Ray K. answered • 09/21/22
Sociology Tutor at Community College (3 years); BA in Sociology
When constructing an answer to this question, consider both the need for informed consent and the Belmont Report. Both of these are ethical considerations when working with human subjects.
Informed consent has three key parts:
1. The subjects must be adequately informed of potential risks and benefits.
2. The subjects are not under any coercion to participate or remain in the study.
3. The subject must be competent to make decisions about their participation.
The Belmont Report has three ethical principles:
- Respect for persons - individuals must be treated as autonomous persons capable of forming opinions and making decisions, and individuals with diminished autonomy should be granted protection. This can be a balancing act, as the need to respect the choices of a person with diminished autonomy to participate in research can clash with protecting them from coercion.
- Beneficence -
- do not harm
- maximize possible benefits and minimize possible harms
- Justice - this is about weighing who is bearing the risk and who is receiving the benefits of the research. If those that participate as research subjects will not be gaining the benefits of the research, is this fair? Consider medical research. Research subjects are often paid a fee. This can attract those with low or no income. However, if the research they are participating in has risks and it leads to the development of a medical procedure that is more expensive than low income people can afford, they are bearing the risks for the benefit of a group to which they do not belong, the wealthy.
Look at the requirements for informed consent and the principles of the Belmont Report. Read them with adolescents in mind. What issues do you see? Pick two, write about those issues and make sure to write which of those issues you think is the most important.
