RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

ACCESS AND ACCEPTANCE 55
Informed consent requires an explanation and
description of several factors, including, for
example:
the purposes, contents and procedures of the
research
any foreseeable risks and negative outcomes,
discomfort or consequences and how they will
be handled
benefits that might derive from the research
incentives to participate and rewards from
participating
right to voluntary non-participation, withdrawal
and rejoining the project
rights and obligations to confidentiality and
non-disclosure of the research, participants and
outcomes
disclosure of any alternative procedures that
may be advantageous
opportunities for participants to ask questions
about any aspect of the research
signed contracts for participation.
There are many more issues, and researchers will
need to decide what to include in informed
consent. Not least among these is the issue of
volunteering. Participants may feel coerced to
volunteer (e.g. by a school principal), or may
not wish to offend a researcher by refusing to
participate, or may succumb to peer pressure
to volunteer (or not to volunteer), or may
wish to volunteer for reasons other than the
researcher’s (e.g. to malign a school principal or
senior colleagues, to gain resources for his or her
department, or to gain approval from colleagues).
Researchers have to ensure that volunteers have
real freedom of choice if informed consent is to be
fulfilled.
Access and acceptance
The relevance of the principle of informed
consent becomes apparent at the initial stage
of the research project – that of access to the
institution or organization where the research
is to be conducted, and acceptance by those
whose permission one needs before embarking
on the task. We highlight this stage of access
and acceptance in particular at this point because
it offers the best opportunity for researchers to
present their credentials as serious investigators
and establish their own ethical position with
respect to their proposed research.
Investigators cannot expect access to a nursery,
school, college or university as a matter of
right. They have to demonstrate that they are
worthy, as researchers and human beings, of being
accorded the facilities needed to carry out their
investigations. The advice of Bell (1991: 37) is
to gain permission early on, with fully informed
consent gained, and indicating to participants the
possible benefits of the research.
The first stage thus involves the gaining of
official permission to undertake one’s research in
the target community. This will mean contacting,
in person or in writing, an appropriate official
and/or the chairperson of the governors if one is
to work in a school, along with the headteacher or
principal. At a later point, significant figures who
will be responsible for, or assist in, the organization
and administration of the research will also need to
be contacted – the deputy head or senior teacher,
for instance, and most certainly the class teacher
if children are to be used in the research. Since
the researcher’s potential for intrusion and perhaps
disruption is considerable, amicable relations with
the class teacher in particular should be fostered
as expeditiously as possible. If the investigation
involves teachers as participants, propositions
may have to be put to the stakeholders and
conditions negotiated. Where the research is to
take place in another kind of institution, e.g. a
youth club or detention centre, the approach will
be similar, although the organizational structure
will be different.
Achieving goodwill and cooperation is especially
important where the proposed research
extends over a period of time: days, perhaps,
in the case of an ethnographic study; months
(or perhaps years) where longitudinal research
is involved. Access does not present quite such
a problem when, for example, a one-off survey
requires respondents to give up half-an-hour of
their time or when a researcher is normally a
member of the organization where the research
Chapter 2