefore, prepared a consent form for the participants to sign upon joining the project. We also gave relevant information orally at the first

meeting of the project group. To ensure the secure handling of project data, video and audio recordings were stored on AES-256 encrypted hard drives that were placed in a secure room at NTM during the project. It was decided that the data would be destroyed in 2020 after the end of the project and some time for follow-up research. A request for collection and storage of personal data was sent to NSD and eventually approved.

4.6.2 Protecting the Participants

Besides following official regulations, we considered some other ethical aspects regarding the protection of the participants’ privacy. There was some interest from other stakeholders at the museum to use the participants for other objectives connected to the FOLK exhibition. During one meeting of the exhibition design group, the idea came up to interview the participants and to use the results as exemplary statements from immigrant youth as part of the exhibition. We

decided to deny “access” to our participants for such purposes since we felt that the participants could feel misused or exploited if they were suddenly asked to

participate in a way that was not part of the PD process, which they had agreed to engage in. We considered this particularly important in the context of PD, where mutual trust and respect is an important ingredient for successful cooperation (Bratteteig et al., 2013, p. 132).

4.6.3 The Researchers’ Roles

All researchers had particular roles and interests in the project, that shaped their style of involvement in the research (Walsham, 2006, p. 321). Particularly the three group members affiliated with NTM had special interests in the project concerning the exhibition, which required a deeper involvement than that of a purely neutral observer. Lefkaditou was concerned with the development of the FOLK exhibition and how our project would fit with the exhibition as a whole.

Skåtun was particularly interested in the learning programme and how our project could generate knowledge for that purpose.

I consider my own involvement as having a double role in this project. As a researcher for this master’s thesis, I wanted to hold a neutral perspective toward the project, with as little bias as possible. At the same time, my other role, as a

technician at NTM, meant that I needed to consider questions related to the practical implementation of concepts developed during the workshops. This deepened my

involvement in the project and moved it towards the role of an action researcher (Walsham, 2006, p. 321). This involvement also implies a possible source of bias, as my position may have influenced the project with regards to choices of technology and questions of practical feasibility and robustness of solutions proposed

underway.

The deep involvement of the researchers helped in realising the concept that emerged from the participatory process, thus making a valid contribution to the field site, rather than taking the data away only for academic purposes (Walsham, 2006, p. 321). However, the possible disadvantages of close involvement also apply:

The researchers, being intimately involved with museums do not have the

advantage of a fresh outlook on the subject, and they might have lost some critical distance towards their own contributions. Furthermore, the participants might have been less open with their views on the museum, because of the researchers’ vested interest in the subject (Walsham, 2006, p. 322). The latter point became apparent during our evaluation of an exhibition during the critique phase of the FW. The presence of one museum staff during discussion likely prevented the participants from being totally open regarding their views of the exhibition.

I also found it difficult at times to develop my own research focus within the project. Being part of a group of researchers confronted me with many different views and ideas for research and possible directions of the project. This insight allowed me to develop a proper overall perspective on the project, and I learned a lot from the senior researchers. On the other hand, this background made it

challenging to fine-tune my own research interest and develop the right approaches and questions to investigate that interest.

4.6.4 The Participants’ Roles

The participants got paid for their partaking in the project. This way we wanted to ensure that they would be able to use a considerable amount of their time on the workshops. It has also been claimed that such payment can play a role in establishing an equitable relationship between participants and the staff running the workshops, thus signifying the staff’s recognition of the expertise and value that the participants bring to the design process (Nicholas, Hagen, Rahilly, & Swainston, 2012). On the other hand, there was a risk that the salary would become the main motivating factor for participation, rather than a genuine interest in the project itself

and the opportunity for participation and influencing a museum exhibition.

Feedback from one participant during evaluation suggests that the payment made the participants perceive their involvement as that of doing a job: “Du må ta ansvar hvis du jobber og får lyst til å gjøre det litt ordentlig. [You have to take responsibility if you work and you want to do it properly.]” While this quote suggests that our

participants were engaged in the project, it also suggests that the payment could have been a main extrinsic factor for motivation, overshadowing any intrinsic motivation the participants might have had. In the context of PD, we aimed to work with topics that mattered personally for the participants, therefore relying heavily on an extrinsic factor for motivation is a possible source of bias in this research.

Another issue emerged when we involved two students who held part-time jobs as guides at NTM. For those participants, the boundary between work and personal engagement was even more unclear. Being a few years older than the other participants and at the same time being employed at NTM, they wondered whether they were part of the group of NTM staff or the participants. They also struggled with catching up with the project in general and connecting with the other participants, who apparently knew each other from outside the project.

While the recruitment process for the project might be described as opportunity sampling (Brady, 2006) and the participants’ background did not matter much to us when we approached them, the fact that the participants represent a multi-ethnic group of young people also needed to be taken into account upon engaging with them. On the one hand, this was considered positive, since their background suggested that they had a special interest and knowledge about the topics the project was set out to discuss. On the other hand, we had to be aware of the fact that the participants might feel that our primary interest in working with them was due to their particular ethnic backgrounds. We, therefore, had to put some extra weight into communicating the ideas behind PD, and that it was knowledge about young people in general, their stance towards museums and the exhibition topics that was interesting for us. We thereby hoped to make them confident that their ethnicity, while being relevant, was not the main point for their partaking in the project.