The previous version of the British Educational Research Association ethical guidance has been in existence since 2011. Over the last two years a consultative process, led by Sara Hennessey and a working group together with the BERA membership, recognised experts and with the support of a dedicated research associate, has led to a revised set of guidance. This takes into consideration revisions by other, related professional and academic bodies – in particular the work of the Academy of Social Sciences who relaunched their own guidance after significant debate in 2016 – and recent legislative/regulatory change – in particular the EU-wide General Data Protection Regulation and associated update to the UK Data Protection Act in 2018.

The guidance has been designed to be more deliberative and less prescriptive to recognise the situated nature of ethical decision-making; empowering researchers to make their own analysis of research situations and hold up against principled ethical guidance. An extra section relating to responsibilities to researchers’ development and well-being has been included to offer support to the extra responsibilities such a reflexive approach brings.

The guidance has also been designed to be more inclusive to the broad church of research which might be considered to be educational research. There has been much thought given to ethical issues likely to be encountered by practitioner and independent researchers and those researching in non-UK settings. Attention has been given to ensuring that educational researchers feel that all methodological options can be pursued, as long as careful ethical deliberation accompanies research design. Particular advice relating to specific methodological or research methods, such as ethnography, autoethnography, observational methods and randomised control trials, are illustrated throughout.

Serious reflection and debate amongst the working group and with those consulted have led to revision of guidance relating to online research and the use of digital data to help members in considering the challenges in deciding who owns data, whether and how consent might be gained, how such data might need to be handled and reported. Similarly advice about collecting data from vulnerable participants including children has been reviewed, especially in the light of new data protection regulations.

The guidance has been revised rather than rewritten and the core principle of showing an ethic of respect, which leads to a need for research relationships to be built on trust and covering the broad range of responsibilities researchers, and those involved in research, need to consider, is retained.

A special issue of BERA’s magazine Research Intelligence 136/Summer 2018 includes an article ‘Behind the scenes of the revision’ and the new guidance can be downloaded from the BERA website.