One of the basic ethical requirements of psychological research is “informed consent.” Informed consent means not only that you get a formal agreement from the participants that they are “willing to participate in your experiment,” but you also fully inform them of their rights as a participant.

In order for a participant to decide whether s/he would like to participate, it is necessary for them to know what the experiment is about. It may make a difference to a participant if they know that as part of an experiment they are simply going to memorize words, be asked to watch violent movies, or be asked to talk about a tragic experience in the past.

Although the experiments that we do for internal assessment do not have any really “controversial” issues that would lead to some people saying that they would not participate, it is still necessary for you to obtain consent as part of your IA. Failure to do so compromises your report.

A blank copy of your consent letter must be included in an appendix of your report.

When you get participants to sign the letter of consent, this is an important moment to collect demographic data about your participants.  When writing your letter of consent, think carefully about what types of demographic information you will need that is relevant to the aim of your experiment. 

Remember, too, that if your participants are younger than sixteen years old, you must have parental consent as well. Below please find a sample copy of a letter of consent. It is important that when you write your letter of consent, that it is relevant to the study that you are going to replicate.

Sample letter of consent