Lessons Learned from Researching, Writing and Publishing with Undergraduate Students in Higher Education

This paper is based upon a collaborative research project with a group of eight second-year students studying on an Early Childhood BA at a Midlands (UK) University. The empirical research project emerged as a response to the concerning levels of disengagement demonstrated by this group post-pandemic. Because the focus of their module was research approaches, as module lead, I took the decision to engage the students in ‘real world’ research. I reasoned that if the stakes were raised, they might feel more compelled interact with the content in a meaningful way. An anonymous survey, exploring student health, wellbeing and motivation, was the result. This went through all institute ethical protocols to be shared with students in the Institute of Education and the results were fed back to senior management. Although the anonymous survey added little to the existing discourse concerning the drivers and barriers for Higher Education students in 2023, the process provided an extremely rich learning experience for the students; particularly in relation to the complexity of the ethical decisions required for students to research their peers. This article focuses upon the process of the research and the barriers encountered, but it also considers the ethics of using the incidental data that resulted. I question the ethicality of interacting with this group as researchers, to then re-label them as research subjects, in order to fulfil the demands of publication.