Characteristics of adolescents who provide neither parental consent nor refusal for participation in school-based survey research

Schools offer a convenient setting for research on adolescents. However, obtaining active written parental consent is difficult. In a 6th-grade smoking study, students were recruited with two consent procedures: active consent (parents must provide written consent for their children to participate) and implied consent (children may participate unless their parents provide written refusal). Of 4,427 invited students, 3,358 (76%) provided active parental consent, 420 (9%) provided active parental refusal, and 649 (15%) provided implied consent (parental nonresponse). The implied consent procedure recruited more boys, African Americans, students with poor grades, and smokers. This dual-consent procedure is useful for collecting some limited data from students who do not provide active consent or refusal.     

Differential attrition rates and active parental consent.

Active parental consent in survey research poses ethical and practical concerns. One common argument against the requirement of active consent procedures is its effect on participation rates. There is additional concern that higher risk groups may be underrepresented in the final sample. Empirical support of differential attrition, however, is lacking. In the current multisite longitudinal study, passive consent procedures were approved for the collection of pretest data. For subsequent years of data collection, active parental consent procedures were required. In this article, we use the pretest data to examine demographic, attitudinal, and behavioral differences between those students for whom active consent was provided and those for whom active consent was either denied or for whom no response was received. The results indicate that active consent procedures produce deleterious effects on participation rates and lead to an underrepresentation of at-risk youth in the sample.     

The effect of active parental consent on the ability to generalize the results of an alcohol,tobacco, and other drug prevention trial to rural adolescents

The authors report the effect of active parental consent on sample bias among rural seventh graders participating in a drug abuse prevention trial. Students obtaining active consent from their parents to complete the survey were of higher academic standing, missed fewer days of school, and were less likely to participate in the special education program at their school as compared to students who did not return a parental consent form. However, students with consent were not significantly different from students whose parents actively declined. The sample obtained under active parental consent represents students less at risk for problem behaviors than would have been obtained under passive consent procedures.     

Sensitive research with adolescents: just how upsetting are self-report surveys anyway?

Distress related to answering personal survey questions about drug use, suicidal behavior, and physical and sexual abuse were examined in multiple convenience samples of adolescents. Samples varied in consent procedures utilized (active vs. passive parental consent), data collection setting (school vs. juvenile justice), developmental level (middle school vs. high school). Participation rates differed across consent procedures (e.g., 93% with passive vs. 62% with active parental consent). Results indicated that small percentages of adolescents in every sample reported frequently feeling upset while completing the survey (range 2.5% to 7.6%). Age, race, gender, and data collection strategy did not emerge as significant predictors of feeling upset. Instead, as hypothesized, adolescents reporting a history of suicidal ideation or attempt, illicit drug use, or experiences of physical or sexual victimization endorsed more frequent feelings of upset while completing the survey than peers without these experiences. Taken together, however, these sensitive event experiences explained only 6.6% of the variance in adolescents' upset ratings. The scientific and ethical implications of these findings are discussed with regard to adolescent participation in survey research about sensitive topics.     

The impact of child obesity on active parental consent in school-based survey research on healthy eating and physical activity

Previous studies have shown that active consent procedures result in sampling bias in surveys dealing with adolescent risk behaviors such as cigarette smoking and illicit drug use. To examine sampling bias from active consent procedures when the survey topic pertains to childhood obesity and associated health behaviors, the authors pair data obtained from both active and passive consent procedures. The authors find that parents of children who are overweight or at risk for being overweight are significantly less likely to give active consent. In addition, parents of children enrolled in lower grades are more reluctant to consent to participate.     

Active parental consent in school-based research. An examination of ethical and methodological issues

To date, most school-based research has used passive parental consent. However, the Family Privacy Protection Act of 1995 aims to change these requirements. The proposed legislation requires written parental consent if minors are to be asked "sensitive" questions as part of any program or activity funded in whole or in part by the federal government. This act is representative of a growing trend toward restricting research involving minors. Whether or not this act is passed by Congress, two lines of concern are highlighted by this legislation. The first deals with ethical issues surrounding consent procedures. For instance, are parental rights compromised when active consent is not mandated? A second line of inquiry pertains to the effect of active consent procedures on response rates and sample bias. In this article, the authors discuss ethical issues surrounding passive and active consent procedures and then report response rates from two projects in which active consent procedures were implemented.     

A comparison of methods to obtain active parental consent for an international student survey

Many school-based research efforts require active parental consent for student participation. Maximizing rates of consent form return and agreement is an important issue, because sample representativeness may be compromised when these rates are low. This article compares two methods for obtaining active parental consent: return of consent forms in the mail versus return by students to their classrooms. The methods were tested in a pilot study of 46 schools (1,058 students), with half of the schools randomly allocated to each of the alternative methods. A hierarchical nonlinear model of consent form return and agreement rates suggests that the student-delivered method is more successful at producing higher rates of consent form return and agreement to participate in the study, after controlling for school-level characteristics. The authors discuss the findings and their implications for other researchers engaged in school-based research with adolescents.     

How does active parental consent influence the findings of drug-use surveys in schools?

This study examines the impact of passive and active parental consent procedures on the type of adolescents participating in a school-based survey examining substance use. Schools recruited from a random sample of metropolitan schools were assigned to passive or active parental consent condition. Results showed that participation rates in active consent schools were lower than in passive consent schools for junior students (60% vs. 80%) but not senior students. Although consent condition had limited impact on prevalence estimates among older students, among younger students estimates of cannabis use and ecstasy use were higher in the passive consent condition than the active consent condition. Active consent procedures introduce some degree of selection bias into studies of adolescents' substance use and may compromise the external validity of prevalence estimates produced, especially among younger students.     

Do participation rates change when active consent procedures replace passive consent

Researchers face considerable ambiguity and controversy regarding the issue of informed consent. Decisions about consent procedures can affect study participation rates and prevalence estimates among specific populations. Changing from passive to active parental consent procedures was examined in a case study with an anonymous survey of sixth- through eighth-grade students' substance use. Four types of procedures for obtaining parental consent were examined. Results suggest that certain types of consent procedures can yield high levels of participation. This study also demonstrates that low participation rates with some active consent procedures can cause biases in sample characteristics and outcome data.     

Active parental consent in school-based research: how much is enough and how do we get it?

Active parental consent policies have been blamed for low participation rates and selection bias (i.e., loss of "high-risk" youths) in school-based studies. In this article, the authors describe active consent procedures that produced an overall active consent rate of 79% in a sample of more than 4,500 middle school students attending 29 schools in seven cities across the United States. Consent rates, however, varied considerably both within and between schools. To better understand factors associated with active parental consent rates, the authors examined district-level, school-level, and teacher-specific effects on consent rates.     

“They Always Ask What I'm Doing and Who I'm Talking to”: Parental Mediation of Adolescent Interactive Technology Use

Burgeoning technology provides instant access to information and communication. Responsible adults are concerned about the material accessed by adolescent technology users. From an ecological system's lens, using a mixed-methods design, the current study identified adolescent and parent perceptions of parental mediation of adolescent interactive technology use (i.e., cell phones, Internet). Eighty adolescents (16–18 years of age) and their parents (n = 113) participated in the study that identified generational differences in perceptions of parental mediation, techniques for mediating interactive technology (i.e., monitoring data and usage, active mediation, rules, restriction), and adolescent perceptions of the process of parental mediation. We used the results to propose principles for parental mediation of adolescent interactive technology use and provide directions for future research.     

The Relations Between Parents' Smoking, General Parenting, Parental Smoking Communication, and Adolescents' Smoking

The present study examined whether the associations between general parenting practices (i.e., support, behavioral control, and psychological control) and parental smoking on the one hand and older and younger siblings' smoking on the other were mediated by parental smoking communication (i.e., frequency and quality of parent–adolescent communication concerning smoking-related issues). The focus of this paper was on examining whether these associations of parental actions and adolescents' smoking were different in older and younger siblings within the family. Participants were 428 Dutch families (mother, father, and their 2 adolescent siblings aged 13–17). The results of parent and adolescent reports indicated that general parenting practices and parental smoking were associated with parental smoking communication, which, in turn, was related with adolescent smoking. The magnitude of the associations between parenting and adolescent smoking did not differ between older and younger siblings. Supportive parents were generally more likely to engage in a high quality communication about smoking with their adolescent children; this was related to a lower likelihood to smoke. Parents who exerted psychological control were more likely to talk more frequently with their adolescents on smoking matters, which in turn, relates to a higher likelihood to smoke. Also, smoking parents were less likely to have high-quality parent–adolescent communication that relates to higher likelihoods to smoke. In general, the findings were similar across reporters. Implications for prevention are addressed.     

Research with Children and Young People: The Issue of Parental (Proxy) Consent

This study examines the potential problems with the parental consent requirement, substantiated with examples mainly from healthcare and social research studies. This will illustrate how the parental consent requirement, instead of promoting high ethical standards, may result in some instances of children’s rights and ethical considerations being ignored or receiving cursory attention. The ‘blanket’ requirement of parental consent for all research involving children under the age of 18 years needs to be challenged as it fails to recognise children’s capacities and accord children due respect as persons in their own right. Flexible ethical guidelines should be developed that take cognisance of children’s competence in contemporary society and at the same time protects children from inappropriate research and procedures.     

The Relationship Between Nonsuicidal Self‐Injury and Family Functioning: Adolescent and Parent Perspectives

We explored parent and adolescent reports of family functioning, how this differed if the parent was aware that their child self‐injured, and how parental awareness of self‐injury was related to self‐injury frequency, self‐injury severity, and help seeking. Participants were 117 parent–adolescent dyads, in 23 of which the adolescent self‐injured. Adolescents who self‐injured reported poorer family functioning than their parents, but parents who did not know about their child's self‐injury reported similar functioning to parents whose children did not self‐injure. Parents were more likely to know that their child self‐injured when the behavior was severe and frequent. Help‐seeking was more likely when parents knew about self‐injury. Family‐based interventions which emphasize perspective‐taking could be used to effectively treat self‐injury.     

A Comparison of Methods of Increasing Parental Consent Rates in Social Research

Previous research on children requiring written parental consenthas indicated that this requirement reduces samples to halfthe size they might otherwise be and results in overrepresentationof whites and underrepresentation of blacks. Within the courseof a four-year study, four methods were utilized to increaseparental consent rates, particularly for black students. Allmethods increased consent rates. Providing an incentive to theparents increased consent rates significantly more for the whitestudents than for the black students, while communication withthe children and incentives to the children resulted in consentrates which were more similar for the two racial groups. Communicationwith the parents was the most effective method for both blackand white children, but was also the most time consuming.     

Experiences of adolescent mothers in Costa Rica and the role of parental support

ABSTRACT

Adolescent pregnancy is often thought of as a social problem, one that can cause the adolescent mother hardship, including poverty, low-educational attainment, and housing instability. Although much research has been conducted about adolescent pregnancy in the developed world, less has considered adolescent pregnancy in the developing world. This qualitative study focuses on women who were impoverished in Costa Rica who had been pregnant in adolescence. The goal of the study was to gain a better understanding of the lived experiences of the mothers, as well as the kinds of support they received during and after the pregnancy. The research sample consisted of 22 female participants who were impoverished and had experienced an unintended pregnancy in adolescence. The key finding from this study was that parental support was the most important factor in mitigating adolescent experiences of stress and negative feelings about their choices related to the pregnancy. The study has implications for the understanding of the experiences of women who are vulnerable with respect to adolescent pregnancies in Latin America and for Latina migrants to the United States.     

Differences in Parental Monitoring Components and Their Associated Health Indicators Between Sexual-Minority and Heterosexual Girls

ABSTRACT

Our study sought to assess whether parental monitoring and their associations with health behaviors differed for heterosexual girls compared to sexual-minority girls (girls who identified as lesbian or bisexual, endorsed same-sex attraction, or had same-sex romantic or sexual partners). We analyzed three components of parental monitoring—adolescent disclosure, parental solicitation, and parental knowledge—between heterosexual and sexual-minority girls. We also tested if the associations between these three constructs and adolescent relationship abuse, suicidality, heavy drinking, binge drinking, anxiety symptoms, and depressive symptoms were different for heterosexual girls compared to sexual-minority girls. Sexual-minority girls were less likely to disclose accurately to their parents their location and activities and perceived their parents asked less and knew less about their location and activities than did heterosexual girls. Heterosexual girls who reported higher levels of adolescent disclosure were less likely than were sexual-minority girls to report suicidality and anxiety symptoms. Additionally, heterosexual girls who reported higher levels of parental knowledge were also less likely than were sexual-minority girls to report anxiety and depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that parental monitoring may not be as protective for sexual-minority girls as it is for heterosexual girls.     

The Role of Parental Indulgence and Economic Stress in Life Satisfaction: Differential Perceptions of Parents and Adolescents

The purpose of this study was to determine if there were differences between adolescents and parents in their perceptions of parental indulgence, stress (economic and life), and life satisfaction. In addition, using the conceptual frameworks of family ecosystems and developmental theory, the relationships between the three types of parental indulgence (soft structure, overnurturance, and giving too much), economic stress, life stress, and life satisfaction were examined for parents and adolescent children. Findings indicated that adolescents perceived higher levels of stress and soft structure as compared to their parents, whereas parents perceived higher levels of economic stress. Additionally, each type of parental indulgence affected parent and adolescent life stress and life satisfaction differently. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

PREDICTORS OF FEAR OF CRIMINAL VICTIMIZATION AT SCHOOL AMONG ADOLESCENTS

Adolescent crime at school, as well as adolescent fear of crime at school, have increasingly become serious social problems. Although many studies have been conducted examining the predictors of fear of crime among adults in various settings, fear of criminal victimization among adolescents at school has been practically ignored. Using a representative sample of 742 high school students from a southeastern state, this study examined the predictors of adolescent fear of crime at school in an attempt to determine whether they are similar to predictors of adult fear of crime. Results indicate that, although the predictors of fear among adolescents are, in many cases, similar to those of adults, there are important differences. As expected, youths with lower levels of perceived safety at school and youths who perceive their neighborhoods as exhibiting signs of incivility were more likely to be fearful of criminal victimization at school. Interestingly, however, there were important differences between adolescents and adults regarding the effects of race, gender, and victimization experience and fear of crime. The results from this study indicate that the effects of race and victimization experience on fear of crime vary by gender: Namely, Black males were more fearful than White males, and female victims of crime were more fearful than females who had not been victimized by crime. This study suggests that the phenomena that underlie fear of crime among adults are somewhat different than those of adolescents.     

Parenting Practices and Adolescent Sexual Behavior: A Longitudinal Study

The effects of parental attitudes, practices, and television mediation on adolescent sexual behaviors were investigated in a study of adolescent sexuality and media (N = 887). Confirmatory factor analyses supported an eight‐factor parenting model with television mediation factors as constructs distinct from general parenting practices. Logistic regressions indicated that adolescents reporting greater parental disapproval and limits on viewing at Wave 1 were less likely to initiate oral sex between Waves 1 and 2. Adolescents who reported more sexual communication with parents were more likely to initiate oral sex. Results for vaginal intercourse were similar to those for oral sex. Coviewing was a significant negative predictor of initiation of sexual behavior. Parental attitudes and television mediation can delay potentially risky adolescent sexual behaviors.