Marco Teórico

‘Empirical research in education inevitably carries ethical issues, because it involves collecting data from people’ (Punch, 2009, p. 49). In this research the ‘people’ were EYTs discussing their experiences of safeguarding and child protection in professional practice. The subject matter might be considered sensitive by some and carries with it professional

statutory controls. One of the challenges, in terms of ethical practice, was ‘minimising harm’ to participants talking about safeguarding and child protection (Israel and Hay, 2006), but also upholding children’s rights should disclosures reveal children deemed at risk of harm (DfE, 2016). Considerable discussion and examination of ethical practices were undertaken prior to the research being submitted for ethical approval. It was agreed that in this research project any stated abuse of children would be reported to the ‘appropriate authority’ (Robson, 2002, p. 71): in this case the designated CPO/DSL (or person of authority) in the setting. Participants would be informed of this prior to each meeting for written or verbal consent. My ethical responsibility was also to the participants talking about safeguarding and child

77 protection matters in professional practice. It was decided that I would terminate any

interview should the subject under discussion become distressing for the participant (Israel and Hay, 2006).

Ethical issues in qualitative research involves ‘values of honesty and frankness and personal integrity… [and] ethical responsibilities to the subjects of research, such as consent,

confidentiality and courtesy’ (Walliman, 2011, p. 240). It is essential that ethical matters be considered at every stage of a research enquiry. This research project is underpinned by the British Education Research Association (BERA) (2011) guidance and the ethical guidelines for Kingston University (2012). An ethical statement for this research proposal was submitted to Kingston University’s Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education Ethics Committee prior to commencement. As Bell (2008, p. 46) states, ‘Ethics committees pay an important part in ensuring that no badly designed or harmful research is permitted’. The ethical considerations received approval from the committee following communication and information details that would be provided to the participants and their employers.

At all stages of the research the participants were informed of the purpose, the commitment required and their right to withdraw at any time (prior to publication). The participants were provided with information that detailed the proposed arrangements for the interview process, how their anonymity could be assured and how any data gathered would be stored and destroyed. As suggested by O’Leary (2004) the participants’ consent was sought throughout including before the research started and before each interview ensuring continued

endorsement of their willing participation. A sample of the script prompts used for informed consent provided to each participant can be found in appendix A (p. 160).

Prior to the commencement of the research project I was aware that the EYTs were familiar with me, as I had taught them on part of the EYITT course. I was mindful of issues relating to potential influence that might arise: that participants may tell me what they think I want to hear. However, this concern was somewhat mitigated by the fact that I had not taught the professional practice expectations within safeguarding and child protection and so participants were unaware of my interest in this area of work. Also the interviews were conducted several months after my contact with the EYTs had ceased so there was no conflict of interest in terms of an immediacy of lecturer/student relationship as the participants had all successfully completed the course and were no longer students of the university. However,

78 acknowledgement that my ‘status and role might put me in a dominant position that affects the free action of the participants in the research’ (Walliman, 2011, p. 249), needed to be made transparent.

The data gathered and stored during the research project followed strict protocols for

ensuring anonymity and confidentiality. Only I knew the participants’ names and their places of employment. In the subsequent sharing and reporting of the research project, the

participants were given codes and their settings described in general terms. The participants were always referred to by their codes. For the first interviews these were P10, P11, P12, P13, P14, P15, P16. The second interview coding depicted the first interview codes followed by the second interview codes as recorded on the digital voice recorder. These were P1020, P1217, P1318, P1419 and P1521. This enabled ease of access to the original recordings and denoted not only the defining code of the participant but clarified if direct quotations were taken from the first or second interviews. As the process of the data analysis was undertaken any transcripts shared with supervisors were made anonymous in advance. In the writing of the findings and related discussion it was decided to retain the coding to ensure accuracy was not compromised by inserting pseudonyms and having to constantly distinguish between the first and second interviews, when discussing commonalities and/or differences. The

following chapter seeks to present how the data gathered from the EYTs was interpreted with discussions relating to theoretical underpinnings.

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Chapter 4 Findings and Discussions

4.1 Introduction

This research project set out to examine the safeguarding and child protection experiences of ‘change of career’ graduates who undertook EYTS training and entered employment in early years. The research questions were designed to explore why participants had chosen the EYTS course, how they had been educated in safeguarding and child protection, what experiences they had over one year in employment and whether these might provide some insights for enhancements to training. This chapter reports findings from the analysis of data (described in chapter three) and is organised into five sections that follow this introduction (4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6). The sections have been presented to broadly relate to the research questions. The first two sections (4.2 and 4.3) explore the participants’ recall of their reasons for applying to become EYTs, their previous knowledge and experience of safeguarding and child protection, and their perceptions of safeguarding and child protection as they gain the professional status. Section 4.4 analyses the participants’ articulations of safeguarding and child protection experiences over their first year in employment. It explores their knowledge of policies and procedures and how they are interpreted in local practice. Section 4.5

examines partnerships and relationships between parents and practitioners: exploring

tensions, behaviours and emotions expressed by participants as they experienced situations of safeguarding and child protection. The final section (4.6) presents the participants’

recommendations to improve EYTS training that might enhance knowledge and

understanding of safeguarding and child protection in an early years practice context for ‘change of career’ graduates entering employment with limited experience of working with children.

4.2 Pre-qualifying knowledge, skills, experience and training in safeguarding and child