Ethical Considerations

This thesis investigation was reviewed and approved by the Athabasca University Research Ethics Board. There was a possibility that participants in the study could have been inappropriately compelled to participate in the study or to provide answers to the survey questions that did not accurately reflect their views because one of the supervisors of the research was also the instructor of the course being investigated. It was necessary for the researcher to investigate this particular course because it was the only known course that utilized the study buddy activity.

The following steps were taken to ensure that the participants’ decision whether or not to participate in the study and their answers to the survey questions were not influenced by their relationship to the co-supervisor:

  • participant recruitment was initiated by Athabasca University support staff,
  • the co-supervisor never knew which students chose to participate or not, or if any students withdrew from the activity,
  • all identifying information was redacted from the quantitative and qualitative data prior to the co-supervisor having access,
  • the co-supervisor did not have access to the redacted data until after the course was completed and all grades were submitted to the university.