RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

INFORMED CONSENT 53
be applied. Box 2.2 illustrates a set of guidelines
used in the United States that are based on the
idea of reasonably informed consent. 2
Comprehension refers to the fact that participants
fully understand the nature of the research project,
even when procedures are complicated and entail
risks. Suggestions have been made to ensure
that subjects fully comprehend the situation
they are putting themselves into, e.g. by using
highly educated subjects, by engaging a consultant
to explain difficulties, or by building into the
research scheme a time lag between the request
for participation and decision time.
If these four elements are present, researchers
can be assured that subjects’ rights will have been
given appropriate consideration. As Frankfort-
Nachmias and Nachmias (1992) note, however,
informed consent may not always be necessary (e.g.
deception may be justified), but that, as a general
rule, the greater the risk, the more important it is
to gain informed consent.
Ruane (2005: 21) also raises the question of ‘how
much information is enough’; she argues that this
may be an unknown, not necessarily deliberately
withheld. Further, just as providing information
may bias the results (i.e. it is important for the
integrity of the research not to disclose its purposes
Box 2.2
Guidelines for reasonably informed consent
1 A fair explanation of the procedures to be followed
and their purposes.
2 A description of the attendant discomforts and risks
reasonably to be expected.
3 A description of the benefits reasonably to be
expected.
4 A disclosure of appropriate alternative procedures
that might be advantageous to the participants.
5 An offer to answer any inquiries concerning the
procedures.
6 An instruction that the person is free to withdraw
consent and to discontinue participation in the
project at any time without prejudice to the
participant.
Source:USDepartmentofHealth,EducationandWelfare
et al.1971
or contents, e.g. the Milgram experiments, see
Chapter 21), she argues that it may actually
confuse the respondents.
It must also be remembered that there are
some research methods where it is impossible
to seek informed consent. Covert observation,
for example, as used in Patrick’s (1973)
study of a Glasgow gang (Chapter 11), or
experimental techniques involving deception,
as in Milgram’s (1974) obedience-to-authority
experiments (Chapter 21), would, by their very
nature, rule out the option. And, of course, there
may be occasions when problems arise even though
consent has been obtained. Burgess (1989), for
example, cites his own research in which teachers
had been informed that research was taking place
but in which it was not possible to specify exactly
what data would be collected or how they would
be used. It could be said, in this particular case,
that individuals were not fully informed, that
consent had not been obtained, and that privacy
had been violated. As a general rule, however,
informed consent is an important principle. It is
this principle that will form the basis of an implicit
contractual relationship between the researcher
and the researched and will serve as a foundation
on which subsequent ethical considerations can
be structured.
From the remarks on informed consent so far, we
may appear to be assuming relationships between
peers – researcher and teachers, for example, or
research professor and postgraduate students – and
this assumption would seem to underpin many of
the discussions of an ethical nature in the research
literature generally. However, much educational
research involves children who cannot be regarded
as being on equal terms with the researcher and
it is important to keep this in mind at all stages
in the research process, including the point where
informed consent is sought. In this connection we
refer to the important work of Fine and Sandstrom
(1988), whose ethnographic and participant
observational studies of children and young people
focus, among other issues, on this asymmetry with
respect to the problems of obtaining informed
consent from their young subjects and explaining
the research in a comprehensible fashion. As a
Chapter 2