The same technique is called dangerous and ethically dubious on one slide and a source of genuine insight on the next. This page holds both framings up, names the asymmetry between them, and says where the ethical framework actually comes from.
Reading time15 minutes
LevelAdvanced
Topic streamResearch Ethics
Source materialThe Nature of Qualitative Research
Updated2026-08-16
The two cases, as the deck sets them
One slide header covers both: "Negotiating access / ethics and responsibility", followed by "Case studies to discuss on forum:". They are the week's only sustained treatment of ethics, and they arrive with no preparation.
The asymmetry in the framing
Both cases describe the same technique: a researcher takes a position inside an organisation and gathers data without the organisation's knowledge or consent. The two slides evaluate it in opposite directions, and the direction correlates with who is doing it.
THE SAME TECHNIQUE, TWO FRAMINGS
Case study #1
Case study #2
Who is doing it
A hypothetical student researcher
A published researcher, cited to the prescribed text
How the deck characterises the method
"a dangerous and ethically dubious method"
"a controversial method on ethical ground"
What the deck says it produces
Not stated. The data is only "her data", and the exploitation is a "hunch".
"insights into the nature of police work and the occupational culture with which officers surround themselves"
What the student is asked to do
Decide what she should do — a prospective judgement
Discuss the researcher's reasoning — a retrospective interpretation
Length required
None stated
300 words
The disapproving framing carries no outcome; the approving framing carries a stated outcome and a citation. Nothing in the two slides distinguishes the technique itself between the cases.
The second task asks about something the case does not contain
Read the case study #2 passage again against its prompt. The passage supplies what the researcher did, that his superiors did not know, that the method is controversial, and what the research produced. It supplies no justification, rationale or defence attributed to the researcher at any point.
What these two weeks supply on ethics
The cases turn entirely on ethics. Here is the complete ethics content of the research design week and the qualitative research week, in full, with nothing omitted.
Design checklist item 8: "Design the project with careful attention to ethical issues."
Method-selection question 8: "Ethics - Are there any ethical issues attached to the choice of research method?"
2sentences of ethics content across both weeks
0principles, codes or approval processes stated
2ethics case studies set for assessment
Negotiating access: what the header promises
The slide header is "Negotiating access / ethics and responsibility". Case study #1 is a detailed account of access failing, and it is the only treatment of access anywhere in the two weeks.
Approach 1Wrote to the managing director asking to interview employees. No answer.
Approach 2Telephoned his secretary. Told he was "in a meeting" all day.
Approach 3Contacted the deputy directors. A similar response.
Approach 4Contacted senior managers. All "seemed very reluctant to talk to her".
The offerA relative working at the factory offers to help her get a job there in order to observe under cover.
What one student response actually did with these cases
A student submission answering both cases is supplied with the teaching material, anonymised. It is useful here because it shows what happens when a defective brief meets a competent attempt, and because it makes the length ambiguity concrete.
What it did well
Answered both cases, though only one carried a word count
Reached an explicit decision in each rather than surveying considerations
Rejected covert observation in case 1 and recommended widening the data sources to organisational policies, ethics statements and contracts
Recommended selecting a cooperating organisation as the fallback — turning the ethical problem into a design problem, which the material never does
Supported both answers with in-text citations to published sources
Where it came apart
285 words covering both cases, against 300 stated for the second case alone
Two in-text citations, neither of which appears in its own reference list
A reference list entry giving a 72-page range as a locator, and another with initials and no surname
Escalated a city police service to "government body / national security", which the case does not support
Introduced a distinction the material does not supply — that covert work may be defensible for internal organisational purposes but not academic ones
If access is refused on your own project
The routing below is this handbook's synthesis. The source supplies no access procedure and no ethical decision rule, so nothing here is attributed to it; what it does is point you at the parts of this library where the question is actually taught.
After a refusal
IfYou have been declined by an individual rather than by the organisation
ThenEstablish who can actually authorise research access before treating the refusal as final. The case study shows four approaches and never establishes which of the four could have said yes.
IfThe evidence you need exists in records rather than only in people
ThenReconsider the data source before reconsidering the method. Documentary sources are one of the five methods the week defines, and they do not require the same access.
IfOnly insider observation will produce the data
ThenTreat consent, not access, as the governing question, and take it to the consent material rather than to this week's slides. Covert work removes the participant's decision, which is the specific thing that material addresses.
IfYou are considering proceeding without disclosure
ThenStop and take it to institutional review before anything is collected. Approval processes are not optional and are not described anywhere in this week's material.
IfNo cooperating site can be found at all
ThenChange the site or change the question. The student submission discussed above reached the same conclusion independently, and it is the more defensible of the two routes the case leaves open.
What to carry forward
The same covert technique is framed unfavourably for a hypothetical student and favourably for a published researcher, on consecutive slides, with no criterion separating them.
The second task asks about a researcher's reasoning that the case as printed never states; the task cannot be completed as set.
The complete ethics content of these two weeks is one checklist line and one selection question — no principle, code, or approval process.
The ethical framework you need exists in this library's ethics stream, built from different material. Cite it there, not here.
The access case names four levels of gatekeeper and supplies no procedure for approaching any of them.
Frequently asked questions
Does the supplied material say covert research is unethical?
It says both and neither. One case calls covert participant observation a dangerous and ethically dubious method; the next presents a published covert ethnography as providing insight into an occupational culture. No principle is stated that would separate the two, and the material never acknowledges that it takes two positions.
How am I meant to answer the prompt about the researcher's reasoning?
As printed, you cannot. The case describes what the researcher did, that his superiors did not know, that the method is controversial and what the work produced. No justification or rationale is attributed to him anywhere in the passage, so there is no reasoning in the material to discuss.
Where does the ethical framework for these cases come from?
Not from these two weeks. Their entire ethics content is one design checklist item and one method-selection question, neither of which states a principle or a process. This library's ethics stream, built from a different week of the same teaching source, is where the principles, consent requirements and approval processes are set out.
What does the material say about negotiating access?
Only what the first case study shows: four levels of gatekeeper approached and four refusals, and then an offer of covert entry. No approach method, no guidance on what to offer an organisation, and no account of who can authorise research access appears anywhere in either week.
How long should the response to these case studies be?
The source states 300 words for the second case and nothing for the first, under a single instruction covering both. A reader cannot tell whether both cases are required, whether the count covers both, or whether the first is optional. The supplied student submission ran 285 words across both.
References and source attribution
Supplied teaching source, Week 9: The nature of qualitative research — slide deck, slides 22-23 (the two case studies under the header "Negotiating access / ethics and responsibility"), slide 13 (the "one of us" requirement) and slide 24 (the assignment statement).
Supplied teaching source, Week 7: Research Design — slide 12, the method-selection question naming ethics.
Supplied teaching source — a student submission answering both case studies, supplied with the teaching material and used here anonymised.
Holdaway 1982, 1983 — cited on the Week 9 slide as the subject of case study #2. The slide gives two publication years and no title or publisher, and the work cannot be constructed as a complete reference from what is supplied.
The prescribed text, cited on the slide only as "Text p 67. Research in focus 3.14: A case study". No author, year, title or publisher is given for it anywhere in either week; p. 67 falls inside the earlier week's set reading range of pp. 44-77.
Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press. Cited in the supplied student submission's reference list and listed in an earlier week's references of the supplied source.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
How should I frame an answer to a covert research case study when the material gives no framework?
What is the difference between the two covert research framings in this material?
Which library pages give me the ethical principles this week leaves out?
What should I do when access is refused by every gatekeeper I approach?
Why is the second case study prompt considered unanswerable as set?
