Presentation given on 16 Sep 2021 at the #BERA2021 symposium "Thinking critically and ethically about research for education"

1. More than a tool: Twitter and research ethics
B E R A c o n f e r e n c e : M a r t i n a E m k e , T h e O p e n U n i v e r s i t y, U K ; 1 6 t h S e p 2 0 2 1

2. Overview
Background
Freelance language teachers‘ professional
development andTwitter
Twitter: More than a tool
Ethical challenges inTwitter research
Pathways into doing Twitter research ethics
differently
Image by Photo Mix from Pixabay

3. Background
• investigation into freelance language teachers’ (FLTs) Twitter-based
professional development (PD) (Emke, 2019a)
• Deleuzo-Guattarian post-structural, post-human research framework
• working with the DG concepts of rhizome, assemblage and becoming to
produce ‘situated knowledges’ (Haraway, 1988) about FLTs’Twitter-based
PD
• Twitter is seen as platform (on) AND as tool (with) AND as medium (through)
• tweets are situated comings-together (assemblages) of human and non-
human elements in the act of tweeting
• RQs: How does FLTs’ Twitter-based PD work, and what does it
produce?

4. FLTs’ PD andTwitter
• FLTs are “engaged in language teaching for one or multiple educational
organisations in one or multiple educational sectors without a full-time,
permanent work contract” (Emke, 2019a, p. 23)
• FLTs suffer from precarious working conditions which also impact upon
their (institutional) PD activities (Beaton & Gilbert, 2013)
• FLTs have only limited access to organised, formal professional
development (Stickler & Emke, 2015); main barriers: time, money
• Twitter could be a way for (FL) teachers to overcome PD barriers:
• 24/7 availability; free use upon registration
• opportunities for teachers’ self-directed (Visser et al., 2014) and community-based
(Wesely, 2013) PD
 However:Twitter is more than a tool for PD and research!

5. Twitter: More than tool
• Twitter‘sTerms of Service (ToS)
determine how users and researchers
can interact with the platform
• Twitter‘s functionalities and its
algorithm evolve dynamically; there
are complex relations between users
andTwitter on and beyondTwitter
• researchers need to acknowledge the
human and non-human voices in their
Twitter research (see example on the
right)
 researchers are faced with multiple
and changing ethical challenges in
Twitter research
Image:Voices in research (Emke, in press)

6. Ethical challenges inTwitter research
• guidelines (e.g BERA, 2018; Franzke et al., 2020) help (novice) researchers navigate the territory
of ethical challenges in Twitter research; however, there are persistent challenges:
• data privacy:
• tweets are perceived as ‘public’ rather than private data; therefore, obtaining consent from
research participants is regarded as not necessary, and in some cases may not be possible
(big data)  ethical review boards may follow this argument, but is this enough?
• data ‘harvesting’ is relatively easy (e.g., NodeXL or TagsExplorer) and supported through
Twitter’s Application Programming Interface (API)  how do these non-human actors
interact with Twitter data, and how are the collected data manipulated for data analysis?
• data ownership:
• users agree to Twitter’s ToS upon registration and hence know that their data can be used for
research  are participants really aware of the ToS, and how do they feel about their data
being used in research?
• researcher position:
• researchers do not always disclose their own Twitter use(s)  how do researchers’ use(s) of
Twitter and their experiences influence their research?

7. Pathways into doingTwitter research ethics
differently
• providing comprehensive descriptions of the technologies employed in and
for (Twitter) research help uncover the ways in which non-human actors
interact with participants, researchers and other technologies in the
production of a research study
• comprehensive descriptions of the non-human voices in a research study
enhance researcher reflexivity, regardless of ontological differences
• understanding researcher position as an element involved in multiple
relational research processes, and describing one’s involvement in these
processes in detail, contribute to developing different and more ethical
research practices
•  researcher position(s) as ‘always in-between’ (Emke, 2019b)

8. Martina.Emke@open.ac.uk
Twitter: @martinaemke
Thankyou!

9. References
Beaton, F., & Gilbert,A. (Eds.) (2013). Developing effective part-time teachers in higher education: New approaches to professional development. Routledge.
British Educational ResearchAssociation (BERA) (2018). Ethical guidelines for Educational Research. British Educational Research Asscociation.
https://www.bera.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/BERA-Ethical-Guidelines-for-Educational-Research_4thEdn_2018.pdf?noredirect=1
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987) AThousand Plateaus:Capitalism and Schizophrenia (B. Massumi,Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published in
1980).
Emke, M. (2019a) Freelance LanguageTeachers' Professional Development On ... AndWith ... AndThroughTwitter. Unpublished doctoral thesis,TheOpen University.
https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.0000eaac
Emke, M. (2019b).Always In-between:Of Rhizomes andAssemblages in LanguageTeacher Education Research. In F. Bangou, M.Waterhouse & F. Fleming (Eds.),
Deterritorializing Language,Teaching, Learning, and Research: Deleuzo-Guattarian Perspectives on Second Language Education (pp. 199-223). BRILL.
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004420939_010
Emke, M. (in press).Teacher empowerment withinTwitter chats: A more-than-human perspective. In A. Fox, Busher, H. & C. Capewell (Eds.), Thinking Critically and
Ethically about Research for Education: Engaging withVoice and Empowerment in International Contexts. Routledge.
Franzke, A. S., Bechmann, A., Zimmer, M., Ess, C., and the Association of Internet Researchers (2020). Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0.
https://aoir.org/reports/ethics3.pdf
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges:The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist studies, 14(3), 575-599. DOI:
10.2307/3178066. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3178066
Stickler,U., & Emke, M. (2015). Part-time and freelance language teachers and their ICT training needs. In R. Hampel & U. Stickler (Eds.), Developing online language
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Visser, R. D., Evering,, L. C. & Barrett,, D. E. (2014). #TwitterforTeachers:The Implications ofTwitter as a Self-Directed PDTool for K–12Teachers. Journal of Research
onTechnology in Education, 46(4), 396-413. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2014.925694
Wesely, P. M. (2013). Investigating the community of practice of world language educators onTwitter. Journal of teacher education, 64(4), 305-318.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487113489032