Educational Advantage

Abstract

This issue examines three kinds of nontraditional research methods that are not always easily described in a standard research protocol: community-based participatory research, action research, and online survey research. In each of these methods, the researcher relates to a community and in a way that differs from the medical model of the researcher-participant relationship. An essential aspect of each of these methods is that the researcher cannot exercise as much control over the research context as in many of the more traditional research paradigms. Each of these articles presents concepts and methods that researchers and ethics committees can use to explore the ethical questions they encounter in relation to these methods, and thus develop for themselves new ethical problem-solving skills. A brief research report by Walkup and Bock describes how the presuppositions that research participants bring to their reading of informed consent statements can cause the standard elements of consent to be confusing and result in misinformation. Here, we examine ways to identify these problems and justify appropriate waiver of certain elements of informed consent.