Thai Riverside Market and Consent Form Problem

cite this article: Arunrangsiwed, P. (2019). Thai Riverside Market and Consent Form Problem. Retrieved from https://sw-eden.net/2019/12/31/thai-riverside-market-and-consent-form-problem/

Signing the consent form might disturb many people about their privacy and security. I used to collect the data from social science research. The tool is just a questionnaire. The questionnaire does not require the real identity or name of research respondents. With the consent form, then, everything became harder. No one want to sign, and if they do not sign, I could not hand them the questionnaire.

Similarly in online space, I have to collect the data from internet user sometimes. These people often have second (online) identity. Earlier, I showed them the outstanding consent form. They got panic and they did not fill the online questionnaire at all. Later, I tried to make the consent shorter, and provide just a link for them to read before filling in the questionnaire. The smaller, the better. When the online users did not pay much attention to the text in consent form, they often easily filled in the questionnaire.

Later, I got a better idea to collect the data from general people in real-world context. I had to make a small and signatureless consent form. I just need to end the form with, “if you agree with all above statements, you could start fill out the questionnaire.” When people do not need to sign their name in the consent form, there is more opportunity that they will complete the questionnaire with real answers.

That is a basic solution to deal with the research project that require the consent. In my opinion, I totally disagree with the idea that social sciences research has to have consent form, especially the research with only questionnaire as a tool for data collection. Most questionnaires are harmless, unless it asked about the sensitive issue, like, depression, suicidal thought, or life failure. I wish the institute reconsider to cancel the strict rules about the ethic for social sciences research.

Before now, I tried very hard to get a sign in the consent from an expected-to-be key informant. She wanted to give the information about the floating market where she worked in, but she really really did not want to sign. Consent or ethic system might not be wrong, but there are so many people do not understand its real purpose. I think, before they let the researchers create or use the consent form, they have to make sure that general people all around the world understand what it is.

It is important to note that I posted this article in this webpage before I put everything together and submitted to the university. In other words, I owned the copyrights of this article or blog post, and later, I reused this copyrighted material in the research report. Similarly, I wrote an article for a conference in Phayao, and later, I used the article for the research report. That also means, I owned the copyrighted material before reusing it again in the research report.