Can digital technologies support children's participation in research?
New research will explore the potential of using digital technologies for informed consent with children and young people.
Children and young people are often excluded from participation in beneficial research due to perceived difficulties with gaining their consent and there has been very limited exploration of the role that digital technologies could play in supporting children’s access to information and autonomous decision-making.
Southampton Education School has recently received an award from the Faculty of Social, Human and Mathematical Sciences' Strategic Interdisciplinary Research Development Fund (SIRD) to investigate this further.
Dr Sarah Parsons will be exploring the potential of using digital technologies for informed consent with children and young people, in collaboration with Dr Mike Wald and E.A. Draffan in ECS.
This research will provide an evidence-based rationale for focusing on digital technologies, as well as understanding more about the context in which any future digital resources would be used. Focus groups looking at the potential of using technologies for informed consent processes with children and young people are planned alongside interviews and on line surveys.
The collaboration also includes Dr Chris Abbott from KCL and Dr Chris Davies and Dr Lorna McKnight from the Centre for Research into Assistive Learning Technologies at Kellogg College, Oxford.
The project will run to September 2013.