I've seen some qualitative work on this, and I'm in the process of tracking down quantitative work as well. I've seen reasons cited like privacy (i.e., "I don't want him talking to strangers"), age and appropriateness of topics (i.e,. "I don't want her talking to a stranger about personal topics"). From the focus groups I've observed, I have a feeling that dad's of daughters are the group most likely to refuse participation. Is there any research to support that?
Any key papers on surveying teens and minors that I should be looking at? Any surveys using particularly innovative methods for increasing parent consent? I know the general survey methods literature well, but I'm wondering if there are good papers that might be hiding out there in other fields (or that passed under my radar). The context is phone, mail, and face-to-face surveys specifically, not school-based or doctor-based studies, or surveys where kids can opt themselves in without parent consent.
Thanks in advance for anything you have to share.
Hi Matt, I have not seen any research on this topic, but have done research within school systems and agree that is a different case, but there is a big difference between systems that require active consent, a returned permission slip from a parent vs. passive consent, sending notice to the parents and requiring them to opt out, in other words, no word from parents constitutes consent. But with regard to your general question, there has been an unbelievable growth in paranoia about the threat that adults pose to children in our society particular as compared to my youth, say 50 years ago. Even in most suburbs children no longer walk freely around the town, but instead are driven everywhere by parents due to fear of . . . something. We walked or rode our bikes starting probably from about second grade. This is unheard of now. Europeans, for example, are astonished when they visit the US over the ways in which we shelter children from threats that are largely imaginary. So although most parents probably don't have a specific threat in mind when they decline consent for their children to participate in a study, it conforms to the general notion that the world is full of threats to their children. Of course, our cause as researchers is not helped by the fact that marketers and political organizations pose as surveyors to advance their own purposes, so adults in our society have due cause to be suspicious of anyone claiming to be doing a survey. Doing research in other countries, I have not found this to be a problem. Bob
In Australia, for phone surveys using landlines, 'household refusal' is highest when recruiting men and a woman answers the phone. Women often refuse on behalf of their husbands or sons. When we recruit men directly by mobile, the gender difference disappears.
Thanks for these responses. I got so wrapped up in the research that I forgot to respond and at least say thanks. I'm working on a paper based on our experiment now.
@Bob, do you know would have statistics on parents' protectiveness (even cross-sectional would be fine). I'm trying to build the case that parents are more protective of younger teens and of girls v. boys. Standard searches, even in the academic literature, are proving unfruitful. What do you think it us about other cultures that makes a difference? We're seeing higher permission rates in Spanish language interviews (v. English), but haven't disentangled language from demographic differences of that group, or any other self-selection issues (PS - I could talk all day about fake surveys that give the good ones a bad name, but I want to stay on topic).
@Juliet, that's a really interesting finding. Is there something citable that reports it?
Thanks again.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Phytochemistry
- Extracts