Invitation to Participate in Doctoral Research

Study Title: Through Our Eyes: Witnessing Belonging, Precarity, and Possibility in Higher Education

Researcher: Amy Tucker, DSocSci Candidate, Royal Roads University
Supervisor: [Supervisory Committee, Royal Roads University]
Ethics Approval: TRU Protocol H25-04204 · RRU Protocol H25-00572

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What Is This Research About?

I am a doctoral researcher and a faculty member at Thompson Rivers University. For the past nineteen years, I have taught business ethics to international students, and for nineteen years I have had the growing sense that the university system I work inside is extracting something from students that it never returns.

This study asks: what does belonging look and feel like at TRU, from the perspective of students who came here from somewhere else? What does the gap between the university’s promises and the lived reality look like, through your eyes, in your own photographs?

This is participatory visual research. That means you are the researcher here, as much as I am. Your photographs and your interpretations of them are the evidence this study is built on.

Who Can Participate?

You are eligible to participate if you are:

• An international student currently enrolled at Thompson Rivers University (Kamloops campus)
• 18 years of age or older
• Able to communicate in English (additional language support is available)
• Willing to spend approximately 8–10 hours over a six-week period on research activities

What Would Participation Involve?

If you choose to participate, you would:

• Attend a two-hour photography workshop (scheduled at a time convenient for participants)
• Take photographs over a two-week period on your smartphone or any camera you have access to
• Attend one group photo-discussion session (approximately two hours)
• Participate in one individual interview about your photographs (approximately 60–90 minutes)
• Attend a closing group debrief session (approximately 90 minutes)

What Are the Risks?

The topics in this study (belonging, exclusion, precarity) can bring up difficult experiences. You are never required to share anything you are uncomfortable sharing. You can stop at any point, skip any question, or withdraw from the study entirely.

Your participation or decision to withdraw will have zero effect on your academic standing, your relationship with TRU, or your immigration status. The researcher is a faculty member at TRU, and this creates a potential power imbalance. This study was designed specifically to protect you from that imbalance. Your course registration, your grades, and your institutional standing are entirely separate from this research.

What Are the Benefits?

Your experience and your knowledge matter. This research is designed to produce knowledge that comes from you rather than about you. Participants in studies like this one often describe the photography and discussion process as meaningful: a rare opportunity to have their analysis of their own experience taken seriously as scholarship.

The research findings will be shared openly, including through this public website, so that the students and communities this work concerns can access it.

Your Rights as a Participant

• Participation is entirely voluntary
• You may withdraw at any time, for any reason, without consequence
• You own your photographs and may withdraw any image at any time
• Your identity will be protected through the use of researcher-assigned pseudonyms
• You will have the opportunity to review transcripts and emerging analysis before the dissertation is finalized

How Do I Find Out More or Sign Up?

To ask questions or indicate your interest in participating, please contact:

Amy Tucker
DSocSci Candidate, Royal Roads University
ORCID: 0009-0006-9872-2248
[Contact information on file with ethics boards]

You can also visit the research website at throughoureyes.trubox.ca for more information about the study.

This study has been reviewed and approved by the Research Ethics Boards of Thompson Rivers University (Protocol H25-04204) and Royal Roads University (Protocol H25-00572). If you have concerns about the ethical conduct of this research, you may contact either ethics board directly.