Leaders on the Line: Exploring inner leadership online - Research project

Explanatory Statement and Invitation to participate: School Leaders

Monash University Project Reference: 2006-777LIR

Dear school leaders,

This information sheet is for you to download and keep.

My name is Dr. Brenda Beatty and I am a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Monash University.

As a person holding a position as a school leader, you are eligible to participate in this study. The aim of this study is to learn about the value of providing an online discussion forum for collaboratively pursuing the exploration of inner leadership with school leaders. I am also conducting this research to find out how if at all, your experiences in the online discussion may have flow on effects upon your experiences in school leadership. Possible benefits to you would include the provision of a private space within which to collaborate anonymously with other school leaders and to give and receive support from your professional peers. Possible benefits to society could include an enhanced appreciation for the way online discussion spaces may be valuable to school leaders and a deeper awareness of the challenges of school leadership.

The forum is a password protected private space. You will log in with a pseudonym that does not reveal your actual identity. In other words, this is an anonymous asynchronous discussion forum. The study involves your registration by providing me with your contact details. Only I will be informed of your actual identity. In discussion, you and the other participants will refrain from revealing details of your actual identity in your postings. This is designed to provide additional protection for your privacy and the confidentiality of anything you may wish to share. The procedural ethic of retaining this privacy is an important feature of our participation in this discussion forum together. All participants will be requested to acknowledge this in signing an informed consent form.

The forum will be made available to you as soon as there are sufficient registrants in your group. You may participate as little or as much as you desire. It would be helpful if you could plan to log in on a weekly basis and to plan as regularly as possible, to post something to the forum once a week. The forum will be maintained for approximately one year. It is estimated that you might spend as much as eight hours in participating in the forum over the course of one year. You are more than welcome to spend as much or as little time as you deem appropriate and useful to you.

Should you inadvertently post something that you wish to remove you will have editing privileges that will allow you to remove your postings after they have been submitted. This is to allow you to reflect upon what you have shared and if you change your mind, withdraw it from the forum space if you like. I have conducted a similar online forum with school leaders in six different countries including Australia. It is not anticipated that you will experience any risk or harm from your participation. However, should your identity become apparent to other participants the things you have said are still not traceable in any definitive way to yourself, given the use of the pseudonym.

In addition to your participation in the forum, you will be invited to complete a form giving various demographic details such as your age, gender, professional position, experience in leadership etc. Your completion of this form is helpful to me for analysing the data. You are entitled to provide or withhold information from this form at your discretion without any penalty or compromise to your participation in the study. This information will be kept in locked storage and destroyed with the rest of the data after 5 years.

Being in this study is completely voluntary - you are under no obligation to consent to participation. If you do decide to participate you may withdraw at any stage or avoid participating in topic discussions which you feel are too personal or intrusive.

The data you provide will be stored and analysed and reported on in a way that will not identify you in any way. The data will not, even in its raw state in the forum be associated with your actual identity. The forum is a password protected space that has been created for the exclusive use of this group. In analysing the data no identifying information will be used.

Storage of the data collected will adhere to the University regulations and be kept on University premises in a locked cupboard/filing cabinet for 5 years. A report of the study may be submitted for publication, but individual participants will not be identified in any way in such a report. In the use of the data in published journal articles, chapters, books or any other publication whatsoever, no participant will be named or identified in any way.

If you decide you would like to participate and that you have sufficient information to make this decision, please contact me via e-mail and I will send you an informed consent form for you to sign and return to me. You may do so with an electronic signature in an attachment to an e-mail or via regular post to the address below.

If you would like to be informed of the aggregate research finding, please email Brenda.Beatty@education.monash.edu.au.

Thank you for considering this invitation,

Dr. B. R. Beatty