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Frequently asked questions for schools, participants and their parents and guardians.
Why is the research needed?
The research will help the Royal Society for Chemistry, schools and others better understand how students, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, can be helped to find chemistry more interesting and engaging, so that they are more likely to continue to study it.
Confidentiality, risks to students and ethics
There are no risks to students. Students are entitled to not complete the surveys or answer particular questions. Personal data will be anonymised; we only need personal information so that we can track students and match on records such as free school meals and prior attainment. All schools and students’ identity will be kept anonymous. Any sensitive information that is revealed during the student interviews or survey data (e.g. parental occupation) will be handled with care. We find that asking about parental occupation is a more sensitive measure of students’ socio-economic status than their free school meal status.
Our project instruments have been through the University’s Research Ethics Committee and we are bound by adhering to ethics.
Data storage and access to information
All data will be held on password-protected devices. The team who has access to the data is based at UCL Institute of Education; here only two individuals will be dealing with the raw data which identifies individual students. Activity providers, the Royal Society of Chemistry and even the wider team at IOE will not have access to or deal with data that has students’ individual names.
Dissemination of findings
The dissemination of findings will not identify individual students or teachers.
Why does an intervention school need to take part in the research?
We need to collect data in order to assess how effective the interventions are and find out which students are gaining from taking part in them.
Why does the study have control schools?
Having control schools means that we can understand better what it is about the interventions that works best.
What does a control school get out of taking part in the research?
Control schools will be provided with feedback about how students have responded to questions. If control schools are interested in how certain student groups responded, e.g. boys versus girls or those on FSM compared to those who are not, the researchers will be happy to provide this.
How long do the surveys take students to complete?
The student surveys should take approximately 30 minutes to complete.
What’s the best time of the year to get students to complete the surveys?
This depends on each school’s particular needs; in terms of our needs we would prefer the surveys are completed within four weeks of providing the surveys.
Do parents need to give permission for their children to take the surveys?
No, parents do not need to give permission. This is because the school is acting in loco parentis.
Do students need to answer every question in the survey?
It is fine for students to leave any questions unanswered for whatever reason.
Whom do I contact if I have any queries or concerns about administering the student survey?
You can email Richard Sheldrake (r.sheldrake@ucl.ac.uk).
Data Protection Privacy Notice
The data controller for this project will be University College London (UCL). The UCL Data Protection Office provides oversight of UCL activities involving the processing of personal data, and can be contacted at data-protection@ucl.ac.uk. UCL’s Data Protection Officer can also be contacted at data-protection@ucl.ac.uk.
Further information on how UCL uses participant information can be found here.
The legal basis that would be used to process your child’s personal data will be performance of a task in the public interest. The legal basis used to process special category personal data will be for scientific and historical research consent.
Your child’s personal data will be processed so long as it is required for the research project. If we use your child’s data it will be anonymised so that your child and their school is not identifiable.
If you are concerned about how your personal data is being processed, or if you would like to contact us about your rights, please contact UCL in the first instance at data-protection@ucl.ac.uk.
If I have some questions or need more information, what should I do?
If you have any questions or need any more information about the research, please contact:
Professor Michael Reiss
m.reiss@ucl.ac.uk
020 7612 6800
UCL Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AL
Your school’s involvement makes a huge difference to the success of this project.
Many thanks for all your help.
Professor Michael Reiss, Dr Tamjid Mujtaba, Dr Richard Sheldrake
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