I found the Knight reading particularly useful this week. Knight offered pragmatic ways to get around common mishaps such as participants withdrawing, lost data or low response rates. He also offers useful ways to capture data with table 7.1 being quite useful outlining the method of data capture and how the method influences the complexity of the information as well as costs of data capture. Most interesting was the section on disclosure and harm. Even through my own personal research proposal will likely lead to intrusive and sensitive questions it is very interesting to learn about ways of collecting data regarding sensitive subjects. I also found it interesting to learn that some researchers advocate that one can only get real trust by becoming accepted as an insider which will put researchers in a position to hear real stories, behaviours, and thinking processes. Page 170 outlines about 12 ways that researchers can facilitate becoming an insider. Additionally, Hammersly offers interesting critiques of insider research.
The informed consent article was also quite interesting. It reminded me a bit of this article. http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/10/31/why-are-schools-brainwashing-our-children/
While it is not quite the same since the Macleans article is not dealing with research methods. The core concern is the same. When are children and youth able to make their own mind up and advocate for themselves? At what age, if any age are they able opt in and opt out of research or decide that they don't want to be exposed to a particular world view?
I had a similar thought about the children thing in class on Monday when Dean was talking about his own research with children. I guess there is no easy way to know when they are old enough as I think it would vary depending on the child/youth in question.
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