Cover: An Assessment of Active Versus Passive Methods for Obtaining Parental Consent
Read Online

An Assessment of Active Versus Passive Methods for Obtaining Parental Consent

by Phyllis L. Ellickson, Jennifer Hawes-Dawson

Download

Download Free Electronic Document

FormatFile SizeNotes
PDF file 0.6 MB

Use Adobe Acrobat Reader version 10 or higher for the best experience.

Purchase

Purchase Print Copy

 FormatList Price Price
Add to Cart Paperback11 pages $20.00 $16.00 20% Web Discount

This study provides new information on how passive and active consent methods work in practice. Based on results from two junior high schools, the authors found that (1) almost all parents received consent packages sent by regular first class mail, but getting them to pay attention to the materials often required additional communication methods; (2) nonresponse to passive consent typically reflected conscious parental approval; (3) nonresponse to active consent generally signified latent consent, not a deliberate refusal; and (4) vigorous retrieval methods substantially raised active consent response rates, but at a high cost in time and money. These findings suggest that passive consent can provide a viable alternative to active consent when supplemented by appropriate backup and privacy safeguard measures.

This report is part of the RAND Corporation Note series. The note was a product of the RAND Corporation from 1979 to 1993 that reported other outputs of sponsored research for general distribution.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.