Читать книгу Social Work Research Methods - Reginald O. York - Страница 107

For most research studies, informed consent is required. This means that the study subjects have given their consent, and they were clearly informed about the risks and were truly given the opportunity to refrain from participation without coercion. In this process, information about risk should be complete. There are a few exceptions where consent is not required, but these situations rarely refer to human service evaluation studies, so they will not be discussed here.

A key issue is the subject’s ability to give informed consent. Research using children as research subjects often requires full review because children are not in a position to give fully informed consent. Research involving persons of limited literacy or intellectual ability requires more care in the assurance of this consent.

Not only must subjects give their consent, but they must also be given the opportunity to withdraw from participation at any time they desire. In this regard, the subject must be notified that there will be no penalty for withdrawal, such as losing service benefits.

Privacy refers to our ability to control access to information about ourselves. Confidentiality (for research subjects) refers to implied or explicit contracts among individuals about the sharing of information one person may have about another. To the extent feasible, privacy should be protected by the researchers.

There is a distinction between private behavior and public behavior. Public behavior can be observed for research purposes without the need for formal review of research proposals, whereas private behavior cannot. Private behavior is that behavior that one would normally expect to be private. This would include a conversation between two people alone on a park bench where there clearly is no one within hearing distance. The use of an electronic device for hearing conversations from someone 30 yards away could be interpreted as a violation of privacy because it would be reasonable for these individuals to believe that their conversation was private. However, the behavior of a group of people playing football in a park would be considered public behavior.