ABSTRACT
Punch (1994) remarks that little formal, practical training is available to emerging researchers; hence, novice researchers have little practice negotiating unexpected dilemmas before entering the field. Although additional training might be useful, any education cannot possibly cover the wide array of scenarios that can develop. One way to increase novice researchers’ skills and confidence related to unexpected ethical issues is to learn from others. Hence, this project (Chambers, 2014) set out to document strategies deployed by doctoral students to manage unexpected ethical dilemmas in their qualitative research. Ten novice researchers were interviewed about their experiences in negotiating ethics in practice whilst completing qualitative PhD projects within the social sciences. The sample included two types of participants: PhD candidates, who had completed data collection for at least three months, and PhD graduates, who had completed within the last seven years. Participants had undertaken study at five institutions. All the participants had undergone procedural ethics review prior to beginning their PhD projects, and all novice researchers experienced unexpected ethical issues.
