Christine Grant

Transnational education has grown rapidly in recent years, but the policies and procedures embedded within Western universities may not adequately reflect the environment in which students study and conduct research.
This thesis explores the beliefs and attitudes towards research ethics among graduate students in the two south-central African countries of Zambia and Malawi. The participants were ten mid-career professionals studying graduate business programs delivered in-country in partnership with a British university; as part of their programme they were required to undertake their own primary research project.
By undertaking a qualitative study of students in the region, it uncovers a complex multi-layered ethical system, which includes traditional sources, oral traditions, village uncles, and indigenous religious sources, alongside Western-centric missionary religions, and the formal processes such as those advocated by their professions and University ethics processes. Each of these informs the students’ approaches, often resulting in traditional cultural attitudes towards ethics sitting uneasily alongside contemporary ethical views. This can make the formal research ethics processes used by Western universities operating in the region appear overly strict and inflexible to students leading to tensions between what they are required to do by the university and what they believe is right.
The growth of transnational education necessitates the investigation of approaches that make research ethics processes more flexible without removing the ethics approval processes, so this thesis advocates a culturally adapted research ethics protocol (CAREP) as a model, bringing regional attitudes to ethics and culture into the research ethics processes through a continuing dialogic approach. CAREP recognises the impact of cultural factors on an under researched area of education and provides a contribution to the growing debate on ethics in general and indigenous ethics in particular. It also offers a new perspective on the decolonisation of universities by recognising the importance of processes as well as the curriculum.
Adopting a phenomenographic approach, the study uses semi-structured, in-depth qualitative interviews to consider the students’ views of ethics and the influences that contribute to their ethical perspective. Their beliefs and attitudes are contrasted with the rigid ethical compliance required in Western universities. Through rich data, including vivid storytelling, the participants indicated numerous factors that contributed to their beliefs and attitudes towards research ethics which are categorised into close social groups, traditional historical ethics reinforced through storytelling, their religion, their urban versus rural location, and their beliefs about professionalism.

In this article, we outline the results of a narrative exploration of beliefs and attitudes towards research ethics among graduate students in two South-Central African countries, Zambia and Malawi. The participants were mid-career professionals in Africa, studying graduate business programs delivered in-country, but in partnership with a British University. By understanding the cultural underpinnings of African ethical philosophy, we aim to reconcile research practices in the region with the ethical compliance requirements and processes explicit in Western graduate research. We conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 11 students to ascertain their views on ethics generally, the influences that contribute to their ethical perspective, and in particular the relationship between these and the processes and procedures taught in their course. Participants indicated several factors were important to their beliefs and attitudes regarding research ethics including close social groups which impacted ethical beliefs, traditional historical ethics re-enforced through storytelling, religion, location (urban or rural), and beliefs about professionalism.

Building on work presented at BESA 2015, this paper presents the results of phenomenographic research into the attitudes and practices of academic research ethics in Sub-Saharan Africa. By understanding the cultural underpinnings of African ethical philosophy, it aims to reconcile research practices in the region with the ethical compliance requirements and processes explicit in Western postgraduate research.
Research is an important element of many postgraduate degrees and an understanding of the principles and policies associated with conducting research ethically is an important component of student research. For students of a British university operating in Sub-Saharan Africa there is a dichotomy between the requirements of the University, based on ethical rationalism, and the cultural context, influenced by pragmatism, in which they operate. Research by Grant and Gazdula (2017) found that students’ ethical compass was strongly influenced by cultural factors, the most prominent of these being family, tribe and religion.
This paper builds on this previous work and presents the findings from a second phase of qualitative data collection (interviews) in Malawi and Zambia (May 2017) which looks specifically at the ways students engage with and experience the Research Ethics process to better understand the impacts that their culture, society and experience have on research ethics in a transnational context. It explores the challenges encountered as the students navigate their way through the University Ethical Processes within the societies in which they are researching.

Little research has been done on the way Business Masters students carry out research for their dissertations. This exploratory study examined the way data is collected and analysed; it reviewed a small sample of dissertations and found them overwhelmingly skewed towards questionnaires (used by 91% of students) with archival (secondary) sources largely ignored. Further examination of the findings showed that almost half (45%) had poorly analysed data from questionnaires exhibiting problems such as ‘voting on the facts’ and ‘crowdsourcing judgements’. By comparison, more experienced researchers showed a much lower dependence on questionnaires. To investigate causes for this, research methods texts were reviewed and generally found to have little focus on secondary data and often to show a negative attitude towards it.
The study concludes that there are issues in the way students gather data and that this can have adverse impacts on quality.

As part of a study skills workshop, first year undergraduate students participated in an active learning exercise on remembering; this involved watching a video and later being tested on how much they could recall. The students watching the video were divided into three groups with different approaches to note-taking and subsequent review; afterwards the test results were fed back to the class. Subsequently, a survey was carried out of the students’ approach to note-taking and review, both before and after the workshop. The results during the classes clearly demonstrated to the students the learning benefits both of taking notes and of subsequently reviewing them and the questionnaire results confirm that students’ behaviours in this area were positively impacted by the workshop. Additionally, a number of barriers to effective note taking were identified which can be addressed in the future.

As part of a study skills workshop, first year undergraduate students participated in an active learning exercise on remembering; this involved watching a video and later being tested on how much they could recall. The students watching the video were divided into three groups with different approaches to note-taking and subsequent review; afterwards the test results were fed back to the class. Subsequently, a survey was carried out of the students' approach to note-taking and review, both before and after the workshop.
The results during the classes clearly demonstrated to the students the learning benefits both of taking notes and of subsequently reviewing them and the questionnaire results confirm the students' behaviours in this area were positively impacted by the workshop. The theoretical basis for these results in terms of the impact of note-taking and review on information processing are also discussed. Additionally, a number of barriers to effective note-taking were identified which can be addressed in the future.

The aim of this research is to address the challenges that arise when students in African partners of a British University try to align the ethical approaches inherent in their culture with the ethical processes explicit in British degrees and research. Using a post-colonial lens and adopting an Action Research approach the study aims to reconcile these differences and consider alternative methods, more nuanced approaches to demonstrating compliance with University Ethics codes.
Research Ethics is an important element of any education programme and the understanding of both principles and policies plays a key role particularly within student research projects (dissertations, consultancy reports etc). For students of British universities operating in Sub- Saharan Africa there is a dichotomy between the requirements of the University (based on ethical rationalism (Tikly and Bond, 2013)), and the Post-Colonial cultural context in which they operate. The research draws on the work of Hofstede (1980), Husted et al (1996) and Gbadamosi (2004) to recognise the impact culture has on ethical beliefs and behaviours.
Adopting an Interpretive Action Research approach, the study aims through interview, focus groups and archival analysis of Research Codes for Conduct to develop an alternative approach to demonstrating ethical compliance that meets the regulations of a UK University while recognising alternative ethical standpoints.
Initial investigations show that African students have a different understanding of academic ethics and this study explores the difference in interpretation of ethics including: the role of culture in developing ethical understanding, evaluation of the extent to which consequentialism (the "ends justifying the means" (Bentham, 1789)) is applicable to Sub-Saharan business students or that Sen's (1979) theory that rules are not absolute when violation leads to more undesirable consequences is the dominant philosophy.