Informed Consent, Error and Suspending Ignorance: Providing Knowledge or Preventing Error?
Arnon Keren, Ori Lev
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 26 February 2022
Abstract
The standard account of informed consent has recently met serious criticism, focused on the mismatch between its implications and widespread intuitions about the permissibility of conducting research and providing treatment under conditions of partial knowledge. Unlike other critics of the standard account, we suggest an account of the relations between autonomy, ignorance, and valid consent that avoids these implausible implications while maintaining the standard core idea, namely, that the primary purpose of the disclosure requirement of informed consent is to prevent autonomy-undermining ignorance. The problem with the standard account, we argue, is that it fails to distinguish between different forms of ignorance–in particular, error and suspending ignorance–that have very different effects on individuals’ ability to provide valid consent. While error often undermines our ability to provide valid consent, suspending ignorance, we argue, does not. Once the moral weight of this distinction is appreciated, it becomes apparent that valid informed consent requires far less knowledge than suggested by the standard account.

Lack of Informed Consent Form Reading in Online Studies
Case Study
Michael M. Knepp
SAGE Research Methods: Doing Research Online, 2022
Abstract
This case study will discuss the design and, unlike most methods cases, findings of an experiment in order to highlight issues around collecting informed consent and help the reader decide how to best obtain informed consent for their project. My interest in this field of research began when a colleague of mine conducted a study where multiple subjects withdrew during the second hour of his study when requested to do an awkward stress task. That situation inspired a study exploring the rates at which subjects read informed consent forms before signing them. This investigation emphasized how one could improve a severe lack of reading consent forms in an online setting where there is no additional researcher oversight. Four hundred fifty-eight students participated in a study advertised as an adult temperament study. The study actually examined whether answering five questions about the informed consent form improved the likelihood of noticing a manipulation placed in the form’s method section in the laboratory and online settings. The additional questions did improve reading the full form in both laboratory and online settings; yet, overall reading rates were still low. The study concluded that there are serious online research consent issues given subject reading rates in the online setting as only 13% of students in the online-no questions read enough of the form to notice the manipulation.

Ethics and consent in more-than-human research: Some considerations from/with/as Gumbaynggirr Country, Australia
Aunty Shaa Smith, Uncle Bud Marshall, Neeyan Smith, Sarah Wright, Lara Daley, Paul Hodge
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 21 November 2021
Open Access
Abstract
A considerable body of recent work within the social sciences has attempted to engage more deeply with place, place-based knowledge, and more-than-human agency. Yet what this might look like in relation to ethical research practice, especially in the case of research proceeding on unceded Indigenous lands, is unclear. Taking more-than-human agency seriously means ethical research practice must be extended beyond a human-centric approach. As a Gumbaynggirr and non Gumbaynggirr research collective researching on, with, and as Gumbaynggirr Country in so-called Australia, we offer a contribution to discussions of research ethics and protocols that centres the consent of Country: the lands, waters, and skies of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander homelands, and the human and more-than-human beings that co-become there. In this paper, we share some of our learnings and discuss how we have tried not just to listen to Country but also to honour its agencies, knowledges, and sovereignties. As part of this honouring, we prioritise in particular the deeply placed Gumbaynggirr knowledges of Aunty Shaa Smith and Uncle Bud Marshall to explore what being guided by Gumbaynggirr Law/Lore and sovereignty means in practice and the challenges and possibilities of gaining consent of Country in ways underpinned by Indigenous Law/Lore. We propose a more expansive understanding of consent that includes attention to more- than- human sovereignties and draw on our collective’s learning to reframe the need for limits on research as openings rather than closures. In sharing our Gumbaynggirr-led and Country-led perspectives, we aim to deepen decolonising research praxis within human geography and the social sciences more broadly.

Editor’s note: We note that the article references the knowledges of Aunty Shaa Smith and Uncle Bud Marshall while also being lead authors on the paper.

Informed Consent: A Monthly Review
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March 2022

This digest aggregates and distills key content addressing informed consent from a broad spectrum of peer-reviewed journals and grey literature, and from various practice domains and organization types including international agencies, INGOs, governments, academic and research institutions, consortiums and collaborations, foundations, and commercial organizations. We acknowledge that this scope yields an indicative and not an exhaustive digest product.

Informed Consent: A Monthly Review is a service of the Center for Informed Consent Integrity, a program of the GE2P2 Global Foundation. The Foundation is solely responsible for its content. Comments and suggestions should be directed to:

Editor
Paige Fitzsimmons, MA
Associate Director, Center for Informed Consent Integrity
GE2P2 Global Foundation
paige.fitzsimmons@ge2p2global.org
PDF Version: GE2P2 Global_Informed Consent – A Monthly Review_March 2022