8 January 2024
Dear Parent/Guardian
Study Title: How do Teachers of Deaf Children and Young People work with parents/guardians?
Faculty Ethics Committee Ref No: RONE28102023
Name of Researchers: Rachel O’Neill (University of Edinburgh), Dr Rob Wilks (UWE Bristol)
Contact details:
Rachel O’Neill: rachel.oneill@ed.ac.uk, tel no: +44 (0)131 651 6429
Rob Wilks: Rob.Wilks@uwe.ac.uk, tel no: +44 (0)117 xxx
Invitation
Thank you for reading this. We would like to invite you to take part in our research study by completing an online questionnaire. It is entirely up to you whether you participate but your responses would be valued. You have been identified as a potential respondent by the researchers and their contact networks through the National Deaf Children’s Society and the British Association of Teachers of Deaf Children and Young People.
This is a research study into the ethical dilemmas that Teachers of Deaf Children and Young People (ToDs) have experienced and continue to experience. The purpose of the online questionnaire is to ascertain the views of parents of deaf children who are currently in education or have completed their education about the ToDs you and your children have encountered to date.
By the end of our study in April 2024 we hope to be able to draw some conclusions about how ToDs can be taught and supported better to face ethical dilemmas in relation to work with the families of deaf children.
We do not need your name or any identifying details; the questionnaire can be completed anonymously, and all reasonable steps will be taken to ensure confidentiality. We do ask for your postcode because it helps us analyse the data but it can’t identify you. We destroy postcode data as soon as we have coded it into one of ten groups. Responses from completed questionnaires will be collated for analysis; once this is complete the original questionnaires will be destroyed.
Up to this stage, completed questionnaires will be stored on Microsoft Forms and then transferred to the University of Edinburgh SharePoint site.
We will keep you informed of the project’s progress and outcomes through our blog at https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/deafeducation/.
Questionnaire instructions
It would be appreciated if you could complete all the questions, although you are able to skip any questions that you do not want to answer.
The link to the online questionnaire is: https://forms.office.com/e/L3pAVWGAAS.
The deadline to complete the questionnaire is midnight on 8 February 2024.
Thank you for your interest completing the online questionnaire. If you have any concerns regarding this research, please contact us in the first instance. If you are not entirely happy with our response, you can contact Professor John Ravenscroft, Head of the Scottish Sensory Centre, and his email is john.ravenscroft@ed.ac.uk.
Yours faithfully
Rachel O’Neill
Deaf Education Pathway Co-ordinator
Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh
Dr Rob Wilks
Senior Lecturer in Law
Bristol Law School, UWE Bristol
