7.7 Voluntary Participation and Informed Consent

An individual is entitled to decline to participate in any research project or to terminate participation at any time. Participation in an experiment, survey, or focus group is always voluntary and any form of coercion is unacceptable. Researchers who are in a position of authority over subjects (as in the situation where the researcher hands the university students questionnaires) should be especially sensitive to implied coercion: even though the researcher might tell the class that failure to participate will not affect their grades, many students may not believe this. In such a situation, it would be advisable to keep the questionnaires anonymous and to have the person in authority be absent from the room while the survey is administered.

Voluntary participation is a less pressing ethical issue in mail and telephone surveys, since respondents are free to hang up the phone or to throw away the questionnaire. Nonetheless, a researcher should not attempt to induce subjects to participate by misrepresenting the organization sponsoring the research or by exaggerating its purpose or importance. For example, phone interviewers should not be instructed to identify themselves as representatives of the "Department of Information" to mislead people into thinking the survey is government-sponsored. Likewise, mail questionnaires should not be constructed to mimic census forms, tax returns, social security questionnaires, or other official government forms.

Closely related to voluntary participation is the notion of informed consent.  For people to volunteer for a research project, they need to know enough about the project to make an intelligent choice. Researchers have the responsibility to inform potential subjects or respondents of all features of the project that can reasonably be expected to influence participation. Respondents should understand that an interview may take as long as 45 minutes, or that a second interview is required, or that upon completing a mail questionnaire, they may be singled out for a telephone interview.

In an experiment, informed consent means that potential subjects must be warned of any possible discomfort or unpleasantness that might be involved. Subjects should be told if they are to receive or administer electric shocks, be subjected to unpleasant audio or visual stimuli, or undergo any procedure that may cause concern. Any unusual measurement techniques that may be used also must be described. Researchers have an obligation to answer candidly and truthfully, as far as possible, all the participant's questions about the research.

Experiments that involve deception (see the following subsection) cause special problems with regard to obtaining informed consent. If deception is absolutely necessary to conduct an experiment, is the experimenter obligated to inform subjects that they may be deceived during the upcoming experiment? Will such a disclosure affect participation in the experiment? Will it also affect the experimental results? Should one compromise by telling all potential subjects that deception to be involved for some participants but not for others?

A second problem is deciding exactly how much information about a research project must be disclosed in seeking to achieve informed consent. Is it enough to explain that the experiment involves rating commercials, or is it necessary to add that the experiment is designed to test whether subjects with high IQs prefer different commercials from those with low IQs? Obi-\\ovs\f, msorrie situations the researcher cannot reveal everything about the project for fear of contaminating the results. For example, if the goal of the research is to examine the influence of peer pressure on commercial evaluations, alerting the subjects to this facet of the investigation might change their behavior in the experiment.

Problems might occur in research examining the impact of mass media in non-literate communities, for example, if the research subjects did not comprehend what they were told regarding the proposed investigation. Even in literate societies, many people fail to understand the implications for confidentiality of the storage of survey data on computer disks or tape. Moreover, an investigator might not have realized in advance that some subjects would find part of an experiment or survey emotionally disturbing. Since it is impossible for informed consent to apply to all situations, the American Psychological Association has suggested that researchers have a responsibility to continue their attention to subjects' welfare after the completion of data collection.

Research findings provide some indication of what research participants should be told. Subjects always want a general description of the experiment and what was expected of them; they want to know whether danger was involved, how long the experiment would last, and the experiment's purpose. As far as informed consent and survey participation are concerned. There is a wide variation among researchers about what to tell respondents in the survey introduction. Almost all introductions identified the research organization and the interviewer by name and described the research topic. Less frequently mentioned in introductions were the sponsor of the research and guarantees of confidentiality or anonymity. Few survey introductions mentioned the length of the survey or that participation was voluntary.

Finally, one must consider the form of the consent to be obtained. Written consent is a requirement in certain government-sponsored research programs and may also be required by many university research review committees, as discussed next in connection with guidelines promulgated by the federal government. In several generally recognized situations, however, signed forms are regarded as impractical. These include telephone surveys, mail surveys, personal interviews, and cases in which the signed form itself might represent an occasion for breach of confidentiality. For example, a respondent who has been promised anonymity as an inducement to participate in a face-to-face interview might be suspicious if asked to sign a consent form after the interview. In these circumstances, the fact that the respondent agreed to participate is taken as implied consent.

7.8 Concealment and Deception  

Concealment and deception techniques are encountered most frequently in experimental research. Concealment is the withholding of certain information from the subjects; deception is deliberately providing false information. Both practices raise ethical problems. The difficulty in obtaining consent has already been mentioned. A second problem derives from the general feeling that it is wrong for experimenters to lie or otherwise to deceive subjects.

Many critics argue that deception transforms a subject from a human being into a manipulated object and is therefore demeaning to the participant. Moreover, once subjects have been deceived, they are likely to expect to be deceived again in other research projects. At least two research studies seem to suggest that this concern is valid. Studies have found that high incidence of suspicion among subjects of high school age after having been deceived.

On the other hand, some researchers argue that certain studies could not be conducted at all without the use of deception. They claim that the harm done to those who are deceived is outweighed by the benefits of the research to scientific knowledge. The same arguments can be used both for and against concealment. In general, however, concealment is a somewhat less worrisome ethical problem, provided enough information is given to subjects to allow informed consent and all the subjects' questions are answered candidly.

Obviously, deception is not a technique that should be used indiscriminately. It is suggested that before the investigator settles on deception as an experimental tactic, three questions should be examined:

1. How significant is the proposed study?

2. Are alternative procedures available that would provide the same information?

3. How severe is the deception? (It is one thing to tell subjects that the experimentally constructed message they are reading was taken from the New York Times; it is another to report that the test a subject has just completed was designed to measure latent suicidal tendencies.)

Another set of criteria was put forth by Elms (1982), who suggested five necessary and sufficient conditions under which deception can be considered ethically justified in social science research.

1. When there is no other feasible way to obtain the desired information

2. When the likely benefits substantially outweigh the likely harms

3. When subjects are given the option to withdraw at any time without penalty

4. When any physical or psychological harm to subjects is temporary

5. When subjects are debriefed as to all substantial deception and the research procedures are made available for public review

Researchers are offered good advice for the planning stages of investigations.

When an experiment is concluded, especially one involving concealment or deception, it is the responsibility of the investigator to debrief subjects. Debriefing should be thorough enough to remove any lasting effects that might have been created by the experimental manipulation or by any other aspect of the experiment. Subjects' questions should be answered and the potential value of the experiment stressed. How common is debriefing among mass media researchers?

7.9 Protection of Privacy

The problem of protecting the privacy of participants usually occurs more often in survey research than in laboratory studies. Subjects have a right to know whether their privacy will be maintained and who will have access to the information they provide. There are two ways to guarantee privacy: by assuring anonymity and by assuring confidentiality. A promise of anonymity is a guarantee that a given respondent cannot possibly be linked to any particular response. In many research projects anonymity is an advantage, since it encourages respondents to be honest and candid in their answers. Strictly speaking, personal and telephone interviews cannot be anonymous because the researcher can link a given questionnaire to a specific person, household, or telephone number. In such instances, the researcher should promise confidentiality; that is, the respondents should be assured that even though as individuals they can be identified, their names will never be publicly associated with the information they provide. A researcher should never use "anonymous" in a way that is or seems to be synonymous with "confidential."

Additionally, respondents should be told who will have access to the information they provide. The researcher's responsibility for assuring confidentiality does not end once the data have been analyzed and the study concluded. Questionnaires that identify persons by name should not be stored in public places, nor should other investigators be given permission to examine confidential data unless all identifying marks have been obliterated.

7.10 Ethics in Data Analysis and Reporting

Researchers are also responsible for maintaining professional standards in the analysis and reporting of their data. The ethical guidelines in this area are less controversial and more clear-cut. One cardinal rule is that researchers have a moral and ethical obligation to refrain from tampering with data: questionnaire responses and experimental observations may not be fabricated, altered, or discarded. Similarly, researchers are expected to maintain reasonable care in processing the data to guard against needless errors that might affect the results.

Researchers should never conceal information that might influence the interpretation of their findings. For example, if two weeks elapsed between the testing of the experimental group and the testing of the control group, this delay should be reported so that other researchers can discount the effects of history and maturation on the results. Every research report should contain a full and complete description of method, particularly of any departure from standard procedures.

Since science is a public activity, researchers have an ethical obligation to share their findings and methods with other researchers. All questionnaires, experimental materials, measurement instruments, instructions to subjects, and other relevant items should be made available to those who wish to examine them.

Finally, all investigators are under an ethical obligation to draw conclusions from their data that are consistent with those data. Interpretations should not be stretched or distorted to fit a personal point of view or a favorite theory, or to gain or maintain a client's favor. Nor should researchers attribute greater significance or credibility to their data than they justify For example, when analyzing correlation coefficients obtained from a large sample, it is possible to achieve statistical significance with an r of only, for example, 10. It would be perfectly acceptable to report a statistically significant result in this case, but the investigator should also mention that the predictive utility of the correlation was not large, and specifically, that it explained only 1% of the total variation. In short, researchers should report results with candor and honesty.

7.11 Finding Support for Research

Research costs money. Finding a source for research funds is a problem that confronts both quantitative and qualitative researchers in all fields of social science.

A researcher in need of funding should contact these organizations for details about the types of studies they support and the amount of funds available, as well as instructions for preparing research proposals.

University or college researchers should determine whether the institution has a program of research grants for individual faculty members. Many colleges award such grants, often on a competitive basis, for social research. Typically these grants are modest in size — usually under $5,000 — but they are among the easiest to apply for and to administer. In many cases grants are available for student research as well.

 Finally, most colleges and universities have an Office of Contracts and Grants (or some similar title) that can be of great help to researchers. In addition to aiding the researcher with the bureaucratic requirements necessary for a grant application, this office can offer valuable assistance in other areas. For example, this office might offer computerized searches for sponsoring agencies, information about current grants, budget advice, preparation of abstracts, and even word-processing services. Researchers in the academic setting should take advantage of this resource.