Ethical considerations in recruiting unemployed participants for employment history research

Ethical Scenario

Without seeing the wording of the consent form, there is little evidence to support the rejection of the study. The British Psychological Society's guidelines on informed consent can be found on page 12 of the Code of Ethics and Conduct. They are attached in Appendix A. There is no evidence in the one-paragraph case write-up that the proposed study does not give ample opportunity for participations to understand the nature of the study (i). The consent form should explain this and the researchers also have the opportunity on multiple occasions to explain the nature and consequences of the study.

Line (ii) is adhered to, as all volunteers will be required to sign the consent form. The wording of the paragraph is "asked to sign," and this should be amended to clarify: volunteers will be required to sign, and they will sign immediately prior to the interview.

The paper consent form will be held as record (iii). There is no evidence in the write-up that the researchers will be ignorant to the possibility that some of the volunteers might lack capacity (iv). Lines (v), (vi) and (vii) are not applicable as there is opportunity to acquire informed consent. Line (viii) does not apply as prisoners will not be included in the study -- they would not be at a job centre to see the posting. Line (ix) applies to observational research and is therefore not applicable to this study. Line (x) also does not apply.

It is a reach to infer that there is some deception involved in this study, at least without seeing the interview questions. If one wanted to assume that the full and true nature of the study is for some reason being withheld from the participants (it certainly does not need to be), then even under that circumstance line (xi) does not apply. Line (xi) allows that withholding information is allowable to preserve the integrity of the research. If deception is assumed, it can be allowable under line (xii) if the nature of the study is revealed post-interview. Again, however, without evidence that deception is going to occur, there is no reasonable grounds for rejecting the application based on lines (xi) or (xii). These are the only twelve clauses in 1.3 Standard of Informed Consent. None of these clauses is explicitly violated, so any rejection would have to be done on the basis of the actual interview questions, which are not included in the case study provided.