NOTES FOR STUDENTS

These notes present new Departmental policy designed to encourage good, professional practice in the retention of raw outputs from research.

Within the wider scientific and social-scientific community researchers are typically expected to retain all of the raw outputs from their research (completed questionnaires, video tapes and so forth) for a period of time after the research is finished. This is a practice that we want to see extended to your research. It serves two purposes. First, if raw research output is retained then it is available as a resource that  other researchers can subsequently consult. Second, retaining raw research output makes it possible to check that the reported data are genuine. It is the Department’s requirement and expectation that where we set coursework for which you are expected to go out and collect data from research participants, then this is in fact what is done. The Department will treat very seriously situations in which students report data as having been collected from research participants when they have, in fact, simply made it up.

The kinds of materials that you retain from your research will, of course, vary according to the methods that you use. For specific projects your module leader or dissertation supervisor should make clear exactly what you need to retain and what the procedure will be for checking that you have done so. It is your responsibility to make sure that you understand the particular arrangements for each module that you take. The general principle is that you retain sufficient materials to convince us that you have genuinely collected data from the number of participants that you report. Here are some guidelines:

• Where research involves getting participants to make pen-and-paper responses you should retain all completed questionnaires. You should also consider including at least one question that requires a hand-written response rather than just a tick in a box. This could be as simple as getting them to write down their gender rather than circling male or female.
• If data-collection is by computer, as would be the case if an experiment is administered using Superlab or Eprime, individual data files should be retained.
• In situations where the experimenter notes participants’ responses (i.e. the participant does not write anything down and their responses are not tape- or video-recorded) you should retain raw data-collection sheets.
• Where tape- or video-recordings are made of participants’ responses these should be retained along with transcripts or coding grids that you might create.
• For all research, you should also consider collecting signed and dated consent forms from participants as an independent record of the number participating in the research.

If you are working as part of a group it is our expectation that responsibility for data collection will be distributed evenly among group members. You will then only be held responsible for retaining evidence of data collection for the data that you, personally, have collected. Evidence should be retained for at least 12 months after the hand in date for the work and must be made available for inspection when this is requested.