If your project might involve collecting information from participants regarding ANY of the nine ‘protected characteristics’ covered by the UK Equality Act 2010, then you must more carefully consider the questions you will ask of your participant.

The nine protected characteristics are:

• age
• sex/ gender
• disability
• gender reassignment
• marriage and civil partnership
• pregnancy and maternity
• race
• religion or belief
• sexual orientation

If you unaware of this law please first read the UK equality and human rights website (https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/equality-act/protected-characteristics). You must first consider whether it is really necesary to ask any questions of your participants about these characteristics, as it is better to not ask the question at all than ask the question incorrectly and upset or embarrass your participants. If you must ask questions on these areas, perhaps as the answer is pertinent to answering one of your research objecitves effectively, then be very careful about how you ask the question and what kinds of answers you expect. You must always give a way for your participants to not give an answer to this question, i.e. it must never be a compulsory question within an online survey. If you are asking this quesiton as a multiple-choice question, then you must give an 'I do not wish to disclose', 'Prefer not to say' or similar for one of your answers.

Helpful Resources

How to ask the gender question in surveys: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/collecting_info_gender_id.pdf

NHS guide to writing effecitve questionnaires (with advice about protected characteritics on p2): https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/bitesize-guide-writing-an-effective-questionnaire.pdf

SurveyMonkey advice about asking sentive questions: https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/ask-sensitive-questions-surveys/

HESA guidance on how to ask questions on the protected characteristics in surveys: https://www.ecu.ac.uk/guidance-resources/using-data-and-evidence/monitoring-questions/