Power-over
Researchers often have dual roles. These other roles might include therapist, health care provider, caregiver, teacher or student.
These dual roles can create conflicts and power imbalances that might affect the consent of participants. You should do as much as you can to separate your role as a researcher from your other roles. If you’re acting in dual roles, you must always disclose this to your participants.
One way to separate your dual roles is to exclude the pool of participants who you have a direct power-over relationship with. You could also decide to include participants in the study only after you’re no longer in a power-over position. In some cases, you may choose to go forward with the study with participants you have a power-over relationship with.
While it may not be possible to eliminate all conflicts of interest, you must identify, minimize or otherwise manage individual conflicts in a satisfactory manner.
In item K.2, you may respond “yes,” “no” or “varies.” The “varies” category may be used by researchers who have more than 1 group of participants. If you have multiple research participants, and you are in a power-over relationship with some but not others, check “varies” and then provide an explanation.
If you plan to undertake research where you are in a direct power-over relationship, make sure you adequately respond to the 4 points in item K.2. Even when the research is of a non-sensitive nature, dual-role researchers must put safeguards in place to reduce potential inducement, pressure and coercion.
Influential relationships
Consider your relationship with family members, friends or close professional colleagues when it comes to research participation. While this may not constitute a true “power-over” relationship, you should consider safeguards to prevent any pressure to participate. This should be addressed in item 6e.v.
Safeguards
Safeguards for any particular study depends on the research design and its nature. Two frequently used strategies are third-party recruitment and third-party data collection.
Third-party recruitment
Third-party recruitment occurs when the dual-role researcher requests another person who does not have a power-over relationship with potential participants to recruit them.
This may include:
- explaining the study
- providing an information letter
- collecting signed consent forms
The third party is also the person that participants contact if they wish to withdraw from the study.
Third-party recruitment puts a distance between you and the potential participant. In some research designs, third-party recruitment completely eliminates the possibility of you ever knowing who chose to participate. In other designs, you may learn the identity of participants only if you are no longer in a power-over relationship.Depending on the nature of the study, the human research ethics board (HREB) may approve collecting data from participants while you are still in a power-over relationship as long as you use third-party recruitment. The HREB may require more safeguards depending on the nature of the research. For some studies, third-party data collection may be appropriate in addition to third-party recruitment.
Dual-role researcher
If you are a dual-role researcher, you must:
- explain why the dual-role research is justified and that ethical problems encountered in the dual role can be overcome
- explain the nature of the power-over relationship and how it will be explained to participants
- explain what safeguards will be put in place to prevent inducement, pressure and coercion during participation
- declare this dual role in your recruitment and informed consent materials
- inform participants that their decision to participate or to decline participation will not affect their access to services, grades, employment status, etc.
- ensure that at a minimum, third-party recruitment is used
- ensure that you have explained how you will prevent inducement, pressure and coercion during the recruitment stage of the research