Teaching Research Ethics through Reality TV

Conducted by:  Dr Viv Burr and Professor Nigel King
Dates: January 2010 - December 2010 
Funding:  The Higher Education Academy:  Psychology Network 

Based on the success and popularity of reality TV, particularly with young audiences, researchers within the Centre for Applied Psychological Research identified an opportunity to use material of this nature in teaching methods. A growing base of literature demonstrates that material from popular television shows can be an effective component of undergraduate teaching, including teaching of psychology and related subjects.

With this in mind, a research project was conducted aiming to analyse the success of material of this nature in the teaching of research ethics. Students were shown a brief extract from a reality TV programme and asked to discuss the ethical issues that have been raised in their opinion. They were then given the opportunity to apply their thinking to psychological research. The students evaluated these sessions very positively, commenting that they found this a very engaging way of learning about research ethics and findings from both qualitative and quantitative analyses supported the view that students can indeed benefit from using TV material.

As a result of the research outcomes from this project, material of this nature has since been used in the teaching of research ethics to the University’s Psychology undergraduates as part of the Research Methods module. In order to monitor the on-going success, this material will be continually used in the teaching.