INFORMED CONSENT FORMS IN ESL RESEARCH: FORM DIFFICULTY AND
COMPREHENSION
By
Scott Sterling

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Second Language Studies - Doctor of Philosophy
2015

ABSTRACT
INFORMED CONSENT FORMS IN ESL RESEARCH: FORM DIFFICULTY AND
COMPREHENSION
By
Scott Sterling
Background: The concept of informed consent has become a cornerstone for modern research
and is generally required for any project that uses human-beings as a source of data (Haggerty,
2004). Yet research in various fields has shown that participants do not understand informed
consent forms and are generally not well-informed about studies for which they have or will
enroll themselves into (Freer, McIntosh, Teunisse, Anand, & Boyle, 2009; Joffe, Cook, Cleary,
Clark, & Weeks, 2001a, 2001b; LoVerde, Prochazka, & Byyny, 1987). To date, relatively little
empirical research has been conducted on research ethics in the field of second language
acquisition (SLA) and no studies have investigated the fields usage of informed consent forms.
Objectives: This dissertation attempts to answer three overarching research goals that deal with
(1) the current difficulty level of SLA/ESL consent forms, (2) ESL learners' understanding of
consent forms, and (3) ESL learners thoughts about the consent process?
Methods: To examine the current state of SLA/ESL consent forms, 20 consent documents were
collected and analyzed for length, reading grade level, and vocabulary coverage. Two forms, an
easy and a hard form, were then given to 112 ESL students and 38 native English speakers who
read the forms and then took a comprehension task. Finally, five focus group interviews were
conducted with ESL learners.
Results: The average ESL consent form was 1.8 pages long, rated at the 10.8 grade level, and
had roughly 95% of its vocabulary at or below the 3000 word band according to the New
General Service List. According to the comprehension task, the difficulty of the form did not

statistically impact the participants' outcome on the task; however, proficiency was correlated
with form comprehension. High level learners and native speakers performed similarly on the
task answering between six to seven questions correctly, while low level learners answered
roughly three to four questions correctly. The focus group interviews showed that many
participants only skimmed the document prior to signing it and that they were largely apathetic to
many important factors of consent such as risks and confidentiality.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the following people for their assistance during my dissertation; the
IEP and all of my participants for allowing me to collect data; The Graduate School at Michigan
State University who funded my final semester with a Dissertation Completion Fellowship; and
all of the faculty, staff, and students in the Second Language Program who provided unending
support.
I would especially like to thank my committee members; Shawn Loewen (chair), Susan
Gass, Paula Winke, and Peter De Costa. Without them this project would not have been
successful.
Thank you all.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES

viii

LIST OF FIGURES

x

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION OF DISSERTATION
Overview of study
Risks and research ethics in SLA
Why use consent forms?
Why not translate the forms?
Summary
Breakdown of chapters

1
1
1
2
3
4
6
7

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Various views of research ethics
History of informed consent
Consent form difficulty in reading
Comprehension of consent forms
Comprehension tasks
Consent form research outside of SLA
Research ethics articles in SLA literature
Summary of literature review
Research questions

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8
8
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CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY
Introduction
Study design
Setting
Participants
Comprehension task
Focus group
Instruments
Consent form – easy and difficult
Background questionnaire
Vocabulary test
Comprehension task
Structured interview questions
Procedure
Consent forms
Pilot study

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Comprehension task
Focus groups
Data Processing and Analysis
Consent form data
Comprehension task
Scoring and validity of rating
Focus group
Ethical Considerations

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48
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CHAPTER 4
RESULTS FROM CONSENT FORM ANALYSIS
Introduction
Length
Reading grade level
Words covered
Summary of results from consent form analysis

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52
52
54
54
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CHAPTER 5
RESULTS FROM THE COMPREHENSION TASK
Introduction
Does the difficulty of a consent form matter?
Interaction between form type and proficiency
Comprehension task descriptive data
Vocabulary not understood
Summary of results from comprehension task

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CHAPTER 6
RESULTS FROM THE FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEWS
Introduction
Overarching themes
Consent forms might not be important to participants
Participant selective reading
Reasons for taking part in research
Consent form difficulty and participant suggestions
Consent form difficulty
Student suggestions
Confusion over research practices
Summary of findings from the focus group interviews

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95

CHAPTER 7
DISCUSSION
Introduction
How complex are SLA/ESL consent forms?
How well did participants internalize consent information?
How do participants view consent forms?
Limitations
vi

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103
108
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Implications
Future research
Conclusion

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APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: Words on collected consent forms at 4000+ word level
APPENDIX B: Transcript coding scheme
APPENDIX C: Study materials
APPENDIX D: Collected consent forms from Chapter 4

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139

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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vii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Basic language required for consent forms

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Table 2: Flow of study design

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Table 3: IEP group compared to Vocabulary Levels Test grouping

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Table 4: Focus group biographical data

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Table 5: Original DICCT questions

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Table 6: Revised comprehension questions

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Table 7: Regression assumptions

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Table 8: Length of ESL consent forms

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Table 9: Reading level difficulty of ESL consent forms

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Table 10: Vocabulary not covered by New General Service List

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Table 11: Vocabulary covered by New General Service List

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Table 12: Consent form vocabulary above 3000 word level

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Table 13: Easy and Hard forms

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Table 14: Means for easy and hard form

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Table 15: Percentage difference between easy and hard form correct responses

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Table 16: Regression table

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Table 17: Means and SD for comprehension task

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Table 18: Comprehension questions reproduced

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Table 19: Percent of correct answers on comprehension task

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Table 20: Percentage of correct responses on comprehension task

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Table 21: Participants who underlined words by proficiency group

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viii

Table 22: Participants who underlined words by form type

67

Table 23: Words underlined on consent forms

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Table 24: Types of augmented questions

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Table 25: Focus group protocol

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Table 26: Summary of findings from focus group interviews

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Table 27: Collected consent form vocabulary at 4000+ word level band

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Table 28: Coding scheme for focus group interviews

124

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: P-P Plot of regression standardized residuals

x

47

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION OF DISSERTATION
Overview of study
Studies on participant consent forms have shown that the consent process is complex and
difficult for many people, and that participants often sign documentation without truly
understanding the research study or the conditions to which they have just agreed (Freer,
McIntosh, Teunisse, Anand, & Boyle, 2009; Joffe, Cook, Cleary, Clark, & Weeks, 2001a, 2001b;
LoVerde, Prochazka, & Byyny, 1987). In the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), the
process of consent is made even more difficult because many studies target or include
participants who do not natively speak the same language in which the consent form is written
(Perry, 2011), or participants come from cultures in which giving consent for a research study is
uncommon (Russell, Carapetis, & Liddle, 2005).
In the modern, western tradition of research, informed consent is considered a right of
individuals, often guaranteed by governments, funding agencies, and ethical review boards.
Various ethical review offices require informed consent forms to be presented to research
participants and collected after signing (Steneck, 2004). It is often assumed that a signed consent
form indicates not only overt agreement to participate in a research project, but also that a
participant is fully aware of all benefits, risks, and rights tied to the research project. To date,
only limited research has investigated second language (L2) participants’ comprehension and
knowledge of the consent process, especially in the field of SLA and English as a second
language (ESL) research (see Chapter two). The aim of this research project is to investigate the
difficulty of the consent forms and how well ESL learners understand the forms, as well as offer
possible recommendations to the field that will better ensure the informed consent of research
1

participants.
Risks and research ethics in SLA
Informed consent forms have become a staple of modern human-based research (Van den
Hoonaard, 2011). In the United States, the recent concern for human research emerged from the
atrocities that occurred during WWII and the development of the modern industrial research
complex that now exists at almost all federally funded research universities (Steneck, 2004).
Events such as the Tuskegee syphilis study and the Stanford prison experiment in the USA, or
the horrendous actions of Nazi doctors in Germany have left a blemish on modern science that
can still be felt today. Even new controversies such as the anti-vaccination movement was fueled
by one ethically challenged, and later retracted paper (Wakefield et al., 1998 [RETRACTED,
2010]). The modern world runs on science and trusts that scientists conduct research properly.
Publications on ethical training often discuss the tarnished history of science to make the
dual point that research (a) always carries a risk, but (b) is normally conducted by wellintentioned people who make mistakes. In discussion with SLA researchers over the topic of
research ethics, I am often asked why a deep understanding of research ethics is important to the
field when the research normally carries minimal, if any real risk of harm to our participants.
There is no denying that on a continuum of risks, asking for grammaticality judgments is much
less dangerous or harmful than taking part in an experimental clinical trial. However, having
small risks or non-life threatening risks is not the same as having no risks at all. SLA researchers
ask questions that have the potential to negatively impact participants' lives in a number of ways
(for examples see Ngo, Bigelow, & Lee, 2014; Shohamy, 2004). Research can lead to close
relationships that blur the lines between friend and participant which might cause some
participants to provide information they normally would not divulge (Richards, 2003).
2

Why use consent forms?
After the events that spiraled out of WWII, many countries adopted the idea that research
conducted on humans must be done with their consent, which was encapsulated in the USA as
respect for persons in the Belmont Report. The idea behind consent forms is to ensure (a) that
people are aware of the fact that they are participating in research, (b) that they understand their
rights as well as the risks and potential dangers associated with that particular research, and (c)
as proof that the participant has been made aware of the research. These rules of research were
originally developed for the medical or other biological studies fields (Steneck & Bulger, 2007)
but over the course of several decades these goals of ethical research have been incorporated into
almost all fields where humans are used to generate data (Haggerty, 2004).
In the United States, consent for research is typically obtained by having a participant
sign an informed consent form once at the onset of data collection. However, there is debate in
various fields as to whether this should be a standard practice or if consent should be viewed as
an ongoing procedure that constantly takes place throughout the data collection. The argument
against one time consent is that researchers need to continuously negotiate the role of the
participant and the data during and after the data collection session (Marshall & Batten, 2004).
Carusi and Jirotka (2009) discussed the role that technology plays in terms of ownership and use
of data in qualitative studies. A larger discussion has taken place concerning the use of biobanks,
or digital data centers that hold genetic data, and whether a single instance of consent allows a
researcher to use and share this material with other researchers (Stein & Terry, 2013). A direct
comparison could be made with linguistic corpora as well. Though the arguments for using
continuous consent might be compelling, the current structure of consent in the USA is for a
single instance to be obtained at the onset of the data collection session.
3

The current research investigates a specific situation for consent, one in which a large
heterogeneous group of non-native English speakers are asked to sign consent forms all at the
same time. For this type of study, it is expected that a single signed consent form will be used to
not only gain the permission of individuals to be part of research but also that by signing this
form, participants indicate that they adequately comprehend the research. During this type of
consent process, forms are handed out to all participants, and while the researcher will likely
allow time for general questions, he or she will not be able to meet with individual participants
for one-on-one interaction during the consent process. Thus the consent form in this type of
research is required to carry the burden of providing adequate information to the participants.
The question of whether or not the form is able to handle this burden will guide the narrative of
this dissertation.
Why not translate the forms?
When it comes to writing informed consent forms for L2 speaking participants, one
recommendation often offered to researchers is to translate the consent form into the first
languages of the various participants. The idea is that the complex language and culturally based
assumptions about research will be easier to understand in the participant’s own language. On the
surface this method might seem like a simple way to guarantee that all participants will
understand the consent form but there are issues involved that make this solution less than ideal.
One issue with translating the consent forms can be found in the process of translation
itself. McCabe, Morgan, Curley, Begay, and Gohdes (2005) attempted to translate a medical
consent form for a diabetes study into Navajo. They found that a word-for-word translation of
the form did not result in participants understanding the form better. They also found that many
of the concepts of consent were not readily available in Navajo, nor were they easy to translate
4

into the language. Often, terms were used that had subtle contextual differences and lead to
confusion on the part of participants. The researchers also found that translators did not always
understand the research process nor goals well enough to correctly translate the material. Taken
together, these difficulties resulted in a consent form that was written in the first language of the
participants, but did not equate to a better understanding of the process for the participants.
SLA, in particular ESL, research has its own specific issues with translating consent
forms. One issue is the constituency of the potential research population. ESL learners are a
diverse group, coming from a multitude of different linguistic, cultural, and socio-economic
backgrounds. A very diverse classroom could have speakers from ten or more languages, each
requiring a different translation of the consent form. Additionally, students in an intensive
English program (IEP) classrooms are typically grouped together by their proficiency level,
which is not always an exact science. Students might have strengths in oral, grammar or written
skills, and weakness in others. Finding someone who simultaneously has the linguistic ability to
translate a document, understand advanced research terminology, and be able to produce level
appropriate language is a daunting task in one language, let alone several. Researchers would be
required to translate consent forms into a variety of languages and proficiency levels, causing a
strain on the limited time and resources of researchers. While burdens should be expected to be
found in research, the study by McCabe et al. (2005) cast doubt over whether the process is
worth the effort or not.
Another issue when translating a document into the L1, is that not all participants will be
educated or literate in their L1. This might be especially true for migrant or refugee groups
(Bigelow & Tarone, 2004; Ngo, Bigelow, & Lee, 2014; Perry, 2011) or second-generation
speakers who might never received an education in their native or heritage language. Groups
5

who lack the literacy to read the forms are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to consent
documents, regardless of the language they are written in.
The final reason that translation might not be the best method of ensuring comprehension
of consent is the fact that even native speakers of English tend to not understand the consent
forms they read (Freer, McIntosh, Teunisse, Anand, & Boyle, 2009; Joffe, Cook, Cleary, Clark,
& Weeks, 2001a, 2001b; LoVerde, Prochazka, & Byyny, 1987). Consent forms are difficult
documents to read; the act of translating them alone is not enough to ensure that participants are
truly informed about the research in which they are about to partake.
Summary
Research ethics are vital to all branches of science, and informed consent forms are
legally and ethically necessary for research that involves human-beings (Steneck, 2004). Little
empirical research has taken place on the topic of informed consent in SLA. L2 speakers are
generally excluded from meta-reflective work on consent forms conducted in other fields as their
lack of language ability is often considered a conflating variable. The result is that the knowledge
of what constitutes a good consent form appears to be tied to best practices and general
knowledge of how to craft the document in English for English speakers. The idea that the best
method of ensuring consent is to translate the document is problematic from two standpoints; (1)
ethically it is not clear that translation alone results in better informed participants, and (2) the
practicality of translation is costly in terms of both time and money.
The overarching theme of this dissertation is to investigate the current practices of SLA
researchers in order to (1) gain a better understanding of how consent forms are currently
written, (2) investigate the level of comprehension that results from reading a current ESL
consent form, and (3) to allow ESL participants to voice their opinions and beliefs about the ESL
6

consent process and research in general.
Breakdown of chapters
The main focus of this dissertation is research ethics, specifically the usage of informed
consent forms with ESL learners. In Chapter two, a review of the relevant literature in SLA and
neighboring fields will be discussed. The discussion will be couched within a responsible
conduct of research framework. In Chapter three, the methods of this study will be put forth.
Chapter four will attempt to answer research question one by examining the complexity of
consent forms, including a discussion of the difficultly level of the forms in terms of their length,
vocabulary level, words used, and reading grade level. Chapter five will focus on research
question two, pertaining to the results from a reading comprehension task that participants took
after reading one of two sample consent forms. Chapter six will discuss research question three
by addressing the results of five focus group interviews conducted with ESL learners. These
focus groups discussed the various elements commonly found in consent forms and ways of
making the forms easier to read for the target population. In Chapter seven, all of the results will
be brought together into a detailed discussion of consent form understanding by ESL learners.
The overarching aim of this research project is to provide the field with empirical evidence of
ESL learners' ability to read and understand material on informed consent forms, as well as
increase the field's awareness of the difficulty level of current ESL/SLA consent documents. My
hope is that this dissertation will be a useful first step towards creating and using consent forms
that truly inform ESL participants about research.

7

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Various views of research ethics
Writings on ethical practices and thought stretch back into ancient history and have
generated entire fields of inquiry dedicated to discussing ethical and moral issues. In order to
truncate this long literature into a manageable size, this dissertation will be limited in scope to
focus solely on research ethics, or the ethical issues and problems that arise from any step of a
research project, and a time limit of post-World War II activities will be implemented. Prior to
WWII, much research was carried out by individuals or teams working in labs, with money
procured from independent wealth, donors, or scholastic societies. During and after the war,
many labs organized at universities with federal and state sponsorship, leading to the current
configuration in which a large amount of research is conducted by university faculty following
regulations set forth by various governmental agencies.
Another way that research ethics has been viewed in the past is by authors creating
various organizations or breakdowns of research ethics into its assorted components. Emanuel,
Wendler, and Grady (2013) suggested that ethical research contains the following seven
elements: (1) value to science or society, (2) scientific validity, (3) fair participant selection, (4)
balanced risk to benefit ratio, (5) reliable independent review, (6) truly informed consent, and (7)
respect for persons. Pimple (2002) reduced the number of items to only three; (1) truth in
reporting and representing data, (2) fairness in citing and using the work of others, and (3)
wisdom to only conduct meaningful and useful research. Guillemin and Gillam (2004) break
research ethics into two macro-categories. The first is procedural ethics or the ethics and
material involved in obtaining tacit approval from an IRB, including the usage of consent forms
8

as documents, confidentiality of data, and other areas of research ethics that can be organized
prior to a project beginning. The second type of research ethics, ethics in practice, are the day to
day ethical problems that arise in all research. Ethics in practice might include figuring out how
to handle data from a participant who admitted to doing illegal activities or how to record data in
a public space without violating the privacy of the people.
The current study is couched under a specific type of research ethics, the responsible
conduct of research. The responsible conduct of research is a type of research ethics code that is
deontological in nature, or the ethical perspective that morality or correctness derives from
following the rules (Hughes, Hunter, & Sheehan, 2010). Responsible conduct of research has
traditionally been applied to the harder sciences, though it is equally applicable to the social
sciences. The code is comprised of nine domains and was originally developed as a joint effort
lead by the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Office of
Research Integrity, which is situated inside the Department of Health and Human Services, as a
means of teaching research ethics and ensuring that future research would be conducted under
the most ethical light available (Steneck & Bulger, 2007). Responsible conduct of research is a
useful framework for discussing research ethics as it condenses the complex system of ethics into
manageable chunks and uses language that is understandable to non-ethicists. Responsible
conduct of research contains nine domains; (1) research misconduct, (2) human subject
protection, (3) conflicts of interest, (4) data management, (5) mentorship, (6) collaborative
science, (7) authorship, (8) peer review, and (9) treatment of animals in research (Steneck, 2004).
While the domains are designed to each handle a specific portion of potential issues that might
arise during a research project, there is overlap between items. For example, a discussion of
mentor/student roles might touch on topics covered in authorship, or of elements of collaborative
9

research.
Responsible conduct of research has not received much direct attention in the second
language acquisition (SLA) literature to date. Sterling, Gass, and Winke (in press) used a
responsible conduct of research approach and surveyed the types of research ethics training that
SLA researchers receive. They found that materials related to IRB applications, such as data
protection, conflicts of interest, and human subject protection were covered in much more detail
during graduate school or other types of training when compared to other domains such as
mentoring, collaboration, and peer review. The researchers also found that this trend was stable
over time, indicating that the field of SLA has not had an update to its research ethics training
over the past 30 years. Responsible conduct of research is a valuable tool that can be used by
researchers and mentors and was built around existing frameworks of research ethics taken from
documents such as the Belmont Report and the Declaration of Helsinki.. It is flexible enough to
be used in hard and soft sciences and removes much of the technical jargon that can be found in
other research ethics materials (Steneck, 2004; Steneck & Bulger, 2007).
History of informed consent
The expected use of informed consent forms in research is a relatively new concept that
was established out of reforms that occurred during the latter half of the 20th century (Faden,
Beauchamp, & King, 1986). In the USA, research ethics are largely guided by three overarching
points contained within the Belmont Report: respect for persons, beneficence, and justice
(http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/belmont.html). For consent forms, these
principles mean that persons should have the ability to decide for themselves whether
participation in a research study is the correct course of action for them, a right better known as
autonomy. The consent form is often the only written document given to a participant with
10

information pertaining to the study and at times it is the only explanation of a study that he or she
will receive (National Academy of Sciences, 1995). The consent form then needs to fully explain
the study in terms that the participant will understand.
In order to ensure that consent forms not only contain a standard range of information but
are also flexible enough to be individualized to research projects in various fields of inquiry, the
Department of Health and Human Services issued code 46.116 detailing basic language consent
forms must contain. A list of required topics taken from code 46.116 can be found in Table 1.
Table 1: Basic language required for consent forms
1 A statement that participation is voluntary, refusal to participate will involve no penalty or
loss of benefits to which the subject is otherwise entitled, and the subject may discontinue
participation at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which the subject is
otherwise entitled.
2 An explanation of whom to contact for answers to pertinent questions about the research
and research subjects' rights, and whom to contact in the event of a research-related injury
to the subject.
3 For research involving more than minimal risk, an explanation as to whether any
compensation and an explanation as to whether any medical treatments are available if
injury occurs and, if so, what they consist of, or where further information may be
obtained.
4 A statement describing the extent, if any, to which confidentiality of records identifying the
subject will be maintained.
5 A disclosure of appropriate alternative procedures or courses of treatment, if any, that
might be advantageous to the subject.
6 A description of any benefits to the subject or to others which may reasonably be expected
from the research.
7 A description of any reasonably foreseeable risks or discomforts to the subject.
8 A statement that the study involves research, an explanation of the purposes of the research
and the expected duration of the subject's participation, a description of the procedures to
be followed, and identification of any procedures which are experimental.
Source: DHHS (http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/45cfr46.html#46.116)
The consent form itself can be a difficult document to read and many studies reveal that
the overall comprehension level of participants is generally lower than what might be expected
11

(Buccini, Caputi, Iverson, & Jones, 2009; Marshall, 2006; Schwartz & Appelbaum, 2008; Stead
et al., 2005; Stunkel et al., 2010). Participants who sign consent forms are often largely
uninformed about the procedures of the research study for which they have volunteered
(LoVerde et al., 1987), regardless of their education level (Stead, Eadie, Gordon, & Angus,
2005), the language used on the consent form (Russell et al., 2005), or the life-threatening nature
of the research (Fitzgerald, Marotte, & Verdier, 2002). The reasons for the lack of comprehension
vary as the studies investigate different variables, but it is usually assumed to be a combination
of consent forms being too difficult for participants to understand and/or being too long for them
to read (Albala, Doyle, & Appelbaum, 2013; LoVerde et al., 1987). Variables such as participants
apathy towards the form have yet to receive attention from empirical investigations. Research in
the medical fields has found that participants show higher levels of comprehension after reading
a shorter form (Flory & Emanuel, 2004; Freer et al., 2009; Stunkel et al., 2010), though it should
be noted that these forms are still longer than what most SLA researchers are likely using,
ranging from 10 to 20 pages in length. In terms of difficulty of the consent form, most studies
have shown that using simpler language can help improve comprehension (Flory & Emanuel,
2004; LoVerde et al., 1987), though it is not always easy to know just what level of language
should be considered simple. The often recommended reading grade level for consent forms is
the 8th grade level (Agre & Rapkin, 2003; Paasche-Orlow, Taylor, & Brancati, 2003; Perry,
2011; Schwartz & Appelbaum, 2008); however, that recommendation appears to be made for L1
English speakers, with no recommendations existing for L2 learners.
Paasche-Orlow, Taylor, and Brancati (2003) investigated the reading grade level of IRB
template forms provided on the websites of various universities and found that the forms were
quite difficult to read. Researchers are urged to download these template forms, change selected
12

portions to fit their particular needs, and then use the forms without needing to make major
alterations. Paasche-Orlow, Taylor, and Brancati found that most of the selected forms exceeded
the generally recommended 8th grade reading level, with an average level of the 10.6th grade
level.
Consent form difficulty in reading
Guidelines and suggestions often mention the 8th grade reading level as a reasonable
maximum level of difficulty for consent forms. The most commonly used measure of reading
grade level is the Flesch-Kincaid reading grade level test (Kincaid, Fishburne, Rogers, &
Chissom, (1975) and it has been used in a number of studies on informed consent form
complexity (Breese, Burman, Goldberg, & Weis, 2007; Jefford & Moore, 2008; Paasche-Orlow,
Taylor, & Brancati, 2003). The basic formula for the Flesch-Kincaid looks at the number of
syllables per word and the number of words per sentence. An alternative test, the SMOG or
simple measure of gobbledygook (McLaughlin, 1969), has also been used (Breese et al, 2007)
and measures the number of polysyllabic words per sentence. Both tests provide outcomes
correlated to American school grade levels, but only take length of word and sentence into
consideration. Using shorter words, regardless of how complex or frequent the word is or using
the same words but in longer sentences will result in a lower reading score. The tests are
relatively fast and inexpensive to run, Microsoft Office will provide a Flesch-Kincaid score if it
is called for, and provide researchers with an obtainable goal, the 8th grade level. Criticisms of
tests such as the SMOG and the Flesch-Kincaid are that they focus too heavily on quantifying
difficulty, disregard vocabulary choice (beyond word length), and do not consider formatting or
visual cues (Sand, Eik-Nes, & Loge, 2012).
By reducing the reading level of the consent form, it is often believed that comprehension
13

will increase. Stunkel et al. (2010) tested two forms, an easy to read condensed consent form and
a standard consent form. The forms differed in length (14 compared to four pages) and reading
grade level (8 to 8.9). The researchers found no difference in the participants' understanding of
the consent form, though it is not clear if a 0.9 increase in grade level would be enough to cause
participants to score differently on a comprehension task. In contrast, Young and Hooker (1990)
found a statistical difference in their study comparing an easy form (6th grade) and a difficult
form (16th). It is not surprising that participants who read the consent form written at the 16th
grade level understood the contents less. The 16th grade level would require an upper level
college education of at least an undergraduate education if not higher. However, it must be noted
that consent form difficulty can range and it would not be surprising to see forms that were rated
close to the 16th grade level in use in SLA studies (see Chapter 4 for discussion of form grade
level).
Research into consent form design has been reported in various publications, often in the
medical field or journals dedicated to research ethics and IRBs (see for example: Albala, Doyle,
& Appelbaum, 2013; LoVerde, Prochazka, & Byyny, 1987; Sand, Eik-Nes, & Loge, 2012).
Findings from studies that focus on issues of consent forms have largely found that the forms are
too long, contain language that is too difficult, and that participants are not able to understand the
content. Again, it must be remembered that many of these studies focus on material from medical
or other hard sciences. It is not uncommon for medical consent forms to be between 10-20 pages
long (Beardsley, Jefford, & Mileshkin, 2007) and to carry consequences for the health and wellbeing of the participant that goes well beyond what could be expected in almost any SLA study.
One area of reading difficulty that has not been investigated, is the degree of infrequently
used words found on consent forms. The general rule for making readings comprehensible to
14

ESL learners is to include between 95-98% of frequent or known vocabulary on the document
(Hazenberg, & Hulstijn, 1996; Hirsh & Nation, 1992; Schmitt, Cobb, Horst, & Schmitt, 2015).
Consent forms are likely to contain many examples of uncommon English words that ESL
students are not likely to encounter in day to day conversation. Stead et al. (2005) found that
native speakers of English had difficulty with words such as double-blind, placebo, and
randomized. If L1 users have difficulty with vocabulary used on the form, then it is likely to be
problematic for L2 learners as well.
Comprehension of consent forms
Investigating how much a participant understands about the consent form he or she just
signed is difficult for a number of reasons. Sachs et al., (2003) note that current ethical practices
often require that participants sign a consent form prior to data collection, meaning that it is
usually not possible to observe someone signing a consent form without first having that
participant sign a consent form. Using a comprehension task as a post hoc analysis of how well
the form was understood also carries difficulty as there will be a conflation between
comprehension and memory.
Though many articles measure the comprehension of consent, most do not define what
comprehension means. Buccini et al., (2009) used a Delphi consensus approach (Dalkey &
Helmer, 1963) to create a standardized definition for comprehension of informed consent. A
Delphi consensus approach attempts to synchronize the opinions of various experts in order to
define or model a topic. In the case of Buccini et al., the authors were attempting to create a
definition of comprehension for informed consent. The authors first created a working definition
of consent and then asked a panel of international experts to alter the definition as they saw fit.
The authors then synthesized the feedback into a new definition and sent it back out for new
15

comments. After several cycles of revision, Buccini et al., (2009, p. 21) created the following
definition of comprehension of consent:
1. There is evidence that a potential participant has integrated his/her current knowledge
with the consent information;
2. The evidence occurs at the time the potential participant decides whether or not to take
part in the research study;
3. At a minimum, the integrated consent information includes the consent requirements
stipulated by national and international ethics regulations.
The definition is arguably vague, but needs to be so to fit the needs of the international research
community and diverse fields of research. The first part of the definition attempts to guarantee
that participants enhance their own knowledge base with new information from the consent form,
ensuring that participants are well informed about the study. However, the drawback to this
portion of the definition is that participants might have a faulty or incomplete understanding of
research to begin with, and thus will enter into research with incorrect notions of what is
expected of them. For example, one assumption participants might have of SLA research is that
it is only interested in grammar mistakes when really the researcher might be investigating
interaction, social identity, or a more personal issue. While this disconnect might not lead
directly to a problem, it does leave the participant in a vulnerable position as he or she might be
guarded against making linguistic errors but not paying heed to the sensitive information being
dispensed. The second part of the definition specifies that this enhanced knowledge occurs at the
very onset of research, instead of after data collection has begun. This is important because
participants might find it difficult to discontinue participation in research once they have begun,
especially if the researcher has a relationship with the participant's instructor or language center.
16

Participants not being able to discuss the information on the consent form directly after reading
and discussing it with the researcher might call into question whether or not they are truly
informed of the study. Buccini et al., leave open the types of information required in the consent
form by allowing the content to change depending on the context of the research. Again, in the
USA this information can be found in Department of Health and Human Services code 46.116
(see Table 1). This open policy allows researchers to develop consent forms in the local tradition
of the people they are investigating.
Comprehension tasks
One method of assessing whether or not participants understand the consent process is to
test their knowledge of what was contained on the form after they have completed reading it.
Several studies have attempted to do this in the past, usually by creating their own in-house
comprehension task. These tasks often involve several questions and are based on Department of
Health and Human Services code 46.116. Yet, as noted by Joffe, Cook, Cleary, Clark, and Weeks
(2001b) “there is no widely accepted method for defining or measuring the outcome of the
informed consent process” (p. 139). It should be noted that 14 years after this statement was
made, no method of determining comprehension of consent has yet become widespread. Joffe et
al., (2001b) attempted to create a standardized tool for assessing consent for medical research
called the Quality of Informed Consent survey (QuIC). To do this, the researchers designed a two
part task that measured participants on 13 different dimensions of consent taken from US federal
regulations. The first part asked participants questions that can be answered using a
yes/no/maybe approach while the second part asked them to use a five-point Likert-scale to
measure their self-identified ability to understand various consent issues. For example,
participants were asked how well they understood their ability to leave the research study at any
17

time using a five point scale. One downside to the approach used by Joffe et al., is that
participants are able to simply circle a response to the question, which does not indicate what
they know, only that they claim to know it. A fill-in-the-blank or open ended response option
would better ensure that participants have really integrated the knowledge of the consent form
into their own knowledge base.
A different test to the QuIC is the Deaconess Informed Consent Comprehension Test
(DICCT) (Miller, O’Donnell, Searight, & Barbarash, 1996). Both the QuIC and the DICCT were
originally designed to be functional tests, used to check the comprehension rates of patients
before they enrolled in a clinical study. While Miller et al., left the cutoff score to be determined
by the individual researcher, it can be assumed that a particularly low score should severely limit
the entry of a patient into a trial, until a further explanation of the research project can be
rendered. The DICCT is a 14 question oral survey with questions that are based on the essential
elements of consent (see Table 1). The DICCT is written in lay language, and was assessed at the
8th grade level by a Flesch-Kincaid readability test. For this test, patients are asked the 14
questions and provide oral responses. One benefit of DICCT over the QuIC is that all answers
are open-ended, thus participants are unlikely to guess a correct response or overestimate their
understanding of the consent form.
To date, no test exists that can be used exclusively for the social sciences. This can be
problematic as converting comprehension tasks from the medical field to the social sciences can
be difficult, especially if questions are to be written for ESL participants. While information on
the various consent forms is usually similar for all branches of science, different aspects are
highlighted for each. For example, alternative procedures to the experimental method are not
often a part of SLA consent forms, though are commonplace in medical research. Another
18

difference is that risks in the social sciences usually focus on the lack of physical risks, or simply
state that there are no known risks, while medical consent forms go into great detail on the topic.
Consent form research outside of SLA
While not as prevalent as research on L1 speakers, there is evidence of how L2 learners
read and understand consent forms. Breese, Burman, Goldberg, and Weis (2007) investigated the
level to which various factors affect the comprehension of informed consent, primarily focusing
on education level and first language (English, Spanish, or Vietnamese). The authors found a
small correlation with education level but did not find that the first language of the participant
was predictive of consent comprehension. The only measure of proficiency in the Breese et al.
study was the stated ability to read in English and thus non-nativeness was viewed as a
dichotomous variable. Additionally, the non-native speakers came from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds making it difficult to assess how much of the variance in the data was
due to language and how much was due to education or other factors.
Barata et al. (2006) conducted focus groups with Canadian immigrants from Portugal and
Latin America and discussed topics related to medical research participation. Various themes
emerged from the focus groups such as trust and the value placed onto research. The groups
varied, with the Portuguese group interested in establishing connections with researchers and
conceptually understanding the research project, while the Latin American group were inherently
distrustful of research. There was also a strong desire to be well informed about the research
process even though the two groups differed on the amount of information they understood about
medical research. In terms of informed consent the participants thought that it was important to
read and understand the form, though many encountered issues doing so due to illiteracy in their
first language, which the forms were written in.
19

In a large review of non-native speakers taking part in cancer trials in Canada, Oliffe,
Thorne, Hislop, and Armstrong (2007) found that non-native English speaking participants were
overwhelmed by the amount of information presented to them on the documents. Additionally,
participants tended to ask for assistance and advice from family or friends to differing degrees
then what is normally seen in first language studies.
Suggestions for how to improve the informed consent process for ESL learners, or at least
suggestions for how to increase the likelihood that the form is understood, have also been
discussed in the literature. McCabe et al. (2005) attempted to translate a consent form from a
diabetes study into Navajo but found that participants were not well informed after reading the
document. Various terms and research traditions did not appear to translate from one language to
the other. Marshall (2006) provides several recommendations for improving the documentation
including respecting cultural traditions, using simple and appropriate language, using culturally
meaningful approaches to consent, using appropriate documentation strategies (oral or signed
consent), and improving consent by making the process more dynamic instead of a one-time
event. While Marshall's suggestions highlight key issues in consent, no attempt was made at
producing material that followed these guidelines, and it is not clear how one could or should go
about doing this.
Medical researchers have legal and ethical reasons to ensure that participants are able to
adequately read and understand the consent process that go beyond what many social science
researchers deal with. The articles discussed in this section highlight several of the issues faced
by medical researchers, which are largely the same issues that concern scientists in the social
sciences. Producing forms that are useful and understandable can be difficult but it is an area
where the expertise of SLA researchers can be used. The next section will discuss the
20

contributions provided by SLA researchers to the literature of informed consent.
Research ethics articles in SLA literature
The SLA literature has been largely silent on the topic of research ethics in the past,
though two special issues on the topic have been published; issue 3 of volume 89 of The Modern
Language Journal titled Methodology, Epistemology, and Ethics in Instructed SLA (Ortega,
2005) and issue 5 of volume 28 of TESL Canada Journal (Kouritzin, 2011).
The articles in the Modern Language Journal tended to focus heavily on research
methodology and epistemology with minimal mention of research ethics, though Ortega (2005b)
and Spada (2005) did discuss the topic at length in their articles. Spada (2005) discussed
conducting research in instructed SLA in the Canadian context. The author mostly focused on
issues relating to ecological validity of classroom-based research but in her segment on ethics,
discussed collaboration efforts between participants, students and instructors, and researchers.
Also included in this article was a call for more research with tangible benefits for language
users and to make research more accessible to non-academic individuals. Ortega's article focused
almost entirely on research ethics. Her main argument was that “it is not the methods or the
epistemologies that justify the legitimacy and quality of human research, but the moral-political
purposes that guide sustained research efforts” (p. 438). Ortega's main points dealt with the
practicalities of research by providing three principle guidelines for researchers to incorporate
into their own ethical lens. These guidelines are “the value of research is to be judged by its
social utility; value-free research is impossible; and epistemological diversity is a good thing” (p.
430). Ortega's view of research ethics seemed to stem from an idea that the goal of SLA research
is to improve, (somewhat) directly pedagogical methods. However, SLA as a field is an
amalgamation of various disciplines ranging from linguistics to psychology. It is difficult to
21

suggest that Ortega's social ethical view of ethical research will be shared by the community at
large, especially given that calls for reform have largely gone unanswered.
The articles in the TESL Canada Journal special issue tended to focus heavily on
reflective experiences had by the authors, which is the general trend for research ethics studies in
SLA (see De Costa, 2014; Hobbs and Kubanyiova, 2008; Janusch, 2011; Lee, 2011; Li, 2011;
Ngo, Bigelow, & Lee, 2014; Shohamy, 2004; Spada, 2005; & Wiltse, 2011). An example of
reflective work can be seen in Lee (2011) who reported on ethical issues that arose during her
dissertation data collection. In the original study, Lee's participant was being racialized by her
institution and fellow instructors to the point where the participant eventually left the teaching
profession. As Lee witnessed the events unfold, she was faced with the question of speaking out
or staying silent. In the 2011 article, Lee discusses the events and how she managed them.
Articles such as Lee (2011) are excellent teaching tools as they allow researchers to gain a
behind the scenes view of how research is conducted; however, it can be difficult to know how
representative the issues presented are. A corollary can be seen in Bowern (2010), who noticed
that many writings from linguists about IRBs were inherently negative and problematic.
However, when the author surveyed linguists conducting field work, she found very few
complaints about IRBs with the largest being the need to spend additional time to complete all
necessary forms and procedures. Bowern's study showed that relying on anecdotal evidence of
research ethics might bias our perception of how events actually play out in research and
highlights the need for more empirical studies of research ethics in SLA.
Very few articles in the SLA literature have directly discussed the usage of consent forms
in research, especially in regards to how well participants understand them. Tarone (1980), in an
early article discussing research ethics in the ESL context, focused heavily on procedural ethics
22

required to conduct research and provided a sample consent form that could be used by
researchers, though it is not clear how many researchers adapted this form for their own use.
Bigelow and Tarone (2004) discussed issues involved with using informed consent forms with
refugee and immigrant populations, as these groups are often illiterate in the target language and
at times in their first language as well.
Two studies in the special issue of TESL Canada Journal (Kouritzin, 2011) discussed
consent forms as well; Li (2011) and Koulouriotis (2011). Li (2011) discussed her own
experience as a novice researcher asking her participants to sign consent forms. As a ChineseCanadian researcher conducting research on other Chinese speakers in Canada, Li discusses the
awkward feelings that she felt while asking people whom she had already been in contact with to
sign a form, a unique experience for all involved. Interestingly, after several years in the
Canadian context, Li reflected on how she no longer felt strange asking for signatures and how
the whole process just became something one does at the beginning of the research process.
Koulouriotis (2011) in her article interviewed three different ESL researchers about various
research ethics issues. Koulouriotis found that all three of her participants understood the reason
for acquiring consent and each wanted their participants to understand the research process
better. Yet the researchers questioned whether a signed consent form is the best or even a good
method of obtaining this consent. Among other ideas that surfaced during the interviews was
whether consent was culturally understandable to all participants, and the idea that consent ought
to be continuously negotiated instead of only once.
One area of concern for the ethical treatment of non-native speakers in research has to do
with the fact that they are often considered a vulnerable (Perry, 2011) or captive population
(Tarone, 1980) because a “...power differential is felt between the population and the
23

experimenter, a differential which could operate to the disadvantage of the subjects” (Tarone,
1980 p. 384). The power differential can be increased if the non-native speakers are students in a
classroom, due to a perceived inability to deny a researcher or instructor (Leentjens & Levenson,
2013). One of the basic tenets of modern research is that all participation is supposed to be freely
consented to without coercion. The use of non-native speaking students as research participants
then is an area where extreme caution should be applied, as this group of participants does not
always have the linguistic or cultural awareness to fully understand the consent process (Perry,
2011; Tarone, 1980).
In terms of non-peer reviewed resources for SLA researchers, there have been many
attempts to codify what is or what should be considered proper research techniques. For
example, Mackey and Gass (2005) dedicated an entire chapter to dealing with how to navigate an
IRB application and many of the other ethical considerations one should take before starting a
research project. Other research textbooks and resources (Eckert, 2013) discussed the need to
produce comprehensible and appropriate consent forms for ESL learners. While texts like these
are helpful to researchers, the suggestions need to be empirically verified to ensure that they are
really beneficial to potential participants.
Summary of literature review
SLA researchers regularly study populations of participants who natively speak a
different language than the one used on consent forms. According to Department of Health and
Human Services standards, an informed consent form should “be provided in language that is
understandable and culturally sensitive to those being asked to participate.”
(http://answers.hhs.gov/ohrp/categories/1566). Later in the same document, the Department of
Health and Human Services stresses that “subjects who do not speak English should be presented
24

with a consent or permission document written in a language understandable to them.” One
question that has to be answered is what understandable means to participants whose reading
ability might differ greatly from the median of the sample population and who do not all have
sufficient proficiency to read a legal document. Regulations tend to view ESL learners as a
monolithic group instead of existing on a sliding continuum of proficiency, and thus it is difficult
to know if information is pertinent to high level learners, low level learners, or both. Language
such as “should be understandable” or “at the Nth grade level,” indicating what level of reading
ability should be acceptable for the document, are common in training materials, but are vague
and difficult to implement in real life.
One often cited solution to the language barrier problem is to provide translated consent
forms in the first language of each participant. For many SLA projects, especially those that take
place in the classroom, there are several issues with this solution. First, it is not always feasible
to provide consent for all first languages spoken by participants. Research based in the classroom
could have the need for multiple translated consent forms, some in languages where official or
even unofficial translators are difficult to find, resulting in higher costs for research or the
possible exclusion of certain language speakers. Second, it is not always possible to know what
languages potential participants speak prior to enrolling them in the experiment. Finally,
translating consent forms into different languages does not guarantee that the concepts within the
consent form will be understood any better, as studies of L1 consent forms have shown, even
native speakers have difficulty understanding consent forms (McCabe et al., 2005; Wong-Kim &
Song, 2007). Not understanding consent concepts could be exacerbated by the fact that SLA
participants might potentially come from cultures that have different, or even lack the concept of
informed consent.
25

While discipline-specific reviews of SLA research practices have increased in frequency
since the turn of the millennium, most of these important studies have focused on
methodological or statistical issues (Norris & Ortega, 2000; Plonsky & Gass, 2011) with far
fewer focusing on the broader issues of research ethics (for examples see Kubanyiova, 2008;
Lee, 2011; Ortega, 2005a, 2005b). The limited amount of research literature on the topic has
typically been spent documenting issues that have arisen in various projects the authors worked
on (Hobbs & Kubanyiova, 2008; Koulouriotis, 2011; Kubanyiova, 2008; Lee, 2011) while others
have attempted to change the way research ethics are approached in SLA (Ortega, 2005a,
2005b). Training materials in research ethics developed specifically for SLA have been
extremely limited to a few publications such as Chapelle and Duff (2003) or Tarone (1980).
Textbooks dealing with research methodology have also included chapters or space on research
ethics (see Mackey & Gass, 2005, 2012), but the discussions are typically very limited.
It is impossible to quantify the importance of research ethics to the sciences. Yet, the SLA
literature is largely devoid of any in-depth focus on the topic. The field is mostly reliant on long
held practices passed down from mentor to student, or to material covered in related fields.
Given the rise of meta-reflection that has been occurring in SLA research over the past decade in
terms of methodology, the field is long overdue for a reflection of ethical practices. In this
dissertation, I propose a beginning to this reflective process by investigating the first step of most
data collection, the consent form. I will investigate the complexity of the consent documents
used in SLA studies and the comprehension levels of a student population that is often utilized in
SLA studies, ESL students.
Research questions
With an ever increasingly global society, the need to learn additional languages will only
26

continue to grow. In conjuncture with this trend, the field of SLA has grown and will continue to
expand to include new Ph.D. programs, more conferences worldwide, and ever more nuanced
journals. Now is an appropriate time to take a step back and ensure that research is being
conducted in the most ethical light possible. The informed consent process is a good starting
place for this process as it affects almost all research with human subjects. L2 learners, especially
students, are particularly vulnerable in research as they might not understand the research culture
or their rights as participants. Thus, ensuring that L2 learners are properly informed about the
research prior to taking part in any study should be seen as a benefit to them and to our science.
The aim of this research project is to better understand SLA consent forms and the
comprehension that L2 learners have of them. There are three overarching research goals for this
project summed up in the following research questions.
1. What is the average level of difficulty for informed consent forms in SLA research?
2. How well do ESL learners comprehend information presented on informed consent
forms?
A) Is there a difference in ESL learners’ comprehension of informed consent forms
according to level of L2 proficiency?
B) Do ESL learners' comprehension of consent forms differ statistically from native
English speakers?
3. How do ESL learners view the consent process and what information contained on the
consent forms do they deem important?

27

CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY
Introduction
The purpose of this study is threefold. First, I examined the difficulty of informed consent
forms in SLA research. This quantitative analysis looked at several important aspects of consent
form, such as the difficulty level of the writing, the length of the form, and the amount of
vocabulary that should be known to ESL learners. The second purpose of this study was to
examine how much information ESL learners were able to understand and remember after
reading a consent form. For this portion of the study, language learners read either a difficult or
easy consent form and then were asked to complete a comprehension task based on standard
informed consent information. Finally, the third purpose of this study was to investigate what
ELS learners thought of informed consent forms in order to better understand their knowledge of
and opinions about consent procedures in the United States. This research is novel in the field of
SLA as few studies have focused on research ethics or ESL consent knowledge (see Chapter 2
for a review of this literature).
Study design
Table 2 shows the structure of the data collection for this dissertation. Each stage of the
data collection will be discussed in detail in the following subsections. In brief, the first phase of
data collection consisted of gathering and creating materials used later in the study. ESL consent
forms were collected and analyzed while a Delphi consensus model (discussed in a later section)
was used to produce a comprehension task. A small pilot study tested the various materials
created in phase 1 and took place before the beginning of data collection in phase 2. In the
second phase, two consent forms were chosen to represent either a difficult or easy to read
28

consent form. Participants read the sample consent form and then completed the comprehension
task. In the final phase of the study, participants took part in focus group interviews aimed at
better understanding their view of the research process.
Table 2: Flow of study design
Tasks completed
Phase 1

Researcher:
1. Collected consent forms from SLA researchers
2. Created comprehension task using Delphi consensus model

Pilot Study

Tested comprehension task with sample ESL population

Phase 2

Students completed:
1. Reading easy/hard consent form
2. Comprehension task
3. Background questionnaire
4. Vocabulary Levels Task
5. Reading and signing debriefing form

Phase 3
Focus group interviews with participants
Design and plan of current dissertation
Setting
Data for the three segments of the study were collected at different times and locations.
Part one, which involved the gathering of consent forms and the Delphi consensus model was
completed online. SLA researchers and ESL experts were contacted via email and dissertations
were searched using various databases.
Data for the comprehension task was collected in the classrooms of the participants. Each
classroom design was subtlety different but largely followed a similar structure. Students were
seated in individual desks and placed into rows that faced towards the front of the classroom.
The final phase of the study, focus groups, took place in various conference rooms. The
conference rooms consisted of a large table with seating for roughly 15 people. A video camera
and boom microphone were placed at one end of the table and students were asked to sit in seats
29

that were close to the recording equipment.
Participants
Comprehension task
A total of 112 ESL students from a University affiliated intensive English program (IEP)
took part in the comprehension task. Students were recruited from the two lowest levels, 1 and 2,
as well as the highest levels, 4, and 5. In terms of gender there was quite a gap in the participant
pool, with the majority of ESL students being male (n=75) when compared to female (n=37). On
average the students were 22.2 (SD=4.95) years old. There was a range of first languages spoken
by the population; Arabic (n=42), Chinese (n=32), Portuguese (n=30), Japanese (n=7), and Thai
(n=1).
A control group of L1 English speakers (n=38) was also utilized. The control group was
comprised of students enrolled in undergraduate language teaching courses at the same
university as the IEP students. Differences between the populations existed beyond just their first
language, which for the control group was exclusively English. In the control group there was a
larger number of females (n=33) compared to males (n=5), and the population was marginally
younger (M=20.5, SD=1.32).
The division of students in the IEP was used to help sort the population into higher and
lower language proficiency groups. However, results from the Vocabulary Levels Test (Laufer &
Nation, 1999) indicated that some students did not share the same level of vocabulary knowledge
as others at their IEP level. Taking into consideration the fact that IEP levels might not reflect
English proficiency, in part because learners can advance through levels by passing a course
instead of by proficiency testing, the Vocabulary Levels Test was used to split the sample
population into two groups – High proficiency and Low proficiency. Additionally a native
30

speaker (NS) group, who did not take the Vocabulary Levels Test, was used as a control
throughout all data collection. The mean score of the Vocabulary Levels Test was 13.4 correct
answers out of 36. Using the mean score of 13.4 as a cut off for being in the upper or lower
proficiency group would result in many students being placed into a group that ran counter to
their current IEP level. While using only IEP categorization is problematic, the Vocabulary
Levels Test measures only one skill area, vocabulary. The goal then was to find a cut-off score
that would preserve as much of the IEP level while taking the Vocabulary Levels Test into
consideration. Removing the middle 20% of students around the mean, those who scored
between 11.5 and 14.5, resulted in groups that showed high correlation between the original IEP
levels and the Vocabulary Levels Test, r(130)=.722, p<.001. Table 3 shows how students were
categorized according to their IEP levels into the High/Low/NS group.
Table 3: IEP group compared to Vocabulary Levels Test grouping
Low group High group
NS
1

15

0

0

2

13

2

0

4

13

47

0

5

0

3

0

NS

0

0

38

Total
41
52
38
Comparison between IEP and vocabulary levels test grouping
The Vocabulary Levels Test appeared to accurately categorize low IEP level students into the low
level proficiency group as only two students from levels 1 or 2 were moved into the high
proficiency group. On the other hand, 13 students were moved from the high IEP level into the
low proficiency group, potentially caused by students moving through the various IEP levels
without gaining proficiency.

31

Focus group
The focus groups were held over the Summer and into the Fall semesters of 2014 while
the comprehension task data was collected in the Spring and Fall of 2014. Since data collection
ranged over the course of three academic semesters, a few students took part in both the
comprehension task and then the focus group. The exact number is unknown as it was not
expected that students would move two levels over the course of a single semester, and so were
not asked if they had participated in the previous stage on the background questionnaire. Some
participants, roughly five or six, disclosed their dual participation during the focus group. The
two sections of the study were different in terms of the data they elicited. The comprehension
data attempted to uncover how well ESL learners understood the consent forms they read, and
thus used minimal deception in that the participants did not know prior to taking the
comprehension task that they were reading a mock-consent form. The focus group data on the
other hand attempted to gain further insights into the perceptions that ESL learners had of
consent forms and research, with all information disclosed ahead of time. Focus group data
consisted of meta-reflection of research beliefs from the participants’ point of view, and as such
should not have been impacted by students taking part in the comprehension task prior to the
focus group. The reverse did not occur as comprehension data collected in the Fall was from
level 1 students who could not have been enrolled in the IEP during focus groups data collection
from the previous semester.
In total, 31 students participated in the 6 different focus groups. There was a roughly even
split between males (n=18) and females (n=13) with an average age of 22 (SD=2.84) years old.
In terms of first language, the majority of the students spoke Portuguese (n=22), Arabic (n=5),
Japanese (n=1), and Korean (n=1). One student did not complete a background questionnaire so
32

beyond the fact that he was in a level 2 class, as that was the only level recruited at the time,
nothing can be known about his background. The overall population of the IEP at time of data
collection was largely Portuguese, Arabic, and Chinese speaking students. Beyond speculation, it
is not clear why Arabic and Chinese speakers were underrepresented in the population pool of
the focus groups as they were equally represented in the classes visited for recruitment.
Since students were asked to sign up for specific slots when they were available to come
to data collection times, it was not possible to control who would attend each session beyond the
fact that students were restricted to times that matched their IEP level. The upper level students,
those who were taking classes in levels 4 or 5 of their English program, were all Portuguese
speakers from Brazil. In focus group 1, two students came. Ten students came for group 3, and
11 came for group 4. It is not clear why group 4 had 11 people present as only ten slots were
offered for that day. It is possible that a participant invited a friend or a student decided to come
without signing up. Data for group 2 is excluded from this project due to the fact that only one
student came to that session. While our interaction was interesting, focus group data thrives on
the building of conversation between participants and researcher, which was the motivation for
using focus groups in the first place. The group meta-reflection allowed for participants to
combine ideas and suggest corrections for inaccuracies. Focus groups 5 and 6, were made up of
low level learners from levels 1 and 2 of the IEP and were largely Arabic speakers.

33

Table 4: Focus group biographical data
Focus Group
n IEP levels
Gender

Age (SD)

1

2

4, 5

Male= 1 22.00 (1.41)
Female= 1

3

9

5

Male= 5 22.11 (1.76)
Female= 4

4

11

5

Male= 6 21.64 (1.43)
Female= 5

5

5

1, 2

Male= 2 21.25 (2.50)
Female= 2

6

3

2

Male= 2 20.00 (2.00)
Female= 1
Biographical data on focus group participants
Instruments
In this section all materials used during the data collection will be discussed. Examples of
each instrument can be found in Appendix C.
Consent form – easy and difficult
Consent forms were gathered from a variety of online sources, including published
dissertations and through email requests. The exact process will be discussed in the next section.
Two informed consent forms were selected for use as research instruments from the collected
forms. While the two forms did differ in content and language, they were both originally created
to be used during large classroom based research, thereby ensuring ecological validity. The easy
or simple to read form had an average reading level of 7.45 while the difficult form was rated at
10.45 as will be shown in Chapter 4 and 5. The two forms were chosen as they were ranked
above or below the normally suggested rating of an 8th grade level. Once the forms were
selected, all identifying information was removed and replaced with mock names, phone
numbers, addresses, and emails. Additionally the forms were formatted so that they would easily
fit onto a single page. Directions were included at the top of each form and a box was included
34

for participants to attach their randomly generated ID number.
The two consent forms differed in complexity, length, and other measured differences but
were both originally passed by an IRB for inclusion in a research project. Information was added
or amended to each form as needed. Both forms had the name of the researcher changed to John
Smith and a mock email (smith@msu.edu) and phone number (555-333-1111) used.
Additionally, in the easy form, a time limit of 60 minutes was included as was a line about
confidentiality so that the information covered would match the difficult form. In the difficult
form, a line about obtaining extra credit without completing the research was added. While the
forms differed in terms of topic of the study and exact wording, the intended answers on the
comprehension task were largely the same. The major differences between the two forms was in
their stated purpose and the benefits offered by the studies.
Background questionnaire
A background questionnaire was created for this study and was used during both phase 2
and 3. Questions included gender, age, IEP level, home country, first language, time learning
English, and whether or not participants had previously been part of research. A similar form was
created for the native speaking control group, though this form focused only on gender, age, L1,
and past research participation. All variables were selected as they were thought to be important
for understanding why students scored a particular way on the comprehension task.
Vocabulary test
In order to determine the vocabulary level of the participants, a version of Laufer and
Nation's (1999) Vocabulary Levels Test (Productive) was used. The webpages
http://www.lextutor.ca/tests/levels/productive/2ka.html and
http://www.lextutor.ca/tests/levels/productive/3ka.html were used as source material. These
35

pages contain 18 sentences, each with a target word from the 2000 and 3000 word frequency
levels respectively. The target word was removed from the sentence with only a few letters
remaining. Only one word in the English language was supposed to correctly fit the sentence. In
order to augment this task into a pencil and paper task, each sentence was copied and pasted into
a text document. A blank line was used to indicate that letters were missing from the particular
word. An example question would read as follows: 1) I'm glad we had this opp________ to talk.
Participants were told to fill in the blank with ortunity to complete the word. Directions and a
box for an ID number were included at the top of the page. Again, complete examples of the task
can be seen in Appendix C.
Comprehension task
The Deaconess Informed Consent Comprehension Test (Miller, O’Donnell, Searight, &
Barbarash, 1996) is a task designed to test an individual’s understanding of a consent form prior
to enrolling him or her into a clinical study. The 14 questions are open-ended and asked orally by
the researcher directly to the participant. The task was originally designed to so that participants
would be directly questioned after they had read an informed consent form but prior to actually
enrolling for the study. The hope was that the researcher would be able to explain any
misconceptions that the participant still had about the research process. The questions were
modeled after the eight essential elements of consent found in the Department of Health and
Human Services code 46.116 (Table 1). The questions were originally written for medical
research and were rated at an 8th grade reading level. The original DICCT questions can be seen
in Table 5.

36

Table 5: Original DICCT questions
Questions
1

What is the purpose of the study?

2

When should you begin using the medication?

3

After you begin using the medication, how often are you supposed to use it?

4

What are the possible risks or discomforts associated with the study?

5

Describe the benefits that may be expected for you and others as a result of the
research?

6

Can you tell me any other treatment that is available for your infection if you
weren’t participating in the study?

7

Who can you contact if you have questions regarding the study and about your
rights as a research subject?

8

If you become physically injured or ill as a direct result of participating in the
study, whom do you contact?

9

If you become physically injured or ill as a direct result of participating in study,
what compensation is available?

10

If you become physically injured or ill as a direct result of participating in the
study, who will pay for any necessary medical treatment?

11

Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary. What will happen if you
refuse to be in the study?

12

Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary. What will happen if you
agree to be in the study and later change your mind?

13

How would your decision whether or not to be in the study affect your present or
future medical care with the study doctors or Deaconess Hospital?

14

Can you tell me who is allowed to see your medical records for this study?

The Deaconess Informed Consent Comprehension Test taken from Miller, O’Donnell, Searight,
and Barbarash (1996)
In order to augment the original DICCT questions so they fit into the SLA context and
were comprehensible for both upper and lower level ESL learners, a Delphi model of consensus
was used (Dalkey & Helmer, 1963). A Delphi model is an attempt to “obtain the most reliable
consensus of opinion of a group of experts” (Dalkey & Helmer, 1963 p. 458) and does so
cyclically. In the current model, I first eliminated questions that were either duplicated or deemed

37

to be irrelevant for SLA studies due to their medical nature (questions 2, 7, 9, 10). Next I
reworded questions so that they would reflect a social science study instead of a clinical trial. I
added three questions that were thought to provide additional important information to use as
distractors, bringing the total to 13 questions for the revised version of the DICCT. I next
emailed the revised questions to five experienced ESL instructors and asked them to rewrite the
questions so that a low level ESL learner would be able to understand them. In the first round of
revision, all five reviewers responded with comments and suggested possible changes to the
questions. I then rewrote the questions by synthesizing the feedback. The newly revised
questions were sent back out to the reviewers for a second round of revision. In the second
round, four of five instructors responded but with minimal feedback. The original plan was to use
three rounds of revisions, however, feedback on round two was so minimal that consensus was
judged to have been met. The new question set was rated at a 2.6 grade level according to the
Flesch-Kincaide grading level scale. This approach to question creation thus produced a set of
questions that were deemed to be largely understandable by the target audience and can be seen
in Table 6.
Structured interview questions
A standard interview protocol (available in Appendix C) was created for focus groups.
Ten questions were included in the protocol based on initial findings from the comprehension
task and required information from consent forms. The protocol was written in language that
should be understood by ESL learners. It was thought that lower level learners might have
difficulty understanding the questions and thus for interviews involving lower level learners, the
nature of the question was left, while wording was simplified and explained upon. Participants
were urged to answer in English, the lingua franca of the focus groups. However, some
38

participants had difficulty finding the correct word and would ask for assistance from a fellow
participant who spoke the same language. Participants were told that if they could not respond to
a question in English then they could respond in their native language and it would be translated
later. No participant used this method, though there are many instances of negotiation of meaning
found in the dataset.
Table 6: Revised comprehension questions
Questions
1

What is the researcher trying to learn from this study?

2

How long will it take you to finish this study?

3

What risks (bad things) are there in this study?

4

What benefits (good things) are there in this study?

5

How can you earn (get) the money/extra credit if you do NOT participate in the
study?

6

Who can you contact (call or email) if something bad happened to you during the
study?

7

What will happen to you if you say no to being in the study?

8

What will happen if you say yes to be in the study now but want to say no later?

9

How does your decision to be (or not to be) in the study change the way the teachers
at the ELC think about you?

10

Who can see the things you do for this study?

11

Will this study improve your English skills?

12

How is your teacher involved (helping) in this research?

13 What will the researchers do with the information from the study?
Modified questions after Delphi consensus approach
Procedure
Consent forms
Consent forms were collected using two separate methods. First, consent forms were
requested from SLA researchers that matched the following criteria: (1) the consent form was
written for an ESL study and was in English, (2) it was not translated into a different language
39

for the participants at the time of use, and (3) the original study must involve the use of an intact
class or a large lab based experiment. Next, informed consent forms were collected from
published dissertations that met the same criteria previously outlined. In total, a convenience
sample of 20 consent forms was collected and used as the data pool for this portion of the study.
After consent forms were collected, all identifying information was replaced with mock
information of roughly the same length. For example, if a researcher was named Bob Smith, his
name was replaced with Tom Jones. Mock information was used to conserve the original length
of the document so that accurate length could be measured. Length was measured in page
number, word count, and sentence count. All counts were provided by Microsoft Word.
After length was measured, the consent forms were formatted into a standard version in
order to run computer-based readability tests. All punctuation, including periods, commas, and
colons were removed. Computer processing of readability uses sentences as the bases of analysis
and views periods as ending a sentence. The example sentence: You can email Dr. Smith at
smith@email.com. actually would contain three sentences according to a computer: (1) You can
email Dr., (2) Smith at smith@email., (3) Com. Other formatting included the removal of all
section headers. Some researchers used full sentences as headers while others used simple words
or phrases. Since leaving a phrase such as risks, a common section header, as its own sentence or
including it as part of the next sentence would have artificially inflated, or deflated the scores, all
section headers were removed. Next, for simplicity's sake, all sentences were placed onto their
own line and all additional formatting (bold, italics, bullets) was removed as it is not taken into
account in readability scores.
The consent forms were run through readability-score.com, a website that automatically
calculates Flesch-Kincaid and SMOG reading grade levels, length, and text data such as syllable
40

and word count. A sample form was tested in three separate programs and calculated by hand,
resulting in similar outputs. Readability-score.com was selected over the other tools as it
calculated all relevant data from the consent forms in one location and was faster than
calculating the information by hand.
Two widely used tests in determining the readability level of a text are the Flesch-Kincaid
readability score (Kincaid, Jr, Rogers, & Chissom, 1975) and the Simple Measure of
Gobbledygook (SMOG) (McLaughlin, 1969), both used in this study. The Flesch-Kincaid is the
more common test of readability and can be automatically generated inside of Microsoft Office
Word. The Flesch-Kincaid scale compares two different numbers, the average number of
syllables per word and the average number of words per sentence. The syllable length number is
divided by the words per sentence to provide an overall readability. The test results in two scores,
one a level of readability from 0 to 100, with 100 being easier to read, and a scale according to
grade level (i.e. a sixth-grade reading level). The SMOG test requires 20 sentences from each
consent form, 10 from the beginning and 10 from the end. All words that are larger than two
syllables are counted and then this number is square rooted and increased by three, revealing the
graded reading level. The SMOG is simpler to calculate but is at a disadvantage as it requires at
least 20 sentences, which short consent forms might lack. Both Flesch-Kincaid and SMOG
scores will be reported in Chapter 4 but only the Flesch-Kincaid will be discussed in other
sections as it is the test most often reported by researchers (see for examples; Breese, Burman,
Goldberg, & Weis, 2007; Jefford & Moore, 2008; Paasche-Orlow, Taylor, & Brancati, 2003).
Consent forms were compared against the New General Service List (NGSL) to see how
many words on the forms were at or above the 1000, 2000, and 3000 word-frequency levels. To
do this, the word list was downloaded from http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org and then
41

organized into three long tables. A macro was used that would search each consent form for any
instance of a word on the NGSL at a particular level and remove it from the form, leaving only
words that were above the designated level. This was done cyclically so that words on the 1000word level list were removed and reported before words at the 2000 level were removed and so
on. Additionally, proper nouns that should be known to a participant, but would not be counted
on a word frequency list, were also removed, included proper nouns such as names of buildings,
streets, or language centers.
Pilot Study
Between phases one and two, a pilot study was conducted to test the quantitative
materials for phase two of this study. The participant pool was drawn from a special topics
course for ESL learners being taught at the business college of the university where the study
was conducted. The course met twice a week for an hour and focused on improving the oral
proficiency of the students. The students were six male Korean graduate students in their late
twenties or early thirties. As this was a pilot study, no further biographical data was collected.
According to the instructor of the class, the students were roughly at an intermediate high level,
which is in concordance with my observed interaction with the group.
The participants all verbally agreed to take part in the research project and then read a
sample consent form that was originally used for a previous study. While reading the consent
form, the participants were asked to highlight words that were unknown to them. Once the
participants finished reading the form, they were asked to “sign” the form by checking a box
used to indicate that they understood the meaning of the document. Finally, the participants all
took a comprehension task (described below) in order to test how well they actually understood
the consent form. The primary purpose of this pilot study was to (a) test the questions from the
42

comprehension task for confusing wording, (b) establish the amount of time required to complete
the activities, and (c) check for any unforeseen issues related to the testing materials. After
completing the activities, a debriefing session was held to ask students’ opinions on the task. No
issues were reported with the questions or directions. Participants did not highlight words they
found to be unfamiliar with and thus stronger oral directions were added for the main study. No
other changes were instigated from data collected during the pilot procedures.
Comprehension task
The comprehension task data collection was conducted in the classroom of the
participants. As class time was being used for the data collection, all students were required to
participate; however, students were told that they would receive instructions for opting out of the
study at the end. Only two students opted out of the research.
Participants were randomly handed a consent form (either difficult or easy) and given
oral directions. They were told to carefully read the form and to underline any words they did not
know. They were also told to circle any larger section of words like a sentence or paragraph that
they did not understand. Participants were not told that they were reading a consent form for a
mock-study. They were also not told about the true purpose of the research and so were under the
impression that they were reading a real consent form for a real research study that they would
begin participating in shortly.
Once participants read the form, they were instructed to “sign” the form by checking a
box indicating that they understood the consent form and agreed to participate in the research.
Signatures could not be used in this phase of the study since the mock-consent forms would be
used as data and a signature would cause a lack of confidentiality. Once students had checked the
box, they were individually asked if they understood the form and if they had any questions.
43

Some students asked about the meaning of words they underlined but no participant asked
questions regarding the actual studies they were about to enroll into.
Students read and signed the consent form at their own pace. Again, it should be pointed
out that participants had completed all the necessary steps required to enroll themselves in a
research project. After each student signed the form, I collected their document and gave them
the comprehension task and provided them with individual directions for how to complete it. The
participants were told to use the information from the consent form they had just read to answer
each question. Full sentence responses were not required and students were asked to write as
much as they could remember from the consent form. Additionally, no directions were given that
specified which language to use when filling out the form; however, all participants did so in
English. Participants were told, and read in the directions, that if they did not know the answer to
a question that they could leave it blank or write something along the lines of “I don't know” or
“I don't remember.” If the participant did not believe the consent form actually contained the
information being asked about in the question, they were instructed to write “not on form.”
Students were not placed under any time constraints during this process.
Once students had completed the comprehension task, they were given a background
questionnaire to fill out. For the native speakers, this was the end of data collection. The process
of reading the form, completing the task, and filling in the background questionnaire took
roughly 15-20 minutes for all ESL levels and only about five to ten minutes for native speakers.
For the ESL students, after filling out the background questionnaire they were asked to sit
quietly and wait for other students to catch up. Once all students had completed the
comprehension task and all materials collected, the vocabulary levels test was distributed. The
directions, including two examples, were read aloud in class. Students then worked on the task.
44

This process took roughly 10 to15 minutes. Students seemed to enjoy the task for its game-like
qualities. Once the students had finished the task, they were given a debriefing form (also given
to the native speakers after they filled out a background questionnaire) and asked to read it
carefully. At this point, students were told how to opt out of the study, again, only two students
did so. The remaining time was then used for discussion of various topics related to research
ethics, graduate school, and other random topics of interest.
Focus groups
Focus group interviews were conducted in a large conference room. Students were seated
around a table. A camcorder was set up on a tripod and placed at the “front” of the table.
Depending on the number of participants, the researcher either sat off camera, or very close to
the camcorder and students were asked to sit close to the camcorder. Students were given a
background questionnaire and a consent form to sign. Participants were given unique ID
numbers based on their seat and focus group number starting with students who set camera-left
(they would appear on the left hand side of a recording). So F1S1 would be the student who sat
in seat one or the closet to the camera on the left hand side in focus group 1.
After all materials had been collected, participants were given a second copy of the
consent form they had just signed to use as a reference or to take notes on. Participants were
given one final option to ask questions before the camcorder was started. An additional sound
recorder was also placed in the middle of the table in case the camcorder or boom microphone
failed. No equipment issue occurred. The interview took roughly one hour to complete for each
group. Once all questions (found in Appendix C) had been asked, students were given the
opportunity to ask any remaining questions they had. Once all recording equipment was turned
off, students were given the chance to speak off-the-record. All groups exercised this option but
45

conversation tended towards topics such as graduate school, life in town, and other banal topics.
Data Processing and Analysis
Consent form data
The preparation of the consent forms was covered in a prior section. The objective of this
analysis was to investigate the overall difficulty level of the form in terms of reading level,
length, and vocabulary level. To this end, descriptive statistics were used to explore the findings
and will be fully explored in Chapter 4.
Comprehension task
Like the difficulty analysis of the consent forms, descriptive statistics were used to
investigate various outcomes from the comprehension task. Additionally, a multiple regression
was used in order to understand how the variables of form type (hard or easy) and proficiency
were predictive of the comprehension task. The data in this section of the study was nonnormally distributed and so non-parametric testing, including Mann-Whitney U tests to compare
various groups were be utilized.
The data for the regression model showed that all assumptions needed to run a multiple
regress (Larson-Hall, 2010) had been met. Figure 1 shows the plot of the residuals. There is
small deviation from the line but the data appear to be linear in nature.

46

Figure 1: P-P Plot of regression standardized residuals

The standard residuals are slightly elevated but at -2.34 and 2.34 are within the bounds of
3 mentioned in Larson-Hall (2010), indicating that there were no outliers in the data. Cook's
distance was <.001 and 0.046, well within the range of -1 and 1. Mahalanobis distance was 2.42
and 3.046, below the suggested 11. All numbers are represented in Table 7.
Table 7: Regression assumptions
Minimum

Maximum

Accepted range

Standard Residuals

-2.34

2.34

-3 to 3

Cook's Distance

<.001

.046

-1 to 1

Mahalanobis Distance 2.42
3.046
Under 11
Assumption tests for multiple regression model source Larson-Hall (2010)
Scoring and validity of rating
Scoring on the comprehension task was dichotomous, 1 for a correct response, 0 for an
incorrect or blank response. The open-ended nature of the questions meant that participants
might partially answer a question correctly which occurred 18 times in the dataset. All instances
of partially correct answers were given a score of 1, as a partially correct response indicated at
47

least some level of comprehension of the information. To ensure that scoring was valid, a second
rater was given a random set of 20% of all comprehension tasks. She was asked to rate the
responses using dichotomous correct/incorrect scale. A simple percentage agreement was used
and showed that the external rater agreed with my original judgments at 94.3%.
Focus group
The focus groups were conducted using a structured interview protocol. The same 10
questions were asked to each group with similar follow up prompts. However, focus group
interviews thrive on the interaction between participants and so all groups took on their own
identity. Some groups were more reserved with participants responding after reflective thought,
while other groups appeared to view the data collection session as a friendly gathering where
jokes and laughter were permitted. The video recordings were first transcribed by the author
using standard video playback software. After the recordings were transcribed, they were broken
into sections based on the question asked so that groups could be compared.
As suggested by Onwuegbuzie, Bailey, and Daley (2000), the data from the focus groups
was analyzed using a constant comparison analysis as “[f]ocus group data can be analyzed via
constant comparison analysis, especially when there are multiple focus groups within the same
study...allow[ing] the focus group researcher to assess saturation in general and across-group
saturation in particular” (p.6). Open coding was conducted by color-coding the various questions
asked throughout the interviews so that comparison across groups could occur. Questions were
largely independent of each other, as they did not build a narrative but instead each concentrated
on one particular issue relating to informed consent. Questions were analyzed and open coding
was applied to each participants' response. During the axial coding phase, all open coding was
collected and condensed within each question, producing micro-themes. The various focus
48

groups answered the same series of questions, though with slightly different wording and timing,
and most discussion was similar for each question regardless of the group. These micro-themes
then represent the behavior of the focus groups on a question by question basis. A similar process
took place with the micro-themes. Various questions that dealt with related topics such as
benefits and compensation (theme 2) or difficult sections and suggestions (theme 3) were
combined to form macro-themes. The final two macro-themes emerged from patterns that were
noticed across questions such as a general feeling of apathy towards the forms (theme 1) and
issues of confusion over research practices (theme 4). Each of these four macro-themes will be
discussed in detail in Chapter 6.
Ethical Considerations
Approval for this project was granted by Michigan State University's Institutional Review
Board. Overall the project posed limited to minimal risks for all participants. All data was
anonymized to the maximum extent possible. For the consent forms collected as research
material, all identifiable data was removed prior to any analysis being conducted. For all other
data, no names were collected beyond signatures provided for consent forms/debriefing forms.
Participants were given randomized identification numbers. Participants who took part in the
focus group were video and audio recorded which might make them identifiable if someone was
able to gain access to the materials. However, all digital files, including videos, are kept on a
password protected computer. This computer is also always kept with the author or in a locked
and secure location.
Participants were never at risk of bodily harm during this study. However, risk and harm
cannot just be measured in terms of probability of injury. Class time was used for this research
but any benefits that might come out of this research will likely not directly impact the lives of
49

the participants. When conducting research it is important to balance the potential for harm or
risk, in this case the loss of class time, with benefits. Participants in this research project were not
asked to do anything that would fall outside of the normal purview of classroom activities;
reading, responding to open-ended questions, and vocabulary tasks. Even though the research
was not directly geared toward class content, the participants were able to still do activities that
might have had a benefit to their language learning.
Another way to argue for the ethical validity of this research is to consider it from a social
justice perspective. These participants might be donating their time to this project without direct
benefit. However, they are helping the ESL community at large. For many people, this type of
reason is sufficient to justify the minimal risk or harm involved, as will be discussed later in
Chapter 6.
The comprehension task did use minimal deception as a means of gaining insights into
the knowledge of the participants. Minimal amounts of deception are normally tolerated in
research, assuming that it does not lead to increased harm to the participant and that the truth, or
as much of the truth behind the project as possible, is disclosed to the participants at the end of
data collection. The deception in this study, the fact that participants were not told that the
consent forms they read were actually part of the data collection, was revealed to the population
at the end of each data collection session. The students were told that they would not in fact have
to take part in the research outlined in the consent form and that reading the consent form and
answering the questions on the comprehension task was the actual purpose behind the project.
Further, students were encouraged to ask questions about the process if they had any once data
collection was completed. Most participants did not ask questions and those that did were
unrelated to the research project, instead focusing on other topics such as American holidays, life
50

as a graduate student, or the weather. As will be discussed in later chapters, participants appeared
to view data collection as an opportunity to interact with a native speaker of English.

51

CHAPTER 4
RESULTS FROM CONSENT FORM ANALYSIS
Introduction
Of the various studies that have investigated consent form difficulty, the majority have
focused solely on length (Beardsley, Jefford, & Mileshkin, 2007) and reading grade level
(Paasche-Orlow, Taylor, & Brancati, 2003). No empirical data exists for the difficulty level of
ESL consent forms used in SLA studies. As such, one of the goals of this dissertation is to gain a
better understanding of the difficulty level at which ESL consent forms are currently written. In
this chapter, I will present the descriptive data from the relevant measures of difficulty for the
sample pool of consent forms. The measures investigated in this section are length, reading grade
level, and vocabulary usage.
The exact methods for collecting and anonymizing consent forms were discussed in
Chapter 3. In brief, forms were solicited from SLA and ESL researchers. The forms were
designed for ESL studies, used in large scale data collection sessions, and were not translated
into the L1 of the participants. In total, 20 ESL consent forms were collected. Each form was
written by a different researcher and approved by a local IRB for inclusion into a research
protocol.
Length
Federal guidelines do not set forth regulations on the minimum nor maximum length of
consent forms and so it is difficult to know how long the average consent form is. Studies
published in the medical field indicate that consent forms of 10 or more pages are quite common
(Stunkel et al, 2010); however, it is not clear how long average SLA consent forms are. Table 8
displays the length of the collected consent forms in terms of page length, number of sentences,
52

and word count. The average number of pages per document is 1.85 (SD=1.11), with a range of
one to five pages being reported. Using only page length can be deceiving as some forms such as
M and H made use of different number of pages yet used roughly the same number of words
(610 and 655 respectively).
Table 8: Length of ESL consent forms
Word Count Page Count Sentence Count
A

285

1

18

B

456

1

24

C

290

1

20

D

598

1

31

E

774

3

39

F

751

2

48

G

328

1

17

H

655

3

33

I

1641

5

106

J

462

1

23

K

395

1

19

L

1301

4

77

M

610

1

33

N

274

1

16

O

730

2

35

P

407

1

23

Q

400

2

17

R

556

2

27

S

409

2

27

T

389

2

14

Average 585.55 (336.27) 1.85 (1.11) 32.35 (21.94)
Descriptive data for length of sample consent forms

53

Reading grade level
The average SMOG rating was 10.04 (SD=1.16), marginally lower than the FleschKincaid average of the 10.82 (SD=1.54) grade level. A one-samples t-test showed that the
average reading level according to the Flesch-Kincaid score of of 10.82 was statistically higher
than the acceptable cut-off of the 8th grade level t(19) = 7.97, p<.001, r=0.87. Consent forms
ranged in difficulty from 7.45 to 13.60, meaning that at the highest, the consent forms would
require a college level education to read and comprehend the materials. Only form C (7.45) was
below the 8th grade level, though forms A and I were close to the target at 8.85 and 8.90.
Words covered
The 1000, 2000, and 3000 word levels of the New General Service List (NGSL) were
used to determine the frequency of the vocabulary on the collected consent forms. The words
found on the NGSL represent vocabulary frequency according to corpora studies with the first
1000 words as the most frequent with those closer to the 3000 level being less common. In order
to make a form easier to read for non-native English speakers, it is expected that the vast
majority of the vocabulary will be found at the 1000 word level with an additional percentage
found at either the 2000 or 3000 band.
Table 10 shows the raw number of word tokens above each NGSL level, or the number of
words not found on that particular NGSL list. Table 11 shows the same information but in
percentage form. The analysis was cyclical and thus once a word was removed, it was not added
back for the next cycle. Taking form C as an example, we can see that a total of 261 words on the
consent form were at the 1000 word level. Of the remaining words, all but 16 can be found at the
2000 word level, and four at the 3000 word level. Nine words were left after the 3000 word level
and represent instances of vocabulary items were not included on the 1000-3000 level bands of
54

the NGSL. An easier to read form should have the bulk of its vocabulary contained at the 1000
word level as it would be more likely that ESL learners would have encountered them before.
Table 9: Reading level difficulty of ESL consent forms
SMOG Grade level
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level
A

8.80

8.90

B

10.40

11.10

C

7.20

7.70

D

10.50

11.00

E

10.60

11.90

F

8.80

9.20

G

9.40

10.50

H

10.00

11.30

I

8.80

9.00

J

11.10

11.80

K

11.30

12.50

L

8.80

9.20

M

10.20

10.70

N

10.20

11.30

O

10.80

11.60

P

10.00

10.50

Q

11.30

12.60

R

10.40

11.50

S

9.60

9.60

T

12.60

14.60

Average
10.04 (1.16)
10.82 (1.54)
Descriptive data for reading grade level of sample consent forms

55

Table 10: Vocabulary not covered by New General Service List
Form Total words 1000 level 2000 level 3000 level Above 3000
A

285

243

19

9

14

B

456

381

38

16

21

C

290

261

16

4

9

D

598

496

45

20

37

E

774

654

53

20

47

F

751

641

59

20

31

G

328

277

24

10

17

H

655

569

49

17

20

I

1641

1410

95

16

120

J

462

376

44

13

29

K

395

322

37

13

23

L

1301

1150

81

9

61

M

610

514

49

19

28

N

274

219

21

10

24

O

730

604

59

29

38

P

407

362

19

5

21

Q

400

342

22

15

21

R

556

467

39

14

36

S

409

339

41

9

20

T
389
325
32
5
27
Descriptive data for vocabulary coverage of sample consent forms
Table 11 shows the cumulative percentage of vocabulary items covered at each level of
the NGSL. The percentage shows the amount of vocabulary items that are covered on the
consent form broken down by NGSL level. For consent form A, it can be seen that 85% of all
words were found at the 1000 word level, 91% at the 2000-word level and 95% at the 3000 word
level. The average percentage of words covered for each level was 84.58 (SD=2.57) for the 1000
level, 91.96 (SD=1.75) for the 2000 level, and 94.55 (SD=1.35) for the 3000 level.

56

Table 11: Vocabulary covered by New General Service List
Percentage NGSL coverage
1000 level

2000 level

3000 level

A

85.20

91.92

95.09

B

83.11

91.45

94.96

C

90.00

95.52

96.90

D

82.94

90.47

93.81

E

84.49

91.34

93.93

F

85.35

93.21

95.87

G

84.45

91.77

94.82

H

86.87

94.35

96.95

I

85.92

91.71

92.69

J

81.38

90.91

93.72

K

81.51

90.89

94.18

L

88.39

94.62

95.31

M

84.26

92.30

95.41

N

79.93

87.59

91.24

O

82.74

90.82

94.79

P

88.94

93.61

94.84

Q

85.50

91.00

94.75

R

83.99

91.01

93.53

S

82.89

92.91

95.11

T

83.55

91.77

93.06

Average
84.58 (2.57)
91.96 (1.75)
Percentages of vocabulary coverage of sample consent forms

94.55 (1.35)

Table 12 shows the most common 39 words found on the consent forms that were not
included in the 1000-3000 word list, with each item occurring at least four times. An additional
120 items occurred three or fewer times and can be found in Appendix A. Several of the words
on this table might be considered research jargon and are unlikely to be used in day to day
interaction by English speakers. Examples of this research jargon include: consent, confidential,
57

questionnaire, investigator, transcribe, publish, pseudonym, anonymous, compensate, IRB, and
withdrawal. Of these research jargon words, only consent, publish, and compensate appear on
the academic word list (Coxhead, 2000), the rest appear to be highly infrequent in standard and
academic English signaling the overall difficulty of the vocabulary used on consent forms.
Table 12: Consent form vocabulary above 3000 word level
Words
Count
Words
Count
English

46

anonymous

6

consent

33

assignment

6

ESL

25

discontinue

6

confidential

24

dissertation

6

questionnaire

24

minimal

6

audio

23

pragmatic

6

investigator

23

signature

6

transcribe

14

Allowable

5

classroom

13

compensate

5

publish

13

disclose

5

pseudonym

11

privacy

5

semester

11

additional

4

obtain

10

conference

4

oversee

8

convenient

4

password

8

discomfort

4

completion

7

IRB

4

fax

7

literate

4

instructor

7

proficiency

4

learner

7

withdrawal

4

oral

7

Summary of results from consent form analysis
In summary, the average ESL consent form was roughly two pages long, and contained
585 words or 32 sentences. The average grade level was between the 10th and 11th grade, higher
58

than the recommended 8th grade level. The amount of vocabulary covered on forms ranged
depending on the NGSL level. At the 1000-word level around 85% of words were covered but
this increased to 91% and 95% at the 2000- and 3000-word level. These results will be integrated
into a larger discussion of consent form complexity later in the discussion chapter.

59

CHAPTER 5
RESULTS FROM THE COMPREHENSION TASK
Introduction
This chapter will present the findings from the second phase of data collection and focus
on the results from the modified version of the Deaconess Informed Consent Comprehension
Test (DICCT) (Miller, O’Donnell, Searight, & Barbarash, 1996). The formation of the modified
DICCT for ESL speakers was discussed in Chapter 3. In summary, the original DICCT was
rewritten so that it would be more concise and better adapted for ESL learners. Redundant
questions were removed and a Delphi consensus model was used to produce questions that were
deemed easy to read for low level ESL learners. The original DICCT was rated at an 8th grade
level according to a Flesch-Kincaid readability test, while the modified version was rated at the
2.6th grade level.
Does the difficulty of a consent form matter?
One important question when discussing how difficult consent forms are is whether or
not a more difficult form leads to less informed participants. In this research two different
consent forms from the original 20 were selected to represent the hard and easy level forms.
Table 13 shows the two forms in terms of the difference of items measured. Form C was selected
as the easier form since it was rated low on all categories. Form M was used for the difficult
form as it was, at the time of selection, highest on all categories of interest. Both forms were
short at one page in length, though form M contained almost twice as many words as form C did.
Additionally, both forms did manage to meet the required 95% vocabulary coverage generally
assumed to be needed to ensure comprehension.

60

Table 13: Easy and Hard forms
Easy

Hard

C

M

Words

290

610

Pages

1

1

Sentences

20

33

Average readability

7.45

10.45

1000 word level coverage

90%

84%

2000 word level coverage

95%

92%

3000 word level coverage

97%

95%

ID

Polysyllabic words percentage
10%
16%
Descriptive data for easy and hard form reproduced from Chapter 4
Participants were randomly given either a difficult or easy form to read and then asked to
take the comprehension task. In terms of means, low level learners answered marginally more
questions correctly when given the easy form (m=4.10, SD=2.82) when compared to the hard
form (m=3.20, SD=2.63). The same pattern holds for high level learners as the easy form
resulted in a score of 6.76 (SD=2.35) compared to the hard form 5.96 (SD=1.97). The native
speaker group actually produced more correct answers after reading the hard form (m=7.14,
SD=1.42) as compared to the easy form (m=6.60, SD=1.42). How these scores relate to each
other will be discussed in the inferential statistics below.
Table 14: Means for easy and hard form
N
Low
High
NS

m

SD

Easy form

21

4.10

2.82

Hard form

20

3.20

2.63

Easy form

25

6.76

2.35

Hard form

27

5.96

1.97

Easy form

17

6.60

1.42

Hard form
21
7.14
1.42
Descriptive data from comprehension task broken down by easy or hard form read
61

The means for these scores actually hide the fact that some questions were answered
overall better when participants read the easy or the hard form. In other words, it is possible that
the wording or content of one form lead to a better understanding of particular concepts. Table 15
shows the difference between the percentage of each question answered correctly for the easy
and the hard form broken down by proficiency level. A negative number indicates that the
question was answered more frequently after reading the hard form. As an example, 11% more
low level learners answered question 1 correctly after reading the hard form as compared to 28%
who answered question 4 correctly after reading the easy form. Many questions have roughly
even splits between the two form types. The easy form resulted in higher scores on question 5 for
all groups while question 1, and to a smaller extent question 10, were answered more accurately
after reading the hard form. Low-level learners benefited from the easy form on questions 3, 4,
7, and 8. High-level learners responded better on question 9 when given the easy form.
Table 15: Percentage difference between easy and hard form correct responses
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Low
High
NS

-11%

2%

22% 28%

4%

-7%

16%

32%

5%

-2%

-13% -6%

4%

1%

20% -13%

4%

-6%

24.%

-10%

-39% -5%

-5%

0%

52%

-12%

-6%

-36% -17%

13%

Percentage of individual questions answered correctly after reading either easy or difficult form.
Interaction between form type and proficiency
A standard multiple regression was run on the data comparing the type of form (easy or
hard) and the proficiency level of the participants reported (High, Low, NS). The results of the
regression indicated that the two factors accounted for 29.3% of the variance (R2=.293,
F(3,127)=17.545, p<.001) The model used native speakers as the constant and found that only
62

membership into the low level group was predictive of the score on the comprehension task (β=.488, p<.001). High level learners did not uniquely contribute to the model (β=.100, p=.231) nor
did the type of form read (β=-.085, p=.255). Overall the regression shows that native speaker and
high level learners performed similarly on the task while outperforming the low level learners,
which was also visible in the descriptive statistics. Form type was statistically not an issue
meaning that participants scored similarly on the comprehension task regardless of the forms
reading grade level. Over 70% of the variance in the dataset cannot be attributed to either the
type of form used nor the English proficiency of the participant, but is attributable to some other
set of variables, which will be speculated upon in the discussion section..
Table 16: Regression table
B

SE B ß

t

p

Constant (NS)

7.012

.658

10.664

<.001

Form type

-.439

.384

-.085 -1.14.

.255

Low level ESL

-2.701 .458

-.488 -5.898

<.001

High level ESL
.563
.468 .100 1.203
Results and descriptive data of multiple regression

.231

Comprehension task descriptive data
The difficulty of the consent form read did not statistically impact the scores on the
comprehension task and so means reported here combine the outcome scores for all participants.
The participants' overall mean scores on the comprehension task was 5.66 (SD=2.58) or roughly
five to six questions answered correctly. In terms of each proficiency group, the mean score for
the low group on the task was 3.66 (SD=2.74), for the high level group 6.35 (SD=2.18), and for
the native speaker group 6.89 (SD=1.49). Low level learners on average answered three to four
questions correctly while both high level learners and native speakers scored between six to
seven correct responses. From the descriptive data it can be seen that the high level group and the
63

native speaker group performed similarly on the task, and both appear to outperform the low
level group.
Table 17: Means and SD for comprehension task
N
m
SD Percent correct
Low

41

3.66 2.74

37%

High

52

6.35 2.18

64%

NS

38

6.89 1.49

69%

Overall 151 5.66 2.58

57%

Means and standard deviations for comprehension task by proficiency. Easy and Hard forms are
combined in this table.
The individual questions from the comprehension task are reproduced in Table 18. These
questions were created by using a Delphi consensus among five ESL experts and were written at
a Flesch-Kincaid score of 2.8. These questions should have been comprehensible by both low
and high level ESL learners, as well as the native speaking population. Table 19 shows the
percentage of participants per proficiency group who answered each question correctly. Again,
note here that there is very little difference between the performance of the high proficiency and
native speaker group, while both again outscore the low level learners, indicating a general trend
in the impact that proficiency plays in comprehending an informed consent form. The question
answered correctly the most frequently for all groups was question 7, which was related to
participants refusal to participate in research and outcomes if they choose to do so. For both ESL
groups question 9 was the most difficult. This question dealt with how participation in research
will affect the students' standing at the IEP. Further evidence of difficulty with this topic will be
put forward in the next chapter. For native speakers, the most difficult question to answer was
question 5. It should be noted that low level learners also had issues with this question as it had
the second lowest response rate.
64

Table 18: Comprehension questions reproduced
Questions
1

What is the researcher trying to learn from this study?

2

How long will it take you to finish this study?

3

What risks (bad things) are there in this study?

4

What benefits (good things) are there in this study?

5

How can you earn (get) the money/extra credit if you do NOT participate in the study?

6

Who can you contact (call or email) if something bad happened to you during the
study?

7

What will happen to you if you say no to being in the study?

8

What will happen if you say yes to be in the study now but want to say no later?

9

How does your decision to be (or not to be) in the study change the way the teachers at
the IEP think about you?

10 Who can see the things you do for this study?
Questions asked on the comprehension task
Table 19: Percent of correct answers on comprehension task
Low
High
NS
Q1

22%

50%

68%

Q2

40%

67%

79%

Q3

41%

73%

74%

Q4

32%

73%

76%

Q5

17%

54%

47%

Q6

39%

46%

58%

Q7

61%

85%

95%

Q8

41%

62%

68%

Q9

7%

40%

63%

Q10
44%
65%
Percentage of correct responses per question.

68%

Participants who took the comprehension task could possibly answer zero to ten
questions correctly. Table 20 shows the distribution of participants who answered a particular
number of questions correctly. Roughly 50% of the low-level learners answered three or fewer
questions correctly, with around 20% not able to accurately respond to any question. As indicated
65

by the means, high-level learners and native speakers tended to be clustered around answering
six questions correctly. None of the native speakers were able to accurately answer all ten
questions, while around 6% of high-level learners did.
Table 20: Percentage of correct responses on comprehension task
Answered
Correctly
Low ESL
High ESL
NS
0

20%

0%

0%

1

7%

4%

0%

2

15%

2%

0%

3

5%

4%

0%

4

12%

12%

3%

5

12%

15%

16%

6

10%

13%

29%

7

12%

17%

8%

8

5%

17%

32%

9

2%

7%

13%

10

0%

6%

0%

Percentage of participants who answered a particular number of questions correctly.
Vocabulary not understood
Participants were asked to underline any unknown or difficult words and to circle any
difficult phrases or sections while they read the consent form. Only one participant circled a
phrase and 53% of participants underlined words. No participant from the native speaker group
highlighted words or phrases, which is to be expected as they were all native speakers of English
and the forms were written at a grade level that should have been accessible to them. Table 21
shows a breakdown of the number of participants from each level who underlined words on the
form. As might be expected, more lower level learners tended to underline words than did upper
66

level students. A Mann-Whitney U test revealed that participants who underlined words did not
perform better on the comprehension task compared to those who did underline, U=1508.00, z=.325, p=.748, r=-.03.
Table 21: Participants who underlined words by proficiency group
Did not underline
Underlined words
Low proficiency group

43%

58%

High Proficiency group
61%
38%
Number and percentage of students who underlined words on consent form by proficiency
Additionally, it might be expected that the participants who read the more difficult form
would have been more inclined to highlight words, as more examples of polysyllabic and less
frequent words were used on the hard form. Table 22 shows that a slightly smaller percentage of
participants who read the hard form did in fact underline any words. Additionally, the only group
who showed a higher level of underling words were low level learners who read the easy form.
Table 22: Participants who underlined words by form type
Did not underline Underlined words
Low
High

Easy form

29%

71%

Hard form

60%

40%

Easy form

60%

40%

Hard form
63%
37%
Number and percentage of students who underlined words on consent form by difficulty level
Table 23 shows all words underlined on both the easy and the hard consent form
according to their New General Service List (NGSL) levels. The columns in the table represent
the number of times a word was underlined while the rows indicate which NGSL band level the
word can be found at. As was mentioned in Chapter 4, many of the words listed in column 7+
might be considered research jargon. Items include benefit, risk, participate, withdraw,
compensation, confidentiality, investigator, and risks.
67

Table 23: Words underlined on consent forms
1
2
3
1K

2K

3K

4

5

6

7+

Affect, Agreement,
Application,
Certain, Contact,
Data, Decide, Fill
out, Gain,
However, Involve,
Issues, Law,
Learners, Limit,
Might, Project,
Questions,
Receive, Role

Kept

Abilities

Allowable

Identify

Concerns

Particular (7)

Loss

Discontinue

Knowledge

Indicate

Determine

Benefit (10)

Stored

Instead

Performance

Practice

Response

Purposes

Complaint,
Connected,
Explanation,
Introduction,
Invited,
Researcher, Secret,
Volunteer

Collected

Background

Consequence

Acquire (12)

Electronic

Extent

Entirely

Participate (29)

Maximum

Otherwise

Whenever

Input

Risk (15)

Protect
Whether

Register

Dialog

Voluntary

Entitle

Withdraw (11)

Evaluate

Compensation
(12)

Penalty

Self-paced (12)

Publish
4K+ Obtain

Anonymous

Consent

Humor (7)

Questionnaire

Cabinet

Incomplete

Confidentiality
(7)
Investigator (10)
Refuse (19)

Words underlined on consent form arranged according to their NGSL level
Summary of results from comprehension task
The results of the comprehension task indicate that English proficiency level does impact
how well a person understands the consent form after reading it. Both native speakers and high
proficiency learners were able to accurately respond to six to seven questions while low
proficiency speakers averaged three to four. In terms of reading grade level on the consent forms,
a lower reading grade level did not cause participants to produce more accurate responses when
compared to participants who read a form at a higher grade level. Finally, participants underlined
68

a variety of vocabulary words that were unknown to them, some that were beyond the 3000 level
band on the NGSL while some of the most frequently underlined words were at the 1000-2000
level. Many of these words, especially those underlined 7+ times or those at or above the 3000word level might be considered a form of technical research language, matching with some of
the findings from Chapter 4. These findings will be integrated with those in Chapters 4 and 6 in
the discussion chapter.

69

CHAPTER 6
RESULTS FROM THE FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEWS
Introduction
This chapter presents the results of six focus group interviews and introduces the four
themes found throughout this portion of the dataset. Data was collected over the Summer and
Fall semesters of 2014. All participants came from the same intensive English program (IEP) and
were paid 15 dollars for their participation. Focus groups were divided into upper level speakers
(focus groups 1, 3, and 4) and lower level speakers (focus groups 5 and 6) based on their IEP
levels. Focus group 2 was excluded from analysis as only one person attended. All groups
responded to questions with similar content; however, lower level participants required more
negotiation of meaning and used their first language more often by asking other participants for
clarification of particular points before answering.
Excerpts from the interviews will be used throughout this chapter to highlight the various
themes. All participants were given an ID number when they arrived in order to secure
confidentiality. The naming convention was standardized to allow for easy comparison between
participants. An example ID would be F1S2, which means that this was the second student (S2)
in the first focus group (F1). Students were numbered in a circle starting from camera left. Two
students came in late to focus group 4 and were given large numbers - F4S15 and F4S16.
The same 11 topics were discussed throughout each interview. The exact timing and
wording of the questions changed due to the flow of conversation and to compensate for
differences in proficiency levels of the participants. An example of a change in question is seen
in Table 24 where the original question is shown on the left and the question asked during focus
group 6, a low proficiency group, is on the right. The question as asked included more
70

scaffolding in terms of vocabulary and only asks about the teacher. Follow up questions
prompted information about the IEP. While the wording changed for each question, the focus
was maintained and targeted at specific aspects of consent forms which can be seen in Table 25.
Table 24: Types of augmented questions
Original question

Question asked

In research you can always say no or stop
being part of a study any time. If you do
say no, or stop, how does that affect the
way the teachers at the IEP think about
you?

Ok, so when you volunteer, you agree to do it
because you want to. In research like this, you
always have to agree and you did that by signing
{points to form}. However, you can always say
“I’m done” get up and walk out right? Anytime
you want. There is nothing I can do. If you
would do that how would your teacher think?
Difference in question wording between expected question and actual question asked
Table 25: Focus group protocol
Questions

Topic

1. What kinds of compensation would you want for being part of a
research?

Compensation,
why participate
in research

2. What is a risk to you?

Risks

3. What types of benefits would make you want to be part of a research Benefits
project?
4. Who has access or can see the things that you do in research?

Confidentiality

5. In research you can always so no or stop being part of a study any
time. If you do say no, or stop, how does that affect the way the
teachers at the ELC think about you?

Voluntary
withdraw

6. Who should you contact if something happens while you are part of
the research?

Seeking
assistance

7. What role does your teacher play in research?

Confidentiality,
power dynamics

8. What will the researcher do with materials collected from you?

Purpose of study,
use of material

9. Which parts of the consent form did you not understand?

Understanding

10. How much of this form did you actually read?

Amount read

11. How could consent forms be made easier to understand?
Questions asked during the focus groups and the targeted themes
71

Suggestions

Overarching themes
Focus groups were initially organized as a means to supplement the data found in the
quantitative analysis, especially in terms of investigating if the consent forms were too
complicated and which elements of consent were understood by the learners. However, the
dynamic nature of the interviews often led to discussions regarding research as a meta-topic,
instead of focusing solely on consent forms. While many different topics were discussed
throughout the interviews, four macro themes emerged that might help explain findings from the
previous two chapters. The themes are (1) Consent forms might not be important to participants,
(2) Reasons for taking part in research, (3) Consent form difficulty and participant suggestions,
and (4) Confusion over research practices. Each theme will be discussed in a separate section
below along with various comments produced by the participants.
Consent forms might not be important to participants
Questions regarding risks were discussed at the beginning of each focus group and the
topic was brought up several times throughout each interview. When asked if any risks were
inherent in the current study, most participants responded like those in in Excerpt 1, with a
simple ‘no’. However, this is not indicative of all participants as can be seen in Excerpt 2, which
begins with several participants stating that there are no risks in the study. However, after
additional prompting, F4S7 does report that the potential of offensive questions or misuse of
recordings might be a considered risk.
Excerpt 1: No risk
07:43 Researcher So what about this kind of research could you think of anything that
would be risky or dangerous for this kind of research?
07:49

F1S1/F1S2 No.

07:51

F1S1

I don’t think so.

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Excerpt 2: Limited risks – personal information disclosure
09:50 Researcher When you do research, there is always risks involved, there is always
some sort of danger. Could you think of any kinds of danger in, well
first of all I’ll ask this, before you look before looking down, did I say
there were any risks in this research?
10:07

{multiple no}

10:09

F4S4

There is no risk.

10:09

F4S7

There’s no risk.

10:09

Researcher There’s no risk, ok. Could you think of any risks that might happen in
this research?

10:17

F4S7

Only if I say any personal information you can use it. But I don’t
know if you are going to use it.

Excerpts 1 and 2, as well as other examples in the dataset appear to show that participants
believed the study to contain limited risks. Further evidence of this perception of a nonchalant
attitude toward the consent information and the study, can be seen in Excerpt 3 as well as in
Excerpts such as 4-11, and 19C, which will be discussed in detail later. In Excerpt 3, the topic
being discussed relates to risks in research. F6S4 outright states that risks are minimal or
nonexistent due to the fact that the study is “about English,” indicating that while other types of
research carry danger, English studies are, or are thought to be, relatively safe. A disregard for
risks in SLA or linguistics, or what F6S4 terms English, studies might be indicative of
participants viewing risk solely in terms of physical harm.
Excerpt 3: Just English
16:26 Researcher Can you think of any bad things or risks that might happen in research?
17:07

F6S4

No, just Ph.D. in English not chemicals.

17:28

F6S4

It’s about English. {shrugs}

Participant selective reading
Near the end of each focus group, participants were asked to retroactively assess how
73

much of the current consent form they read prior to signing it. They were then asked to estimate
the number of pages a consent form could contain before they would sign without reading it all.
The consent form used for the focus group was a single page, less than the average SLA consent
form length of 1.8 pages as stated in Chapter 4. Unlike the comprehension task, participants in
the focus group were only given one form, the one they signed and that was collected at the
beginning of the study. Participants were given a duplicate copy of the consent form to refer back
to during the interview. For this study, participants were given the consent form as they walked
into the room but were not given a time limit for how long they had to read and sign the form.
Participants were not uniform in their estimated percentage read as some claimed to have read
the entire form while others only read around 20% of the document.
The lack of reading can be seen in Excerpt 4, which begins with the researcher asking
what percentage of the consent form the participants read. While F3S6 states that he read the
entire consent form, other students mention that they had read less. The consent form, which can
be seen in appendix C was broken into six separate headings and several students claim to have
not read the final heading (#6) about IRB contact information. F3S9 states that he has read
consent forms in the past and that he does not expect to have any issues in this research, again
signaling a view that reading consent forms might not be important. In a similar fashion, F3S2
dismisses the information found in this section by using a mocking tone and saying that the
consent form “is always similar. It is confidential blah blah blah,” indicating that this participant
was somewhat familiar, or felt that he was, with consent forms and that to read them might not
be a productive use of time. This group of participants also stated that at two pages they would
only read about 45% of the form and 35% at three pages.

74

Excerpt 4: It is confidential blah blah blah
48:28 Researcher So did everybody read the form? Out of 100% or I read every single word.
What percent did you read of this form when I first gave it to you?
48:34

F3S6

100%

48:35

F3S9

I didn’t to read to read the number 6.

48:37

F3S2

Me neither.

48:39

Researcher You were a bit behind though right? You were the last one in.

48:43

F3S6

I read all.

48:42

F3S9

Yeah but also because I mean, as I told you I have done it before and I
never read it and I I think like I am not going to have any problem and I
am not going to contact them so.

49:00

F3S7

Actually, don’t I didn’t read the last part the first time that I did you
research here, I same..I am not sure if it is the same or a little similar.

49:10

F3S2

Like the consent is always similar. It is confidential blah blah blah, and
you just know the one word and ok I get it.

49:21

Researcher Yeah some of the things, like part six you have to put in there. You can’t
really change that at all it has to go in. People say that. Which makes it
really hard, because some of these words are not easy to read. You cannot
change them into easier English words. Um ok, so out of 100% you read
90-100% of it {general agreement}. What if this were two pages long?
Would you still read it?

49:49

F3S4

49:50

Researcher 45%

49:50

F3S9

49:52

Researcher What if it were three pages long?

49:52

F3S5

Three pages?

49:56

F3S4

35%

49:56

Researcher 35%? @

49:55

F3S2

Just the {taps page in different places} tops.

49:59

F3S1

That’s something interesting because if I saw that you were in a hurry that
you wanted to see everyone doing the participating, I would say “ok, just”
{pantomimes signing} but if you gave us give me time. You can read first,
everybody stays here reading the content. This work. So I will read
because I know it is important. Also, so if I know that you are talking
about this. {points hard to consent form}

50:24

Researcher You would have read. Of course you would have read it if you knew. @

Maybe 45%
Yes.

@@
75

The amount of text claimed to be read per document shifted from individual to individual.
It is difficult to know exact percentages of the number of students who did not read all of the
consent forms, as not all students provided responses to this question. However, of the four lower
level learners that did respond in their group, two said that they did not even fully read the one
page provided to them for the focus group. Half of the upper level students reported that they
read the majority of the form, but many claimed to skip sections or to skim the entire document.
In Excerpt 5 a group of upper level students claimed to have read most of the document prior to
data collection. In the excerpt, there is discussion that as the length of the document increase
towards five pages, that participants would read less and opt to just sign the form largely without
reading it. In other groups, participants state that they read between 20-80% of the document,
while others claim to have just scanned and signed the form, even at one page in length.
Excerpt 5: How much would you read if...?
47:29 Researcher So all you mostly read most of this {indicates consent form}. So what if it
were two pages long, would you have still read all of it?
{many no/head shakes}
47:42 Researcher What percentage would you read if it were two pages long?
47:44 F4S15

Just the risks.

47:48 Researcher Just the risks?
47:49 F4S15

Focus on the risks and what could be bad.

47:52 F4S3

Benefits and the purpose.

47:53 F4S8

What we will do.

47:56 Researcher So its still about 60%, so that is most of it.
48:10 Researcher Yeah? This is hon, you can be completely honest. I mean this is [ good to
know.
48:17 F4S7

[I mean this is not a big deal. I don’t have to be very concerned so I
could skip a lot of information. But if it was about medicine I would read
all of the papers. And I would ask you for more time. Like can I read it in
my home?

48:53 Me

So last one I promise. If it were five pages long would you read any of it
76

or would you just sign?
49:02 F4S7

I would just. {pantomimes signing}

49:04 Researcher Just sign.
49:06 F4S8

Just different paragraph {moves hand over the paper} and then I will
{pantomimes flipping through}

49:12 F4S2

Read some of the first sentence maybe skim some of the middle of the ..
{agreement}

49:47 F4S3

I would read all but not so carefully. {lots of agreement}

Taken all together the excerpts from this section largely indicate that participants did not
feel an overwhelming need to carefully read consent forms. Statements such as those by F4S7 in
Excerpt 5, show that participants decided that forms did not contain information necessary to
them while F4S7 states “I mean this is not a big deal. I don’t have to be very concerned so I
could skip a lot of information.” This skipping of information might be the cause of the relatively
low scores found on the comprehension task in Chapter 5.
Reasons for taking part in research
Two questions were asked in order to ascertain what participants thought about
compensation and benefits for being part of research. Various models of research ethics stipulate
that research on human participants should strike a balance between benefits and risks.
Additionally, it is advised that compensation should be based on the amount of effort required
and risks endured during the study. While there has never been an empirical investigation into
what sort of compensation ESL participants would want to receive for participation, offering
money or extra credit are likely to be the most used options. When directly asked what forms of
compensation the participants in the focus group were interested in, the overwhelming answer
was in fact first extra credit or money and then the opportunity to practice English. Both answers
are present in Excerpt 6, as well as the idea of wanting to help another person with their work.
77

Excerpt 6: Why participate
02:17 Researcher So if somebody would come to your class and say I have this awesome
project. What would you need them to give you before you would want
to come?
04:13 F1S1

Extra credit sometimes, depends on the classes.

04:17 F1S2

I would say like it depending it depends on the research. But basically I
wouldn’t like look for something material just like you know
participation maybe helping.

04:31 F1S1

Improving my English.

04:31 F1S2

Yeah I mean it I a good opportunity to like conversation you know.

Responses in Excerpt 7 show that money and extra credit were the most desired forms of
compensation for taking part in a research study. In Excerpt 8, F4S6 also mentions that he wants
to help in research so that he can learn something about the process. A similar idea can be seen in
Excerpt 6 and in Excerpt 8 where F5S1 is interested in the experience of taking part in research.
This was echoed by other students who thought that the novel experience of being a participant
was worth an hour of their time.
A final reason that was brought up in various focus groups was the idea that gaining extra
practice in English was the most important reason for attending the data collection session. This
is suggested by F5S1 and F5S5 in Excerpt 8. This type of knowledge might assist future
researchers when planning a research project. Offering participants a bonus hour of conversation
might be a good method to prompt student participation in research.
Excerpt 7: I want to help you
03:38 Researcher What kinds of compensations do you think makes people want to
participant in research?
03:39 F4S8,
Money {almost in unison}
F4S7,
F4S3, F4S2
03:39 Researcher Money? Ok.
03:42 F4S9

I think extra credit too. {lots of agreement}
78

03:47 F4S7

Something that you can earn like receive something like money credit to
help you.

03:55 Researcher So that helps you, good.
03:56 F4S6

You help me, I help want to participate.]

04:03 F4S7

[yes

04:05 Researcher You WANT to participate? Why?
04:07 F4S6

Um because can help me in the future maybe I can learn something with
you or with your research. Yeah I think.

Excerpt 8: To practice English
08:08 Researcher Yeah the compensation for this is you guys get $15. Ok um. So my
question is, what kinds of compensation do you want to come and.. So
why did you come today?
08:27 F5S5

To do some practice. {F5S1 agrees}

08:31 F5S4

For me, to practice English.

08:33 Researcher To practice English.
08:48 F5S5/F5S4 Extra credit.
08:50 F5S2

That’s important yeah.

08:52 Researcher Extremely important. Ok um anything else?
09:09 F5S1

During study abroad I want to have and express] experience.

09:12 Researcher
09:21 F5S5

[experience
Experience different experience for uh if we want to do uh research uh
research in the future. And uh improve myself with that kind of camera?

Some participants felt that the use of money or extra credit for research was unwarranted.
Excerpt 9 is an interesting example where the participants were discussing the question: Is it
possible to get too much money for participating in research? F3S8 states that it is never possible
to get too much, but is rebuffed by F3S2 who thinks that $50 (a hypothetical amount mentioned
earlier) would be too high. The interesting aspect of this exchange can be seen at time 6:27 when
F3S5 states that “the problem is people will just think about the money, the amount of money
and will forget about the purpose of the research.” The same sentiment is stated at 7:26 when
79

F3S4 points out that money and extra credit will “attract people to participate to the research but
it some way to select just people who are looking for a grade or looking for money.” The points
made in this excerpt are interesting as they indicate a potential problem in ESL research, that
money and extra credit might be selective factors for students who may not be perceived as being
academically strong.
Excerpt 9: Money and extra credit
05:41 Researcher Ok, so you guys, the consensus, or a lot of people have said that money is
good, that extra credit is good. Is it possible to give too much money?
05:50 F3S9

Is it what?

05:51 Researcher Is it possible to give too much money?
05:53 F3S8

Money is never too much. @

05:54 Researcher Never too much. @
05:54 All

@@@

05:59 F3S2

No like if you offer $50 I think it is too much.

06:05 Researcher Too much? And you wouldn’t come?
06:05 F3S6

It’s not fair with because you need to pay for all the participants and I think
it is uh like too much money]

06:18 F3S2

[N, a lot of people will come but I think it is not
necessarily too much.

06:21 F3S9

I would be ashamed by that @

06:27 F3S5

The problem is people will just think about the money the amount of
money and will forget about the purpose of the research.
{lots of agreement}

06:40 F3S7

Extra point is a good idea sometimes. Unless you are forced to come
because they need the grade and they don’t care about the research more
than the money.

06:51 F3S1

One thing about credits is because its optional. Its like here (points to
consent form) it says if you don’t come its ok if you don’t want to
participant its ok you not lose grade for that. The reason extra.

07:04 F3S7

Who needs grades and who don’t care about the research. People’s grades
don’t have time to come and become research just who’s too desperate to
come. @@

07:26 F3S4

I think its good uh give money or another grade it’s something to attract
people to participate to the research but it some way to select just people
80

who are looking for a grade or are looking for money.
07:40

{Lots of agreement}

Consent form difficulty and participant suggestions
Consent form difficulty
At the end of each focus group, I asked participants to describe which sections of the
consent form they found to be difficult to read and what suggestions they might offer to make the
documents easier to read for other students. For the most part, participants claimed to find the
documents easy to read, which does not match with findings from the comprehension task, nor
with the accuracy in which students discussed consent forms during the focus groups. There was
a general lack of responses given for these questions which might be caused by fatigue or due to
the fact that participants could no longer remember specific issues they had with the document
after spending an hour focused on its content.
Of the five focus groups only groups 5 and 6, the two low level groups, reported any
section of the consent form difficult to read. In Excerpt 11, F5S5 thought that section five
Privacy and Confidentiality, was difficult, though he then states that he understood close to 70%
of that section and that the “whole page or paper is easy.” In a different focus group, F6S1 states
that he found the final section, six, to be problematic though does not continue with this train of
thought. Section six discusses the role of the IRB and provides contact information for that
organization. This section was written by the IRB and was required to be included largely
unchanged in the form (research specific contact information was included). Other participants
stated that he didn’t even read this section. Excerpt 10 shows section six of the focus group
consent form detailing IRB and researcher contact information (with emails retracted for the
researchers). Participants might skip this information because they do not foresee a need to
81

contact the IRB if risks are perceived to be non-existent, because they do not understand the role
the IRB plays, or simply because it is at the bottom of form and they felt like reading further was
unnecessary. Further studies would need to be conducted to find out why this information was
deemed unimportant.
Excerpt 10: Contact information from focus group consent form
If you have concerns or questions about this study, such as scientific
issues, how to do any part of it, or to report an injury, please contact
the researcher.
Main Researcher
Mr. Scott Sterling
email

Primary Investigator
Dr. Shawn Loewen
email

If you have questions or concerns about your role and rights as a
research participant, would like to obtain information or offer input, or
would like to register a complaint about this study, you may contact,
anonymously if you wish, the Michigan State University’s Human
Research Protection Program at 517-355-2180, Fax 517-432-4503, or
e-mail irb@msu.edu or regular mail at 408 W. Circle Dr., Room 207,
MSU, East Lansing, MI 48824.

Excerpt 11: Not that hard
49:01 Researcher What parts of this form were difficult to understand. So maybe just look
back and think part one, there are six parts.
49:38 F5S5

Five.

49:41 Researcher Five was hard?
49:47 F5S5

Not too much, I understand 70%. Yeah I think the whole page or paper is
easy.

50:02 Researcher Its easy?
50:02 F5S2

I think all is easy not too difficult.

Student suggestions
The final question asked of participants was for them to provide possible suggestions for
improving consent forms. Responses to this line of questioning were relatively brief as many
82

participants were eager to leave or to change the topic to something less academic. Many
participants wanted more use of bolding or glossing difficult vocabulary items as they thought
that this would make the information more salient. Some thought that using pictures could help
reduce confusion. Some students wanted a longer, but simpler form, while others thought that the
briefest possible form would be best, regardless of the vocabulary used. Again, many participants
claimed that the form was easy to read, and did not offer any suggestions.
Confusion over research practices
One area of confusion was in the vocabulary used on the consent form. At times,
participants directly asked for a definition of vocabulary items, such as can be seen in Excerpts
12 and 13. In 12, the word participant, the favored term in SLA to refer to someone on whom
research is being conducted, was unknown to students, while in Excerpt 13, the participants were
unsure of the meaning of benefit. Both excerpts show examples of research jargon used on the
consent form that was unknown by some participants. This data corroborates the previous
findings from Chapter 4 that described the difficulty of the vocabulary used on consent forms
according to the New General Service List and the words circled by participants in Chapter 5. All
three instances can be seen as triangulating the idea that certain research based vocabulary might
be unknown to many participants.
Excerpt 12: What is a participant?
05:37 Researcher Let me ask another question when you are a participant. Do you know that
word participant?
{several no}
05:38 Researcher No? Ok, um a participant who is somebody who does something. So right
now I am a researcher and you guys are the participants in the research.
06:08 F6S1

It is the same as participate?

0608 Researcher Exactly, yeah yeah, exactly, it is the noun of that. So participation is an
action so a verbish, a participant is the person who participates.
83

Excerpt 13: What is a benefit?
14:43 F5S4
What does it mean benefit? @@ So benefits we don’t understand
benefits.
14:55

Researcher Ok. So a benefit is something that helps you as a person. So, um studying
abroad is a benefit because you can learn language. Because you can
make friends. Because you can get a better job later. These are all
benefits of studying abroad.

A second confusing aspect of research can be seen in participants’ understanding, or
misunderstanding, of the roles that various players held in the research. Some participants
thought that their instructors played no part in the research while others considered the offer of
extra credit and time to recruit the participants in class as de facto involvement in the research.
Near the end of focus group five, we began to discuss the role that their teacher played in the
research process. The participants state that their teacher might give them extra credit but they
agree that she won’t listen to the tapes. At minute 40:56, F5S5 states that the instructor might ask
me about their speaking, a statement that other participants agreed with. Additionally, near the
end of the excerpt, F5S5 states that the instructor might take attendance, or ask who came to the
research, so that extra credit could be given out. Even after discussing the topic of who can and
cannot view their data, and confidentiality of data, these students were still under the assumption
that their teacher would be able to track their involvement in the research, at least to the extent
that they had come and participated. It is difficult to tell if students felt pressured or coerced into
participating in the research, especially if they were under the belief that their instructor would
eventually have knowledge of their involvement in the process.
Excerpt 14: How is your teacher involved
40:16 Researcher So how is your teacher involved, or how is she involved, or what does she
do for this research?
84

40:34 F5S2

Um my teacher.

40:36 Researcher Your teacher, for this research.
40:44 F5S5

I think it will give us credit.

40:45 Researcher She might give you credit.
40:48 F5S1

Extra.

40:49 Researcher Extra credit, uh huh. Does she do anything else in this research?
40:56 F5S5

Maybe ask you about how our speaking {agreement}, maybe how is her
student.

41:05 F5S1

How is the research.
[topic change]

41:46 Researcher Ok, so your teacher might ask me how you did. What else. Did she help
me write the questions is she going to listen to the tapes?
{several no}
42:04 F5S5

She doesn’t.

42:09 Researcher So her part in the research is just to what, what does she do as part of this
research?
42:20 F5S1

She just asks us how is this.

42:25 Researcher She might ask you how this was, um she helped me to recruit or get you
guys to come. She gave me class time
42:36 F5S5

Uh maybe she attendance for this, so if someone is not coming she doesn’t
give them credit.

42:52 F5S1

I think so.

When discussing the teacher’s role in the research, focus group four had stated similar
ideas to focus group five, in that the instructor provided time to recruit students and that the data
collected was confidential. However about ten minutes prior to this portion of the interview
when we were discussing issues of confidentiality, the interaction in Excerpt 15 occurred. The
excerpt begins with me asking students to consider a hypothetical research project in which focus
groups are used but questions involve the Intensive English program (IEP) they are enrolled in.
Many participants express concern over their data being shown to members of the IEP, either
teachers or administrators. F4S15 points out “we don’t know who’s your friend from the IEP
85

teachers.” And “maybe you have a brother or sister and this brother is you don’t want your
brother fired.” Both utterances seem to indicated that participants, even if they understood that I
was not an instructor (see Excerpts 19A-C), thought that I might have close ties with the IEP and
might share information with them, especially if the information discussed in the focus groups
was potentially harmful to the career of my “brother or sister.” This sense of collusion between
researcher and instructor/administration might leave participants feeling coerced into
participation, especially as the power dynamic heavily favors the teacher/researcher (Klitzman,
2013; Perry, 2011; Tarone, 1980). This concern over interactions between researchers and
instructors might also result in participants guarding their responses or not providing true
opinions on topics, an issue that could adversely affect many research projects. On the one hand,
we see that participants are aware of their teacher’s non-involvement in the research, but they are
not sure to what degree the IEP is connected to the study. Similar trends were found in results
from the comprehension task where participants often thought that the IEP was directly involved
with the research project, or that their teachers would be able to read their responses and help
them improve their English.
Excerpt 15: Who is your friend?
19:58 Researcher But what if we did the other research, the one that was about the IEP.
Would you be concerned then?
20:03

{several yes}

20:05

F4S2

Probably yes.

20:06

Researcher But they have the same rules.

20:10

F4S7

But the purpose is different.

20:14

F4S15

And we don’t know who’s your friend from the IEP teachers.

20:20

F4S9

Yeah maybe.

20:20

F4S15

Maybe you have a brother or sister.

20:24

Researcher True true.
86

20:26

F4S15

And this brother is you don’t want your brother fired so, maybe.

The next series of excerpts (16-18) discuss the topic of confidentiality. It should be noted
that the consent form used for the focus groups does not specifically state who can and cannot
see the data. In fact, out of the 20 forms collected and analyzed in Chapter 4, twelve failed to
mention who would be able to view data once it was collected. In retrospect, this information
was inadvertently left off of the focus group consent form due to an assumption that participants
would understand that confidential meant that only researchers could view data. Confidentiality
is a topic that is always addressed in initial IRB applications and researchers are usually required
to ensure that data is not only secure, but that if it is revealed, either leaked or purposefully used
in a study, then it should not be linked to a particular participant. Confidentiality is an important
concept for research in the USA, however, it is not clear that research participants have the same
understanding of confidentiality as do IRBs or researchers.
In these focus groups, participants were being recorded with a camcorder and an auxiliary
audio recorder. When asked who could see the data being recorded the responses varied. For the
most part groups correctly identified that I and my adviser would be able to view the recordings,
as we were both named on the consent form they signed. Some participants thought that a
translator might be brought in to listen to difficult sections or to help identify what was being
discussed. This can be seen in Excerpt 16 where participants correctly identified the research
team as able to view the data but also postulated that other colleagues might be able to see the
data as well. F3S4 mentions that “two people is enough” but continues saying that if I show the
typed conversation to “another audience or to the congress” that he would not mind because he
would not be present. Other comments, however, show their general disregard for confidentiality
87

as well.
Except 16: I won’t be there
18:35
Researcher
Right, I get to see it but who else can see the tape?
18:40

F3S2

Your partner in research.

18:41

Researcher

Right, my adviser.

18:45

F3S9

Your colleagues.

18:47

F3S7

Maybe someone can watch it. I don’t know.

18:49

Researcher

Well I question right. You are all being video taped. Who is
going to be able to see this?

18:54

F3S4

I think just two people is enough. But you can show the typed
conversation to another audience or to the congress no problems
cause I be not appearing there.

19:13

@@@@

19:16

F3S1

For me is fine. I don’t see any problem to show this to someone
else.

20:13

F3S9

Just if you allow somebody else to see it. Because you possess
the video. @

Continuing in the same trend, we can see that in Excerpt 17, F3S2 is not sure if I will be
the only person who can access the data. F3S9 mentions that “people who participate” can see
the data but it is not clear if this means people in that particular focus group, any focus group
participant, or anyone who is working on the research. At the end of this excerpt several people
mention that co-workers can see the data but their meaning is never clarified as the focus of the
conversation was directed elsewhere. Not fully understanding confidentiality might mean that
some participants do not fully express their opinions on research topics out of concern that those
opinions might be shared with an instructor or administrator at their IEP.
Excerpt 17: Co-workers
17:06
Researcher
17:21

F3S2

Who can see this information? Who can watch the video or listen
to the audio tape?
Only you?
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17:23

Researcher

Only me?

17:27

F3S9

People who participate.

17:27

{several
people}

Co-workers.

Excerpt 18 shows a curious case that developed during the focus groups. Like several of
the other groups, the members start to list off people who can view the data, myself, my adviser,
a translator, and the possibility of other students, presumably other PhD students. F5S4 then
mentions that he does not think that teachers can view the data and then follows that with “any
peoples” which I took to mean, only a small group of people, can see the data. Interestingly,
F5S2 then states that he does not care who sees the data since he wants to be famous. He
mentioned this at least one other time during the interview, and a comment was also later made
about him to the same effect. This line of inquiry was never followed up on, but it would be
interesting to see if younger generations view a lack of privacy or anonymity in research as
normal compared to older participants, something often remarked upon in regards to social
media or other issues of privacy. However, this excerpt is also interesting for the comments that
F5S4 makes near the end. Here, he is attempting to make the point that he would care who views
the data depending on the type of information presented. In his example, if he speaks ill towards
his teacher, then he would want that information to be closely guarded, while if the topic was
more banal, then he would be less likely to care. F5S3 appears to realize that some information
might be problematic if it is leaked to the wrong individual, but it is not clear what information
this participant would care to share and what he would want closely guarded.
Excerpt 18: I want to be famous
26:34
Researcher
Good, ok. So several people can is that ok? Hear and see what
you say. Is that ok?
89

26:42

F5S5

Yeah that’s ok.

26:45

F5S4

Any people?

26:49

Researcher

The people you listed. So me, adviser, translator, maybe some
students.

26:54

F5S4

Yeah maybe.

26:57

Researcher

You’re ok?

26:59

F5S4

Not teachers @@

27:01

Researcher

So teachers can’t see. Who else can’t see?

27:09

F5S4

Any peoples.

27:11

Researcher

Right so only certain people, right. Very small group?

27:18

F5S2

About me, any people I want to be famous. @

27:22

F5S4

Sometimes this question is very hard. I want this question and
I don’t want any people to answer to this question for me.
Maybe this question easy.

27:34

Researcher

Ok if you have a good answer you don’t care?

27:38

F5S4

Uhhh yeah, sometimes the question is very hard. How
example how NAME teacher. Is good or is not good. Maybe I
want to answer this question and I don’t want any people to
see it. You and just your adviser. Understand me?

27:58

Researcher

So if the research, ok how can I say this. You don’t care who
sees it as long as there aren’t risks or bad research. If you
could get in trouble from what you say you want smaller
people to see it. Is that fair? Is that what you mean maybe?

28:28

F5S4

Yes.

In terms of research confusion, Excerpt 19 is a long and detailed excerpt and will be
broken into subsections in order to make references to specific sections easier. Excerpt 19a
begins with me asking the participants to explain what I am going to do with their data. They
correctly identify that I am going to transcribe the video and then watch it later as I will not be
able to remember all of the details. However at minute 32:51, F3S1 states that he is not clear
what the purpose of the research is, but also that he does not care. F3S2 and F3S1 state that they
are not sure what I am evaluating for this study, even though we have been conducting the
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interview for over 30 minutes at this point. Participants then note that the consent form does not
specify the exact purpose of the focus groups nor does it explain what I will do with the data.
Finally, at 34:03 F3S1 states that he does not understand what a focus group is.
Excerpt 19A: What am I going to do with this video?
32:03 Researcher What am I going to do with the video?
32:07 F3S2

Watch it, evaluate what are you saying.

32:07 F3S8

Watch it evaluate it.

32:10 Researcher Watch it and evaluate it? Watch it and evaluate it. Maybe What else am I
going to do with it or what else might I do with it?
32:20 F3S5

Pay attention to detail because now you are just talking to us and you
cannot take notes. So it is important to check what happens what exactly.
Yeah.

32:30 F3S7

Approve.

32:30 F3S3

Write what you say.

32:32 Researcher I am going to type out a transcript. What else?
32:36 F3S4

And have a register of what happened in this day in this section of the
research.

32:47 Researcher Anything else that I might do?
32:50 F3S2

What our behavior?

32:50 Researcher Watch your behavior.
32:51 F3S1

Yeah, I think it’s not clear for me what is the purpose. {lots of
agreement}. Personally it is ok, its clear it is a group conversation. I I
don’t know what you are going to do with this.

33:05 F3S2

What are you evaluating with this research?
@@@@

33:08 Researcher Now you’re asking the right questions!
@@@@@
33:11 F3S1

ask you what is the exact topic we are talking about?

32:20 F3S6

{with dramatic hand movements} Its something like related to this @@
@@@@@

33:22 F3S1

Didn’t answer, no idea.

33:23 F3S6

“Maybe I am watching you”

33:26 Researcher So now, now the question what am I doing?
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33:30 F3S2

Yeah what?

33:31 F3S9

What are you doing?

33:33 Researcher What does it say I am doing?
33:34 F3S6

We don’t know.

33:36 Researcher Does it say what I am going to do on here. {points to consent form}
33:37 F3S9

No.

33:37 F3S2

Ohhh

33:38 Researcher No, so why do you think I am going to watch the tape. Why do you think
I am going to transcribe it? Where do these ideas come from? I never said
that.
33:49 F3S2

Yeah, you never said that. @@

33:53 Researcher I never said what I am doing right. Now you all look really worried, like
uh-oh.
33:54 F3S6

Maybe with the music and change the video and things like that.

34:03 F3S1

I still don’t know about focus groups. {points to consent form title}

Between the two excerpts I spend a little time explaining what a focus group is and then
asking why they thought I would treat the data in the way they previously described. Again, there
is an attempt to explain what I might do with the research when F3S6 breaks in and asks what
my major is, again displaying a lack of understanding about just what the research is based on.
F3S2 is under the assumption that I am a teacher, maybe even one at the IEP, of which I was not
at the time of the recording nor had been for several years. This is a further indication that
participants might not be aware of the backgrounds of researchers nor know that research is not
always connected to their coursework. Even when I reveal that I am a linguist, there is not
unanimous understanding of what that means. It is difficult to state that these participants were
well informed when they did not understand the type of data being collected.
Excerpt 19B: What am I going to do with this video?
34:03 Researcher Why do you think, like where do these ideas come from that I am just
going to do, just going to watch the tape, just transcribe it, and look for
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something.
34:40 F3S6

Make behavior, like you can watch the video and I don’t know maybe.]

34:49 F3S7
[describe
34:49 F3S6

Yeah describe our behavior related to this discussion.]

35:54 F3S2

[how many people
doing in the research like.

34:59 F3S6
35

One minute, what’s your major? {directed at me}

Researcher Wow, now all these questions are coming out right!]

35:04 F3S2

[he’s a teacher, are you
a teacher?

35:05 Researcher I am not a teacher. No.
35:06 F3S2

You’re not a teacher??

35:09 Researcher No.
35:09 F3S6

You are a]

35:10 F3S2

[can I go? @@ {points to door but makes no move to leave}
@@@@@@

35:12 Researcher But you guys you all signed the document right? You have been
answering my questions for 40 minutes. Now your like uh-oh. So where
do these assumptions come from?
35:23 F3S6

They were really good questions, you’re a psychologist?

35:23 Researcher No no I’m a linguist.
35:25 F3S6

Ok {sigh of relief}

35:30 Researcher Yes yes yes.
35:28 F3S3

A what?

35:28 Researcher A linguist, I study languages. And how people learn languages.

Continuing the conversation, F3S9 states that previous knowledge of research told him
that the purpose behind the research was supposed to be kept secret. There is some truth to this
claim, and most research makes use of minimal deception, or at least not full exposure of the
main reason behind the study (Steneck & Bulger, 2007). There is discussion of biasing the data
when F3S4 correctly guesses at the purpose of the study, which was actually disclosed during
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recruitment and briefly at the start of the focus group. At 37:17 F3S1 states that he was
attempting to guess at the purpose behind my seemingly random set of questions. F3S2 then
states that she thought that she was the only person to not know the purpose, and presumably
didn’t want to ask out of embarrassment. This portion of the data shows that even when
participants state that they do not have questions about the research, they may just be holding
back so as not to appear uninformed.
Excerpt 19C: What am I going to do with this video?
35:32 F3S9
I think most of us have had experience in research. So I am sure that
all of us were thinking something in our brain, @@ at the yeah I
would not ask you earlier because I thought that you could not tell us
the purpose of the research] because it is something that you have to
keep in secret because if we knew the purpose maybe it would be like
I don’t know in English.
36:06

F3S4

[yes

36:18

F3S3

Influence.

36:18

F3S9

Yeah it would influence the results in a bad way. I mean in a way that
you didn’t want.

36:25

Researcher We would say bias.

36:26

F3S9

Bias! Yes that is what I was thinking.

36:31

F3S4

My guess is that the focus of the research is about something related to
how we interpret the prompt or something like that. Because this
prompt doesn’t ask us show to us nothing like specific because when
you run medical research for example everything that the patient or the
guinea pig will should know will be typed here like uh the
consequences of this this and this is real purpose we start out with
something blah blah blah but here we can’t read this.

37:17

F3S1

I agree with you because I was thinking about this. Guessing what the
purpose is.{lots of agreement} @@

37:25

F3S2

I thought that it was just me that didn’t know!@@
@@@@

37:30

Researcher So you thought it was just, ok that is interesting.

37:31

F3S2

37:34

Researcher So why didn’t you ask? Because I asked at the beginning if anybody
had questions. And everybody was like ‘no, no no, we’re good.’ Right.

So everybody knows but but every..

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37:41

F3S1

How we interpret this kind of thing. Because when I am reading things
like this forms to fill out fill in fill out I don’t know.

37:50

Researcher Both

37:50

F3S1

Ok so, and are are we really reading or just signing. This is what I
think.

Overall, most groups had similar but less exciting discussions on this topic. Most students
were able to accurately guess what the purpose of the study was, and how I was going to use the
recorded data. How they were able to guess and what they were basing that information on still is
not understood, and might be an interesting location for future research..
Summary of findings from the focus group interviews
It is difficult to decide if the participants in the focus group were well informed about the
research project that they were taking part in. Participants largely understood that there were no
or limited risks in the study; however, the groups largely dismissed risks due to the nature of the
research project. Other areas of consent forms such as confidentiality were not as well
understood, and were again largely dismissed. Participants were not sure who would be able to
view their data nor how the data would actually be used by the researcher. Similar to the risks,
participants also viewed a low need for confidentiality in the current research project. A potential
area of concern is in the fact that participants were largely unaware of the purpose behind the
research project, as well as the type of data being collected (linguistic verses some other form of
data). There was also confusion over the role of the research and my connections to the IEP. A
more positive finding from the dataset was that, while participants considered earning extra
credit or money as preferred compensation, they also viewed participation as an opportunity to
practice English, a method of trying a novel experience, and as an altruistic way of helping other
people. The findings from the focus group will be integrated into a larger discussion in Chapter
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7. Table 26 shows a comparison of the findings from the qualitative and quantitative aspects of
the current study.
Table 26: Summary of findings from focus group interviews
Quantitative findings
Qualitative findings
Forms averaged 1.8 pages, and ranged from 1- Participants skimmed or scanned the one
5.
page consent form. Would sign document
without reading if three or more pages long.
Forms used a lot of technical research language Participants required clarification on terms
and infrequent vocabulary.
such as focus group, participant, and benefit.
Negotiation of meaning was necessary to
discuss various aspects of consent forms.
Consent forms were largely written above the Participants claimed that form was easy to
general recommendation of the 8th grade level. read, however, they showed areas where
they were largely uninformed about research
practices.
Participants scored poorly on comprehension
task. Low level learners answered three out of
ten and high level learners/native speakers
answered six out of ten question.

Issues such as confidentiality and risks did
not appear to be important to learners due to
the nature of the current study (English,
linguistics). Participants displayed gaps in
their understanding of research practices:
confidentiality, purpose of study, role of
instructor/researcher/IEP. Participants
skimmed the document.

Form difficulty did not appear to alter scores
on comprehension task.
Desired compensation includes extra credit
and money. Participation viewed as novel
experience, method of gaining English
practice, and method of helping others
(researcher).
Comparison of results form the quantitative (chapter 5) and qualitative (chapter 6) results.

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CHAPTER 7
DISCUSSION
Introduction
To date, no empirical research has investigated the difficulty level of consent forms in
SLA research nor looked at the outcomes of participants reading the forms. Other branches of
science, primarily medical fields, have a detailed history of attempting to produce documents
that are both relevant and readable by participants (for examples see; Cardinal, Martin, & Sachs,
1996; LoVerde, Prochazka, & Byyny, 1987; Sand, Eik-Nes, & Loge, 2012). It should be noted
that comparing SLA studies to medical research can be problematic for two different reasons.
First, many medical studies often exclude second language speakers from participating in
research geared towards understanding consent forms in order to reduce the number of conflating
variables. Second, SLA research generally deals with investigations into how language is learned
or taught and utilizes methodologies that carry a low risk of harm while medical research
involves topics related to health and uses methodologies that can pose a large amount of risk to
the participants. It is difficult to know how participant behavior in the current study, where risks
were negligible, is generalizable to other fields where research carries significantly higher
chances of harm and outcomes are drastically more important to the participant’s life. In the
current research climate, all research involving humans as participants is governed by the same
ethical rules (DHHS code 46.116 as an example). Throughout this discussion, I will be primarily
drawing references from the medical fields, where research on consent forms is plentiful, and
SLA studies, the topic of the current dissertation. I will attempt to draw comparisons between the
two whenever possible.

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How complex are SLA/ESL consent forms?
The first research question dealt with the difficulty level of current consent forms in
second language acquisition research, particularly when it involves the usage of people who
speak English as a second language. Studies in the medical field have two overarching concerns
for producing comprehensible consent forms, length and the reading grade level of the
documents. In terms of length, many medical studies are concerned with minimizing the length
of the form overall while still maintaining all necessary information (Beardsley, Jefford, &
Mileshkin, 2007; Freer, McIntosh, Teunisse, Anand, & Boyle, 2009; LoVerde et al., 1987). It is
difficult to find an average medical consent form length as the documents’ sizes change
depending on the procedure being conducted. Various sources have put forward averages that
range from 11 pages (Beardsley et al., 2007) to 20 pages (Brody, 2001). Such long consent forms
are potentially problematic for ESL learners who might not be able to nor want to read long
complicated documentation. Indeed, participants in the current study claimed that they would be
unlikely to read consent forms that exceed three to five pages in length. Again, it is difficult to
draw generalizations from the participants’ performance on the current study and assume it
would be applicable in medical research, as the risks and complexity of the research is vastly
different. Studies that have investigated the comprehension rates of ESL learners enrolled in
medical research have found that language proficiency plays a small role (Breese et al, 2007) but
do not adequately explain why it is a factor or even how proficiency was measured. Other studies
begin with the assumption that non-native speakers will not understand consent forms and so
look for alternative means of producing the documents so that potential participants will be
informed about the study they are enrolling in (Garcia-Retamero & Dhami, 2011; Quinn et al.,
2012). The assumption that non-native speakers will not understand the consent forms is perhaps
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misguided as, high level learners in the current study understood consent forms to the same
degree as native speakers.
For SLA consent forms, the average length was 1.8 pages with a range between one to
five pages. While many studies that discuss the length of the consent forms do so in terms of
page number, it should be noted that the average words per consent form was around 585 words.
Some forms such as M (the difficult form) had 610 words but was only one page long, the same
page count as form C (the easy form) which had 290 words. Researchers have much leeway
when it comes to the formatting of their documents and so matters such as text size, margin
settings, and spacing are variable. A form such as M, converted to 1 inch margins, double spaced,
and 12 point font would increase the page size from one to three pages. It is not clear if
condensing or manipulating the consent form so that it is only one page long would result in
participants taking more time to read the form or reading it in more detail.
The other main concern for many medical studies is the reading grade level of the
document, which is usually reported in terms of a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (Kincaid, Rogers,
& Chissom, 1975). The current study utilized both a Flesch-Kincaid and a SMOG (McLaughlin,
1969) reading level but only discussed the Flesch-Kincaid. According to many sources (Agre &
Rapkin, 2003; Paasche-Orlow, Taylor, & Brancati, 2003; Perry, 2011; Schwartz & Appelbaum,
2008) the 8th grade reading level is often considered to be the appropriate level for consent forms
to be written at, whether this is the correct level for a non-native speaking population is never
discussed. The average reading level of the collected consent forms in the current study was at
the 10.82 grade reading level, which was statistically higher than the recommended grade level.
The 10.82 grade level was close to the average readability level found by Paasche-Orlow et al.
(2003) of IRB template forms of 10.6. Potentially this means that many SLA researchers might
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either be adapting IRB forms for their research but leaving them largely unchanged in terms of
reading grade level or that the researchers are forced to use specific wording handed down by the
IRB. The end result is a document that is rated quite high in terms of reading grade level.
One complicating factor from this study is that form difficulty did not change the
outcome of participants on the comprehension task. This might mean that forms written as low as
the 7th grade level are still above the ability of the ESL learners in this study, or that forms
written at the 10th grade reading level were within the ability of the students. Future replications
of this research might want to use forms that are well below the 8th grade level to see if greatly
simplifying the form changes comprehension rates.
The final area of measured difficulty was in the vocabulary level used on the consent
forms, an area not covered by previous research. The average level of vocabulary coverage on
the consent forms according to the New General Service List (NGSL) 1000 to 3000 levels was
84.58% for the 1000 level, 91.96% for the 2000 level, and 94.55% for the 3000 level. The
generally assumed requirement for reading comprehension is that 95-98% of the vocabulary
should be found at or below the 3000 word level (Schmitt, Cobb, Horst, & Schmitt, 2015).
Around half of the consent forms used in this study come close to or just exceed the 95% cut off.
When combined, the high level of infrequent vocabulary along with the overall high reading
level of many consent forms might contribute significantly to participants not being able to
understand the consent documents.
The nature of the vocabulary used on the forms was also problematic. Many of the items
found above the 3000 level band might be considered research terminology or research jargon.
Examples of frequently used words at the 3000 word band were consent, confidential,
questionnaire, and investigator. Results from the comprehension task, where participants
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highlighted difficult or unknown words, also showed that terms such as confidentiality,
investigator, and refuse were all heavily targeted as unknown words by participants. However, it
is not just low frequency items that were unknown to learners. The most highlighted term,
participate, can be found at the 2000 word level. Other terms such as risk, benefit, and
particular, all found at the 1000 level band, were also problematic for many participants. The
idea that learners are unaware of the meaning behind such often used terms like risk and benefit
is troubling as various forms of research ethics stress that ethical research should be balanced
between the two and a major goal of informed consent is to explain how participants will be
affected by these concepts. The inability to understand the terminology of consent forms again
calls into question how informed the participants were.
One method for simplifying the consent form would be to use more frequent synonyms
such as secret or concealed instead of confidential or agree instead of consent. However, these
synonyms do not necessarily have the same meaning as the original, and at times might carry a
different implication as well. Participants might question why their data is to be kept secret or
wonder if they are engaging in activities that are legal or just. Another possibility would be to
gloss the terms, however, this would result in a longer consent form, which the focus group
participants agreed would be a negative thing. Other methods have been attempted from using
pictures (Garcia-Retamero & Dhami, 2011) to using multimedia (Quinn et al., 2012) all with
varied outcomes. A multimedia presentation has the added benefit of being rehearsed and
polished prior to showing it to participants. Picture descriptions might include items that visually
show participants what they will be asked to do during the study; however, it is difficult to
imagine how one would show a lack of risk in picture form. Using pictures or other media such
as video to explain informed consent might be applicable to IEP students but needs to be tested
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to see if those types of methods would produce better outcomes than the current written forms.
The findings from this research question should be viewed as an initial starting ground
for the comparison of consent forms in SLA research. Forms in ESL research are typically
shorter than what is found in the medical field, which is to be expected given the disparity in the
risks and concerns of the research. On the other hand, the reading grade level of SLA forms is
actually quite high for the target audience. Causes for this elevated level might be the fact that no
agreed upon reading level has been established in SLA research traditions, while documents
written for medical research are often required to be written at the 8th grade level by local IRBs.
It is not clear whether or not the requirement in the medical field works, as tests of
comprehension typically still result in low scores. The vocabulary used on the forms could also
be contributing to the difficulty level of the forms. Only around half of the collected consent
forms met the lowest recommended level of 95% vocabulary coverage at the 3000 level band of
the NGSL for learners to be able to understand the document. The amount of infrequent
vocabulary items might have made it difficult for language learners to understand the document
as they read. However, as discussed earlier it is not clear how to reduce this high level of
infrequent vocabulary as the research jargon used on these forms is difficult to replace and at
times is required by IRBs.
Three explanations for the high reading grade level and vocabulary usage seem
appropriate for the SLA context. Both the Flesch-Kincaid and the SMOG compute complexity in
terms of word length; syllable count per sentence in the Flesch-Kincaid, and polysyllabic word
count per sentence in the SMOG. If researchers are interested in maintaining a low page count
for their consent forms, then they might be inclined to use longer or more technical words, a
finding in line with Sand, Eik-Nes, and Loge (2012) who found that the majority of consent
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forms used technical medical vocabulary without explaining it to the reader. As an example, the
word confidential might be used instead of data not shared with others, using the longer word
would result in an increased reading level while using the phrase would result in a longer consent
form. A second reason could be that reading grade levels as measured by the Flesch-Kincaid are
not important to SLA researchers, who might use intuition of ESL learners as methods of making
the documents easy to understand. It is also possible that SLA researchers are not aware of such
measures as the Flesch-Kincaid or know how to calculate the scores and thus do not produce
documents that are within the prescribed levels. The final reason could be that SLA researchers
are writing consent forms with the goal of obtaining IRB approval and are not as concerned with
how easy the document is to read for ESL learners. Empirical investigations would need to be
conducted to see which, if any, of these explanations is contributing to the high reading level.
How well did participants internalize consent information?
The second research question dealt with the comprehension of consent forms by ESL
learners. In the current study, participants read and signed either a hard or easy consent form,
completing all steps required to be enrolled in a research study. They then took a comprehension
task based on the DICCT (Miller et al., 1996) in order to gauge how much of the form was
internalized by the learner. Results of the task revealed that participants scored relatively poorly
overall, indicating that they did not have a firm grasp on the details listed in the consent form. As
will be discussed throughout this discussion chapter, it appears that the most likely reason for
this performance was the lack of careful reading, evidence of which can be found in the focus
group data where many participants admitted to skimming the document before signing as well
as their general disregard for the content of the consent forms.
Other studies that have measured the rate of comprehension of adults after reading
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consent forms largely agree with the findings from the comprehension task. Again, it should be
noted that direct comparisons between studies is difficult as the topic and field of study (i.e.
medical or clinical) and the task used to measure the comprehension change. However, studies
such as Breese et al. (2007) found that respondents answered roughly 62% of questions correct
on the task, similar to the performance of high level ESL learners and native speakers in this
study. Breese et al. also found that having a higher education level (college compared to less than
high school) and having English as a first language (compared to Spanish or Vietnamese)
correlated to having a higher comprehension score. The Breese et al. study failed to
independently assess English proficiency, as the only measure of proficiency was the stated
ability to read. It is not possible to tell how much of an influence proficiency might have had in
this study, only that non-native speakers performed worse on the task when compared to native
speakers. Stunkel et al., (2010) showed slightly higher accuracy rates of roughly 73% correct and
again found that education level played at least a small roll with higher education being
associated with higher comprehension rates. The Stunkel et al. study did not include ESL
learners as participants. Taken together, these studies indicate that participants internalize some
information about the consent form but only responded correctly to roughly 60-70% of questions
on comprehension tasks, making it difficult to tell if they are truly informed about the study.
In the current study, low level learners tended to respond to three to four questions
accurately, though around 20% answered zero questions correctly, while both high level learners
and native speakers answered six to seven questions correctly. The original DICCT was used as a
tool to evaluate the comprehension of participants prior to enrolling them into a study. No cut off
score was established and indeed it is not clear if or at what number a cut score should be
established. It is unreasonable to think that every person who reads a consent form will
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understand 100% of the information and so it might be expected that missing one or two
questions would be the norm. It is also not clear that all 10 questions should carry equal weight
in their importance. A lack of understanding potential risks (Q3) or the voluntary nature of
research (Q7 and Q8) may be more problematic than not understanding alternative means of
gaining extra credit (Q5), though participants might be most interested in learning about their
compensation for participation. Nevertheless, by missing three or more questions, participants
are by default beginning to show gaps in understanding important consent information. If we
consider missing two or fewer questions as being well informed of the consent process, then
around 45% of the native speakers, 30% of the high level learners, and only 7% of the low level
learners meet this criteria. A different way of looking at this information would be to see which
two questions were answered least frequently per group. The native speakers showed issues
relating to questions five (alternative means of extra credit) and six (researcher contact
information), for high level learners questions nine (confidentiality) and six (researcher contact
information), and for low level learners questions nine (confidentiality) and five (alternative
means) were the most problematic. Both ESL groups displayed difficulty remembering
information regarding confidentiality, which was also evident in the focus group interviews.
Assuming that answering eight out of ten questions correctly on the comprehension task makes
one informed, only 27% of the participants in this data could be said to be well informed about
the research project that they had just enrolled themselves into. This number drops to only 9% if
we assume a need to accurately answer nine questions, and 2% for 100% accuracy. The two
forms used in the current study then appear to have been problematic for all participants
regardless of proficiency.
The results from the difficulty of ESL consent form analysis showed that many of the
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documents are fairly difficult to read. It was hoped that learners who were presented an easy
form compared to a more difficult form would be able to score better on the comprehension task.
Results from the current study align with Stunkel et al., (2010), who found no correlation
between participants’ comprehension of the form type they read. Young and Hooker (1990) did
find statistical difference in comprehension between a difficult and easy form, however, their
forms ranged from the 6th grade for the easy form to the 16th grade level for the hard form. One
might want to question using such a high reading level as the difficult form, as the 16th grade
level requires a college if not post-college level of education and would probably fall outside of
the range of expectation for most native English speakers to understand. However, six of the ESL
consent forms collected for this study were rated at above the 11th grade level, with one being
rated at the 13.6th grade level indicating that forms as high as the 16th grade level are potentially
being used in SLA studies.
Returning to the results of this study, the 7.45 to 10.45 grade level range used for the easy
and hard form did not result in a difference in the comprehension scores. There are several ways
of interpreting this data. First, it might be the case that both forms were within the reading ability
of the participants causing a ceiling effect. Alternatively the forms might have been too difficult
for both groups resulting in a performance that was lower than expected. Again the main reason
for the low scores on the task appear to have more to do with the general apathy that participants
had towards the forms than it did with the difficulty of the language itself. While taking the task,
it was obvious that some participants were not carefully reading the forms prior to signing it, an
observation confirmed by many participants in the focus groups admitting to skimming the form.
As has been alluded to in this discussion chapter, there was a statistically significant
difference between the performance of the three groups on the comprehension task. Native
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speakers and high level proficiency learners had statistically similar results on the
comprehension task, and both groups outperformed the low level learners. In terms of
pedagogical outcomes, this is very promising. The general goal of an IEP is to produce students
who can interact with materials to the same degree that native speakers can and so will be able to
do well in normal university courses. The negative side of this finding is in relation to research
ethics, where the goal of the consent form is to produce readers who understand the consent
information and the research project that they are enrolling in to. In this light, the desire of
researchers would be that all three groups would perform highly on this task, indicating that they
have internalized all or most information on the consent form. The fact that the forms are better
suited for higher level ESL students has potential ramifications for other research. Most studies
of consent form comprehension exclude second language learners in order to reduce the number
of conflating variables in the dataset. Studies that do include ESL participants such as Breese et
al. (2007) do not differentiate between proficiency levels. The only benchmark used for
participation in Breese et al. was the ability to read in English. It is probably unrealistic to expect
researchers from other branches of science, especially those who are not second language
experts, to understand language proficiency or how to measure it. The same conditions might
also be applied to IRB members. Even in the Federal guidelines put out by the Department of
Health and Human Services and other branches of research oversight have little to say about ESL
learners. Non-native English speakers are little discussed in other research projects but when
they are, they tend to be organized into a single monolithic group. If high level learners are able
to comprehend consent information at least as well as native speakers, then their exclusion from
research on linguistic merit alone is unwarranted. However, this data should force IRBs to
evaluate consent forms that are to be used with ESL learners as being based on the proficiency
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level of the target participants instead of viewing ESL as a monolithic group.
How do participants view consent forms?
The third research question asked in this study centered around the beliefs and opinions
of ESL participants in regards to both research and the consent process. The focus groups were
designed to produce evidence that would complement the observations found in the
comprehension task. Focus group participants appeared to dismiss the importance of consent
forms, especially in terms of risks and confidentiality and openly discussed skimming the
consent form or skipping entire sections that they deemed unimportant to read. The lack of
importance placed on the consent forms was potentially the major reason that participants
performed poorly on the comprehension task. If the participants did not see the value in closely
reading the document then it would be unlikely that they would be able to internalize much of
the information contained within the text.
Focus groups have been conducted on the topic of informed consent with ESL learners in
the past. Stead et al. (2005) discussed various topics related to medical consent and found that
participants had difficulty understanding topics such as placebo, randomization, and double-blind
studies. Participants in the current study also displayed issues with understanding various
vocabulary items with terms such as participant and benefit being discussed in Chapter 6.
Chapters 4 and 5 also showed areas of highly infrequent vocabulary being used, especially in
regards to research terminology. Barata et al. (2006) conducted focus groups with Canadian
immigrants from Latin America and discussed topics related to the value of trust placed onto
researchers and the desire to be well informed about medical research. Trust was evident in the
current study as participants overwhelmingly were unclear about the purpose of the research or
use of data, but still decided to stay and participate. It is unclear from the current focus groups
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how well informed the participants wanted to be about the research they were partaking in, but
judging from their lack of reading the consent document, it might have been little.
Buccini et al. (2009) set out to create a definition for the comprehension of informed
consent. Summarizing their definition, comprehension of informed consent should involve (1)
integrating current participant knowledge with study specific material, (2) #1 should occur at the
same time as a participant decides to partake in research, and (3) consent forms should contain
information deemed pertinent by local, national, or international organizations. What is not clear
from the definition is what kinds of information participants are expected to know about science
or research prior to reading a consent form. The participants in the focus groups were asked how
the data being recorded would be used later and guessed that the data would be transcribed and
used as notes by the researcher. While the participants were accurate in their guesses, this did not
have to be the case. For example, the recordings could have been used to form a corpus or
developed into vignettes for other researchers to read and rate. The consent form they signed, and
my own explanation of it, did not specify how the data would be used or how it might be shared
at a later date. Participants were unable to express why they believed that data would be used in
the way they described. Their beliefs about how research is conducted might be based on
preconceived notions of what science is or on educated guesses. Several focus groups displayed
their lack of understanding the research project as can be seen excerpts 19A-C. In these excerpts
participants question not only the usage of the data, but they begin to question what exactly a
focus group is, and who I was as a researcher. While some participants thought that I was a
teacher at their IEP, others were confused over what exactly a linguist is. It does not seem
accurate to state the participants could be truly informed about a study when they were unsure
what type of data was being collected (linguistic verse psychological) even after 40 minutes of
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interview time. Most participants are not trained scientists and so expecting them to have a
detailed understanding of how the consent process or other areas of research work is unrealistic.
It is also unrealistic for researchers to understand how much participants know about science
prior to enrolling them into a study. Thus while integrating the participants existent knowledge
with the information on the consent form is an admirable goal, it does not seem like an
obtainable one.
Another issue in determining whether or not the participants were really informed about
the research involves the idea of coercion. Participants are supposed to be able to freely elect to
join research or not, without incurring any type of penalty. However, when students are recruited
for participation into a research study from a classroom there is a chance that they will feel
pressured to participate (Leentjens & Levenson, 2013). Participants in the focus groups were
under the impression that I was either a teacher at their IEP or that I was in close contact with
their teachers, neither of which were true. However, the belief that I was tightly connected to
their IEP might have impacted their desire to partake in the research. Some participants believed
that I would report back to their instructor so that they could earn extra credit or because the
instructor might be curious about my impression of the students. On the comprehension task,
questions eight and nine discussed topics related to refusing to participate in research and how
refusing to take part in research might affect the IEP’s view of them as students. Question nine
was the least accurate question for both ESL groups but was correctly answered by 63% of
native speakers. Again this appears to shed light on how well informed the participants truly
were in both the comprehension task and in the focus groups as this material was covered on all
consent forms.
In discussing the benefits and compensation provided to students in the focus groups, the
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conversation often shifted to the topic of what participants viewed as important for their
participation in the research. Ideally, people would take part in research out of feelings of
altruism, but in reality there is usually a need to compensate the participants for their time
(Klitzman, 2013). Money and extra credit were always mentioned as desired compensation by
the participants in the focus groups. However, some did express concern over using extra credit
as it would attract students who needed it, in other words academically challenged students.
Beyond extra credit and money, several participants envisioned participation in research as a
novel experience that they were able to do while abroad or as an opportunity to practice English
with a native speaker of the language. The idea of using research as experience and opportunity
are rarely if ever discussed in the literature as a potential compensation for being involved in
research. In Ortega’s (2005) discussion of an ethical lens for SLA research, she postulated that
ethical work should be “judged by its social utility” (p.430). However, this and most views of
research ethics do not take into consideration how participants feel about donating their time,
effort, or language to research. If research projects are seen as valuable experiences for ESL
learners, then this alone might justify the existence of research that has little social utility outside
of the realm of theoretical or applied linguistics.
Limitations
Like all research projects, the current dissertation had limitations that were at times
outside of the control of the researcher and other times were choices that were forced to be made.
The overall number of consent forms (n=20) collected for this study is relatively small,
especially when compared to the vast amount of research published every year. The aim of this
portion of the data collection was to access the difficulty level of consent forms and it was
decided that the best method for doing this would be to use consent forms that were meant for a
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large data collection session such as in a classroom or a language lab. This type of research
typically would not allow for participants to ask many questions, leading the consent form to
contain most if not all pertinent information for the research. Additionally, the stipulation that
forms could not be translated into the various L1s of the participants was also a limiting factor as
several researchers claimed to translate all of their forms. When contacted, many researchers did
not have consent forms that matched the selection criteria or if they did, had lost the material.
While many dissertations did have consent forms attached to them, there was very little
description of the consent process written in the dissertation. Finding 20 appropriate consent
forms was at times a challenge and in future research, it would be advised to lower the
restrictions for inclusion of the consent forms into the dataset, potentially only requiring that the
form was approved by an IRB and used in an ESL study. Broader selection criteria would also
allow for greater generalization into various other findings.
Asking participants to retroactively explain how much they understood of the form after
reading it (the comprehension task), forces participants to remember details that they had just
read, potentially causing a conflation between memory and comprehension. It is possible that
participants were able to read and understand the consent form prior to signing it, but then were
not able to recall the information they had just read. The current study views comprehension not
only as the ability to understand the consent form while reading but also as the ability to
internalize the information (Buccini et al., 2009). Thus participants’ ability, or lack of, to
reproduce information on the comprehension task appears to show issues relating to the
internalization the content of the consent forms. Even if the comprehension task is viewed only
as one of memory, then the overarching results would be that participants cannot remember basic
information about the research project moments after signing the document, indicating a
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potential flaw in the consent process.
Two real consent forms were selected for use as research material in the current study.
Real consent forms were used to provide ecological validity, as the forms were originally
designed for ESL learners and were approved by real IRBs. Creating new consent forms or
augmenting a consent form to either make it more difficult or easier to read might result in
documents that felt artificial or contained wording that appeared odd or out of place. The two
forms used as research material for the current study represented different research projects
written by different authors and so contained elements that differed beyond length, reading grade
level, and vocabulary coverage, which were the primary indicators of difficulty in the current
study. Other differences include formatting, stylistic choices, and topic or purpose of the study.
However, all consent forms are supposed to cover similar materials (those found in code 46.116)
and so the majority of the intended answers on the comprehension task were the same regardless
of which form was read. It is possible that the qualitative differences between the two forms
account for why no difference was found between the easy and hard form and should be
incorporated into any future replications of the current study.
In the focus groups, the difference in participation numbers across groups was
inconsistent. Ten people signed up for each data collection session, but at times 11 or only two
people came. Ten or eleven people in a focus group is quite a large number of people and also
resulted in all participants speaking less. In general, some participants seemed more comfortable
with the focus group design and monopolized time, while other participants were more inclined
to only produce two or three sentences worth of dialog. This lack of talk time resulted in
difficulties finding patterns in the participants’ responses and also allowed a few students to
contribute more input in the final product. The goal of a focus group is to leverage the co113

construction of the discussion and thus it is difficult to provide equal participation time to all.
The interactive nature of focus groups provides interesting insights into the participants’
worldview, future researchers should limit the number to a manageable size in order to allow all
participants better access to speaking time.
The participants in the focus groups might not be representative of populations at many
IEPs as most of the upper level students were Brazilian, and no Chinese speakers participated at
all. It is not clear why the Chinese population at the IEP did not chose to participate in the focus
group sessions, even after many had originally agreed to do so. Chinese students currently
constitute a large proportion of many IEP populations, and their lack of involvement in the
current study was disheartening. Potentially, the use of money (15 dollars) as compensation for
the current research project was not strong enough to entice participation. Future research might
do well to make use of Theme 2 from the focus groups and offer participants extra practice time
or free conversation hours for participating as compensation.
Implications
Research based implications for this study include the idea that the current model of
informed consent in ESL research might not be appropriate for the target audience. The idea that
a language learner will be able to or will want to read a form at the beginning of a research
project and understand the implications for agreeing to be part of a research project are
questionable at best. From this research it is not clear if the forms were too difficult to read or if
the participants did not pay particular attention to the details. Regardless, the fact remains that
participants volunteered and consented to take part in a research project without full
understanding of it. Alternative means of increasing comprehension of consent should be tested.
Possible methods might be to include the usage of bolding, bulleted lists, or other formatting
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properties. Additionally, it might be possible to use IEP course time to inform learners about
research and signing documents. IEP students are often the target of research, so spending class
time discussing the various issues might be a beneficial use of time. Lessons could also include
topics such as asking for assistance while reading a form or asking for more time, topics that
could be used in day-to-day life as well as in research.
From a research perspective, there are things that could be done in order to help ensure
that participants truly understand what they are registering themselves for. One solution might be
to have researchers create or adapt a version of the comprehension task used in this study.
Participants could orally provide responses and the investigator could correct any mistakes or fill
in any gaps in the information. This should ease the burden of comprehension on the part of the
participant while they are reading the form and simultaneously increase their understanding of
the research process as a whole.
Another idea that has been used in the medical field is to provide a consent flyer
(Klitzman, 2013). Here, the participants would be provided with a document that is not
necessarily written in prose format but instead bullet points. Each bullet point would be used to
highlight certain segments of consent and only include the most important information. The
medical flyers are typically shorter, though potentially longer than current SLA consent forms,
and the information is made easier to find by using textual enhancements.
Another solution that might be possible for some research projects would be to send a
consent form to the participant prior to their arrival. If the investigator goes to a classroom to
recruit students, then he or she would be able to hand the forms out early. Emailing the document
might also be a useful way to communicate early with the participants. There would be no
guarantee that participants would read the forms ahead of time but those who would want to read
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them would have the option, which might be beneficial to lower level learners.
Finally, even though the difficulties of translation were discussed in Chapter 1, some
researchers might still find the activity desirable. In order to ensure that a translated consent form
contains all essential elements of the original document, the research might want to have the
form translated back from the L1 of the participants into the original English. The researcher
could then reread the document and verify that all elements still carry the same meaning in either
the translated or original document. Researchers might also want to work closely with translators
and discuss the project in detail, allowing the translator to have a stronger understanding of the
core concepts of research instead of having him or her simply translate the form from one
language to the next. Finally, researchers might want to offer both the original and the translated
consent form to the participant so that he or she will be able to read both and potentially
understand the project better.
Future research
The general lack of non-personal meta-reflection aimed at research ethics in the SLA
literature allows for many future areas of growth. Possible gaps that could be exploited by future
researchers includes areas such as investigations into how ESL researchers’ beliefs about
research ethics affect the way they write consent documentation or carry out research projects.
Understanding the beliefs and values of SLA scholars could also help to develop better training
materials. One belief in particular that is worthy of exploration is to see what opinions SLA
researchers have about consent forms. Are they writing the documents with the ESL learner in
mind or are they just attempting to have a box check marked by the IRB during the approval
process? Anecdotal evidence and general rules of thumb used by SLA researchers need to be
examined to test their validity. Measures should be taken that ensure that these untested ideas are
116

in fact beneficial to ESL learners. Ideas such as the maximum reading level, length of
documentation, and types of vocabulary used all need to be verified using empirical means
instead of intuition.
Another area of future research would be to expand upon the analyses used in this
research. One expansion would be to include more examples of consent forms in the complexity
analysis. Using more forms would allow for a better understanding of how various researchers
produce forms.Also, looking at measures such as the formatting, stylistic choices of the author,
sentence transitions, or other qualitative measures might allow for a better understanding of form
difficulty than simple quantitative measures such as SMOG or Flesch-Kincaid scores.
Finally, more focus groups could be used to expand upon our current knowledge of how
ESL learners view research. Possible topics include; better scenarios so that discussion could
range beyond the current study topic and into hypothetical studies, questions relating to the role
of the researcher and research to IEPs, or questions targeting the beliefs and abilities of ESL
participants towards reading consent documents. Additionally, more variety in the population
pool would be beneficial as it would allow for more voices to be heard.
Conclusion
This dissertation found that consent forms used for ESL studies were written beyond
minimal recommendations in terms of reading level and vocabulary usage. A comprehension task
revealed that many participants agree to take part in research but are largely uninformed about
the process as a whole. Taken together these two findings show that consent forms are not
achieving their desired goal of producing participants who are adequately informed in terms of
research processes to make a decision on whether or not participating in a study is actually in
their best interest. Focus group interviews highlighted participants’ lack of completely reading
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the forms and their general dismissal of the importance of topics such as confidentiality or risks.
Research that is conducted ethically is vitally important to any branch of science and SLA
is no different. For many years, informed consent forms have received little discussion in the
SLA literature and largely lacked any empirical investigation into their usage or design. This
research project is only the first step towards improving the current methods used to obtain
informed consent in SLA research, one that I would like to continue into the future.

118

APPENDICES

119

APPENDIX A

Words on collected consent forms at 4000+ word level

120

Table 27: Collected consent form vocabulary at 4000+ word level band
Word
Count
Word
Count
Word
English
46
conference
4
aptitude
consent
33
convenient
4
compliance
ESL
25
discomfort
4
comprehension
confidential
24
IRB
4
coursework
questionnaire
24
literate
4
delete
audio
23
proficiency
4
demographic
investigator
23
withdrawal
4
dissemination
transcribe
14
ascertain
3
eligible
classroom
13
aspect
3
fieldnotes
publish
13
authorize
3
freely
pseudonym
11
behalf
3
lab
semester
11
cabinet
3
notify
obtain
10
candidate
3
partial
oversee
8
certify
3
similarity
password
8
doctoral
3
spontaneous
completion
7
duration
3
subpoena
fax
7
foresee
3
supervisor
instructor
7
informal
3
tailor
learner
7
phonemic
3
tutorial
oral
7
scenario
3
willingness
anonymous
6
strictly
3
anticipated
assignment
6
vocabulary
3
adverse
discontinue
6
unrelated
3
advisor
dissertation
6
identification
3
accordance
minimal
6
legally
3
accuracy
pragmatic
6
accent
2
aloud
signature
6
administer
2
analgesic
Allowable
5
advancement
2
anesthesia
compensate
5
adverse
2
anthropologist
disclose
5
America
2
assurance
privacy
5
appendix
2
bonus
additional
4
apprehension
2
calendar
campus
1
illustrative
1
cease
1
integrity
1
cellar
1
intermediate
1
chancellor
1
leisure
1
clip
1
lieu
1
closure
1
matriculate
1
competent
1
microphone
1
convey
1
neutral
1
coordinator
1
notebook
1
curriculum
1
objection
1
121

Count
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

Table 27 (cont’d)
developmental
1
pencil
1
dialect
1
pertain
1
dictation
1
photocopy
1
discern
1
placement
1
discourse
1
practitioner
1
discretion
1
preconceive
1
discrimination
1
prejudice
1
documentation
1
punishment
1
drawer
1
qualitative
1
empower
1
recycle
1
entail
1
regulatory
1
erase
1
relational
1
eventual
1
script
1
faculty
1
shred
1
familiarize
1
skip
1
feedback
1
souvenir
1
fixation
1
syllabus
1
fluency
1
undergraduate
1
foundational
1
verbal
1
header
1
violate
1
hereby
1
humanity
1
All vocabulary items found at or above the 4000 level band of the NGSL

122

APPENDIX B

Transcript coding scheme

123

Table 28: Coding scheme for focus group interviews
Symbol
Meaning
@
Laughter
@@
Two beats of laughter
@@@
Long sustained laughter
{}
Meta-information about interaction
[
Interrupts speaker
]
Ends interruption
Coding used in transcripts

124

APPENDIX C

Study materials

125

Hard form
Read the following consent form and check the box at the end. While you are reading, please
UNDERLINE any words you do not know. Please CIRCLE any sections that do not make
sense to you. Once you have finished please raise your hand.
Project Name: Factors Predicting the Understanding of Play by Adult ESL Learners
John Smith

phone: 555-333-1111 email: smith@msu.edu

Introduction and Explanation of the Study: You are invited to participate in this research
study. This study evaluates students’ knowledge of English humor. If you volunteer to
participate, you will first fill out a language background questionnaire and take a short test on the
computer. Next you will be shown several situations with incomplete dialogs. You will be asked
to select a funny response that completes the dialog. This project is self-paced. It is expected to
take around 60 minutes.
Risks and Benefits: There are no known risks connected with participation in this study. Your
language abilities may benefit from this study in that you may gain a clearer understanding of
your knowledge of English humor. Your language reading may benefit from the extra reading
practice. You might also laugh which is always a good thing!
Confidentiality: Your confidentiality will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law.
This means that all information collected will be kept secret and will only be used for research
purposes. The researcher will never use your name or any information that identifies you. Instead
you will be given an ID number (unrelated to any official ID# you may have) to identify your
data. Whenever data from this study is published, your name will not be used. All data collected
will be kept in a locked cabinet at MSU for at least three years after the project closes. Electronic
data will be kept on the investigator's password protected computer; however, no participant
names will be stored on the computer. All data will be collected by the investigator listed on this
application. Only the researcher will see and use the data, but the Institutional Review Board
(IRB) can also see the data.
Compensation: You will receive extra credit in your class for completing this study. If you do
not want to do the study, you can still get extra credit. You can ask your teacher about this.
Your participation: Participation in this study is entirely voluntary which means that you
choose to participate. You may choose not to participate at all, or you may refuse to answer
certain questions or discontinue your participation at any time without consequence. Your refusal
to participate will involve no penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. You
may also discontinue participation at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which you
are otherwise entitled. Your decision to participate will in no way affect your course grade.
Researcher’s contact information
If you have concerns or questions about this study, such as scientific issues, how to do any part
126

of it, or to report an injury, please contact the investigators (John Smith, Second Language
Studies, Suite 1 UPLA Building, East Lansing, MI 48824; e-mail: smith@msu.edu; phone: 555333-1111.
IRB’s contact information
If you have questions or concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like
to obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you
may contact, anonymously if you wish, the Michigan State University’s Human Research
Protection Program at 517-355-2180, Fax 517-432-4503, or e-mail irb@msu.edu or regular mail
at 207 Olds Hall, MSU, East Lansing, MI 48824.
Subject's consent
Check this box if you have read this consent form and understand what it says

127

Easy form
Read the following consent form and check the box at the end. While you are reading, please
UNDERLINE any words you do not know. Please CIRCLE any sections that do not make
sense to you. Once you have finished please raise your hand.
Research Information

We are asking you to participate in a research project.

Purpose of research: The goal of this research is to determine whether there is a particular way
that second language learners acquire English.
Age limit: You must be over 18 to participate in this research.
What you will do: First, you will have a discussion in English and play some language games.
Then you will sit at a computer. You will read sentences in English and answer questions about
the sentences (true or false). Your performance in this study is private. We will not publish your
name. This will take 60 minutes.
Compensation: You will receive extra credit in your class for completing this study. If you do
not want to do the study, you can still get extra credit. You can ask your teacher about this.
Risks and benefits: There are no risks to this study. You will get free practice in English and get
to have fun playing games.
Confidentiality: No one will know if you take part in this study. I will not share your
information with anyone. Your name will not be used.
Your rights to participate, say no, or withdraw: Participation in this study is voluntary; you
can say no. You can also change your mind and decide not to do it without any problem. If you
don’t want your test used for the study, your decision will not affect your grades, your classes, or
anything else at Michigan State University or any other place. You can also decide not to answer
any particular question without any problem.
You indicate your voluntary agreement to participate by completing the questionnaire and
reading the English sentences.
Contact information for questions and concerns: If you have any questions about this study,
please contact the researcher (John Smith, PhD, Assistant Professor- Second Language Studies,
B-10 Wells Hall, Tel: 555-333-1111, smith@msu edu).
You can also contact the Michigan State University's Human Research Protection Program at
128

517-355-2180, Fax 517-432-4503, or e-mail irb@msuedu or regular mail at 207 Olds Hall,
MSU, East Lansing, MI 48824. You do not have to give your name to do this.
Subject's consent
Check this box if you have read this consent form and understand what it says.

129

ID
#___________

BACKGROUND QUESTIONNAIRE

Please fill out the following background information about yourself.
1. What is your current age? _______________________________
2. Gender: ☐ Male

☐ Female

3. What is your current ELC level?
☐ Level 1

☐ Level 2

☐ Level 3

☐ Level 4

☐ EAP

☐ I am not in the

ELC
4. What is your home country?_______________________________
5. I have studied English for: (make your best guess)
_______ year(s) before high school
_______ year(s) in high school
_______ year(s) in college (not MSU)
_______ year(s) in a country where English is spoken (do not include this trip)
6. I have been in the USA for ___________ months (make your best guess)
7. What is your native language?_______________________________
8. Have you participated in a research project before?
a) Did you participate in research in the USA?
b) Could you explain the research?

130

☐Yes
☐Yes

☐ No
☐ No

Vocabulary levels test
Each sentence below has a word that is missing the last several letters. Your job is to
try and fill in the rest of the word by writing the missing letters in the blank.
Example: My friend went to the store yes________ . You should write terday in the blank (yesterday).
Have you seen the new mo________ at the cinema?
________________________________________________________________________________

1. I'm glad we had this opp________ to talk.
2. There are a doz________ eggs in the basket.
3. Every working person must pay income t________ .
4. The pirates buried the trea________ on a desert island.
5. Her beauty and ch________ had a powerful effect on men.
6. La________ of rain led to a shortage of water in the city.
7. He takes cr________ and sugar in his coffee.
8. The rich man died and left all his we________ to his son.
9. Pup________ must hand in their papers by the end of the week.
10. This sweater is too tight. It needs to be stret________ .
11. Ann intro________ her boyfriend to her mother.
12. Teenagers often adm________ and worship pop singers.
13. If you blow up that balloon any more it will bu________ .
14. In order to be accepted into the university, he had to impr________ his grades.
15. The telegram was deli________ two hours after it had been sent.
16. The differences were so sl________ that they went unnoticed.
17. The dress you're wearing is lov________ .
18. He wasn't very popu________ when he was a teenager, but he has many friends now.
131

19. He has a successful car________
20. The thieves threw ac________

as a lawyer.
in his face and made him blind.

21. To improve the country's economy, the government decided on economic ref________ .
22. She wore a beautiful green go________

to the ball.

23. The government tried to protect the country's industry by reducing the imp________

of

cheap goods.
24. The children's games were amusing at first, but finally got on the parents' ner________ .
25. The lawyer gave some wise coun________

to his client.

26. Many people in England mow the la________

of their houses on Sunday morning.

27. The farmer sells the eggs that his he________

lays.

28. Sudden noises at night sca________
29. France was proc________

a republic in the 18th century.

30. Many people are inj________

in road accidents every year.

31. Suddenly he was thru________
32. He perc________

me a lot.

into the dark room.

a light at the end of the tunnel.

33. Children are not independent. They are att________
34. She showed off her sle________

to their parents.

figure in a long narrow dress.

35. She has been changing partners often because she cannot have a sta________
relationship with one person.
36. You must wear a bathing suit on a public beach. You're not allowed to bath na________.

132

Comprehension task

Use the information you just read in the consent form and answer the following questions. If you
think the answer was not on the consent form please write NOT ON FORM. If you don't know
an answer, you can either guess or leave the question blank.
___________________________________________________________________________

1. What is the researcher trying to learn from this study?
2. How long will it take you to finish this study?
3. What risks (bad things) are there in this study?
4. What benefits (good things) are there in this study?
5. How can you earn (get) the money/extra credit if you do NOT participate in the
study?
6. Who can you contact (call or email) if something bad happened to you during the
study?
7. What will happen to you if you say no to being in the study?
8. What will happen if you say yes to be in the study now but want to say no later?
9. How does your decision to be (or not to be) in the study change the way the teachers
at the ELC think about you?
10. Who can see the things you do for this study?
11. Will this study improve your English skills?
12. How is your teacher involved (helping) in this research?
13. What will the researchers do with the information from the study?

133

Debriefing form
Informed Consent in ESL research
1. WHAT YOU DID:
You participated in a research study. You will not have to do the activities that you read about.
People who participate in research are given a reading before they start. This is called a consent
form. They are really hard for everyone to read. I wanted to know how much information you
can understand about the form.
2. YOU CAN PARTICIPATE OR NOT. YOU CAN STOP AT ANY TIME:
Participation is completely voluntary. That means you can stop anytime you want. If you want to
stop please tell me. I will not be upset. Your teacher will never know. You can also tell me
anytime that you don't want me to use your answers. It does not matter if it is 5 minutes later or 2
years later. You are helping me. Your teacher will never see the things you wrote.
3. POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF PARTICIPATION:
You are really helping everyone who doesn't speak English as their first language. Your answers
will help me and other scientists write easier to understand documents. This way other people
will know more about research before they start.
4. POTENTIAL RISKS AND COSTS FOR BEING IN THE STUDY:
You were not in any danger during this process. Also, no one at the ELC (including your teacher)
will ever know what you wrote.
5. PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY:
I will keep all of your answers secret. This means that your name and all information about you
will not be told to anyone. You only wrote your number, not your name on all of the documents
so I won't even know what you wrote. Remember, if you don't want me to use your answers, you
can always tell me and I will destroy your answers.
6. CONTACT INFORMATION FOR QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS:
If you have concerns or questions about this study, such as scientific issues, how to do any part
of it, or to report an injury, please contact the researcher .
Main researcher
Mr. Scott Sterling
sterli27@msu.edu

Primary Investigator
Dr. Shawn Loewen
loewens@msu.edu

If you have questions or concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like
to obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you
may contact, anonymously if you wish, the Michigan State University’s Human Research
Protection Program at 517-355-2180, Fax 517-432-4503, or e-mail irb@msu.edu or regular mail
at 408 W. Circle Dr., Room 207, MSU, East Lansing, MI 48824.
134

Your signature below means that you agree that I can use the answers you just wrote.

____________________________________
Signature

_______________________
Date

135

Focus group consent form
Informed Consent form for focus group
Informed Consent in ESL research
This is a research study. Researchers have to tell you about the things you will do, tell you that
you don't have to do the research, and tell you what could happen to you if you do participate.
Please ask questions if you have them. I like questions.
1. WHAT YOU WILL DO:
Today you will be in a group interview. I will ask you several questions and you can answer them
if you want. Other people will listen to your answers and can answer too. If you don't want to
answer a question, that is ok too. I will use a camera and record this interview. This interview
should last about 45 minutes.
2. YOU CAN PARTICIPATE OR NOT. YOU CAN STOP AT ANY TIME:
Participation is completely voluntary. That means you can stop anytime you want. If you want to
stop please tell me. I will not be upset. Your teacher will never know. You can also tell me
anytime after the interview that you don't want me to use your answers. It does not matter if it is
5 minutes later or 2 years later. You are helping me. This interview will not help or hurt your
grade.
3. POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF PARTICIPATION:
You will receive $15 dollars for taking part in this interview. You will also have the chance to
practice your English abilities outside of class time. This interview will also be a lot of fun.
4. POTENTIAL RISKS AND COSTS FOR BEING IN THE STUDY:
This interview is free. Plus I am paying you! There are no known risks in this study. You will not
be hurt in any way.
5. PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY:
You will be video recorded for this study. This video will be kept in the strictest confidentiality.
This means that your name and all information about you will not be told to anyone. I will keep
all of the videos on my computer and it has a password on it. Remember, if you say something
that you want to be removed from the videos you can always email me and I will remove it for
you.
6. CONTACT INFORMATION FOR QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS:
If you have concerns or questions about this study, such as scientific issues, how to do any part
of it, or to report an injury, please contact the researcher .
Main researcher
Mr. Scott Sterling
sterli27@msu.edu

Primary Investigator
Dr. Shawn Loewen
sloewen@msu.edu
136

If you have questions or concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like
to obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you
may contact, anonymously if you wish, the Michigan State University’s Human Research
Protection Program at 517-355-2180, Fax 517-432-4503, or e-mail irb@msu.edu or regular mail
at 408 W. Circle Dr., Room 207, MSU, East Lansing, MI 48824.

Your signature below means that you voluntarily agree to participate in this research study and
that you understand that you will be video-recorded.

________________________________________
Signature

137

______________________
Date

Focus Group Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

What kinds of compensation would you want for being part of a research?
What is a risk to you?
What types of benefits would make you want to be part of a research project?
Who has access or can see the things that you do in research?
In research you can always so no or stop being part of a study any time. If you do say no,
or stop, how does that affect the way the teachers at the ELC think about you?
6. Who should you contact if something happens while you are part of the research?
7. What role does your teacher play in research?
8. What will the researcher do with materials collected from you?
9. Which parts of the consent form did you not understand?
10. How much of this form did you actually read?
11. How could consent forms be made easier to understand?

138

APPENDIX D

Collected consent forms from Chapter 4

139

The following pages contain the 20 collected consent forms used in Chapter 4. These
forms have been stripped of all identifying information of the original researchers and home
institutions. The formatting of the dissertation changed various aspects of the collected consent
forms such as the font size, margins, and other formatting areas. Additionally, several of the
forms were in PDF format and had to be hand typed. Taken together these changes mean that the
forms presented here will not match in any of the length measurements discussed in Chapter 4.
An 'X' has been used to remove names of departments, institutions, and other information that
might identify the study. An 'X' is also used for people who were not the primary researcher.
Phone, addresses, and emails were removed and replaced with [phone], [address], and [email].
The single letter at the top of each form is its identifier so that forms can be matched from
Chapter 4.

140

A
Research Participant Information and Consent Form

1. EXPLANATION OF THE RESEARCH and WHAT YOU WILL DO:
You are being asked to participate in a research study regarding the effects of a projectbased ESL course. At the beginning of the semester, you will be asked to fill out a questionnaire
regarding English and American culture. During the semester, you will learn how to perform
observations and collect data like a cultural anthropologist. Then you will choose a site where
Americans can be observed and you will record the things you see and hear. You will keep a
journal of your experiences and observations. Later, you will present your findings to the class.
At the end of the semester, you will fill out another questionnaire regarding your experiences.
By choosing to participate in the research study, you are giving permission for the
researcher to use your class work (the questionnaires, your journal, and presentation) in later
publications or presentations regarding the effects of a project-based ESL course. Your name
will not be associated with your work.
You must be at least 18 years old to participate in this research.

2. YOUR RIGHTS TO PARTICIPATE, SAY NO, OR WITHDRAW:
Although Level 2 Content is a required course, you may take the course without
participating in the research project. In that case, you would complete all the class work, but the
researcher would not use any of your work in future publications or presentations.
Participation is completely voluntary. You have the right to say no. If you say yes, you
may change your mind at any time and withdraw. Whether you choose to participate or not will
have no affect on your grade or evaluation.

3. CONTACT INFORMATION FOR QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS:
If you have concerns or questions about this study, please contact the researcher:
Name
University
Address

phone:
fax
e-mail

Your signature below means that you voluntarily agree to participate in this research study.

____________________________________
Signature

______________________
Date
141

B
Participant Consent Form
Research Study Title:
Principle Investigator: Jamie Dancer, Dept. of X, X University.
Secondary Investigator: Megan Franks (PhD candidate), Dept of X, X University.
Objective: To examine non-native speakers’ preferences regarding the presentation of reading
materials.
Eligibility: You are eligible to participate if you are a second or third year English language
major at the University of X. Please note that you must be 18 years of age or older to participate.
Research Study Procedures: This is the second part of a two-part research study that compares
non-native speakers' preferences and strategies in reading online (ie reading on a computer
screen) versus reading hard copy. You are part of the group that will read hard copy. You will be
asked to read 20 short paragraphs in a leisurely fashion, as if you were reading a novel for
pleasure. You will then be given a questionnaire that asks about your experience reading these
hard-copy materials.
Total Time Commitment: Approximately 60 minutes.
Voluntary Participation: Your participation is completely voluntary. You may withdraw from the
study or decline to participate in any portion of the study.
Risks: No risks are anticipated.
Benefits: Participation in this research will provide you with an opportunity to practice reading in
English. You will also contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the field of language
learning.
Confidentiality: Your data will be kept confidential and your privacy will be protected to the
maximum extent allowable by law. Research materials and data will be kept in the researchers’
offices, which are locked at all times, and on password-protected computers.
Contact Information: if you have any questions or concerns regarding this study, please contact
the Secondary Investigator, Megan Franks, PhD candidate at [email] or by mail at [address], X
University, [address] or Jamie Dancer, PhD at [email], by phone at [number], or by mail at
[address]. The researcher agrees to answer any inquiries you may have about the procedures. If
you have any questions not addressed by the consent form, please do not hesitate to ask. You will
receive a copy of this form, which you should keep for your records. If you have questions or
concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like to obtain information or
142

offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you may contact, anonymously
if you wish, the X University's Human Research Protection Program at [phone], Fax [number],
or e-mail [email] or regular mail at [address].
You indicate your voluntary agreement to participate by beginning this study.

143

C
Research Information

We are asking you to participate in a research project.

Purpose of research: The goal of this research is to determine whether there is a particular way
that second language learners acquire English.
Age limit: You must be over 18 to participate in this research.
What you will do:First, you will have a discussion in English and play some language games.
Then you will sit at a computer. You will read sentences in English and answer questions about
the sentences (true or false). Your performance in this study is private. We will not publish your
name.
Compensation:You will receive extra credit in your class for completing this study. If you do
not want to do the study, you can still get extra credit. You can ask your teacher about this.
Risks and benefits: There are no risks to this study.
Your rights to participate, say no, or withdraw: Participation in this study is voluntary; you
can say no. You can also change your mind and decide not to do it without any problem. If you
don’t want your test used for the study, your decision will not affect your grades, your classes, or
anything else at X University or any other place. You can also decide not to answer any
particular question without any problem.
You indicate your voluntary agreement to participate by completing the questionnaire and
reading the English sentences.
Contact information for questions and concerns: If you have any questions about this study,
please contact the researcher (Jamie Smithey, PhD, Assistant Professor- [academic area],
[address], Tel: [number], [email].
You can also contact the X's Human Research Protection Program at [number], Fax [number], or
e-mail [email] or regular mail at [address]. You do not have to give your name to do this.

144

D
X UNIVERSITY
Consent to Participate in Research

Project Title:
Principal Investigators:
Dept. of X
[Address]
Phone: [number]
Fax: [number]

Dept. of X
[Address]
Phone: [number]
Email: [email]

Introduction and Explanation of the Study: This study investigates students’ use of planning
time before an oral task. If you volunteer to participate, you will first take a grammar pre-test for
35 minutes in this class. Then, based on your grammar test results, you may be selected for the
experimental session in the English Department Lab. At the beginning of this session, you will
be given a 15-minute tutorial to get familiar with how to record your speech and save audio files
on the computer. Once you feel comfortable with the recording system, you will be asked to
record your reading aloud of one short paragraph for 1-2 minutes and perform an oral task for 5
minutes. The 5-minute oral task may allow some preparation for 10 minutes. Right after the oral
task, some of you may be chosen for an interview that lasts about 10 minutes. Your oral
performance and interview will be audio-taped for later analysis. The entire experimental session
in the language lab may take you at most 60 minutes.
Risks and Benefits: There are minimal risks for participants involved in this research. Those
who are not familiar with such voice recording tools as microphones and computers may
experience slight anxiety as in a test situation. However, a tutorial before the real experiment
which will familiarize you with the recording system may help minimize your anxiety.
Confidentiality: All information collected will be confidential and will only be used for research
purposes. The researcher will assign each participant a number unrelated to any official
university ID # you may have to identify your data. No names or identifying information will be
collected through the experiment, and when results are published in an article or presented at a
conference, no names or identifying information will be used. Any audio recordings will only be
used for transcription purposes. Your voice recordings will be played to no one other than the
researchers.
Voluntary Participation: Your participation is entirely voluntary. By participating in this study,
you agree to let the researchers use your data. Your decision to participate will in no way affect
your class participation. The amount of time for the experiment is equivalent to an hour or so
compared to the total 30 hours for language skill practice in the classroom in one semester;
therefore, a bonus credit equal to 3% of the total grade will be given for your completion of the
experiment. You may decline to participate in the project or you can refuse to answer any
145

questions at any point at no consequence to you. For example, if you do want to decline from
being audio-taped, you may stop the recording at any time during your performance. If at any
point you change your mind and do not want to participate, you can tell the researcher. In case
you do not want to participate in or withdraw from the experiment for any reasons, you will be
assigned an equivalent writing activity so that you can also earn extra credit. You will be partially
compensated based on the percentage of the research completed and you can obtain the rest of
the compensation through the alternative assignment. Anyone who takes the pre-test will also be
given partial credit regardless of whether or not you are selected for the rest of the study. If you
have any questions, you may contact Mr. Martin Li by telephone or email listed above.
Subject’s Consent: I voluntarily agree to participate in this study. I may discontinue or leave the
study at any time with no consequences. I indicate my agreement to participate by beginning the
grammar pre-test.

146

E
X University

Consent Form for Participation in Research

Study Title:
Principal Investigator: Harmi Lana, Associate Professor.
Department of X, [office number] X University
[address]
[phone number]
[email]
_______________________________________________________________________________
Purpose of this Study
The purpose of the study is to examine the effect of instruction on the acquisition of request-making
expressions.
Procedures
You will be asked to complete a speaking test on computer and participate in a series of three
English classes that teach you how to make a request in English. The speaking test will take 15
minutes to complete. The English class will be about 30 minutes each time. There will be no risk
or discomfort associated with this study. There will be no cost if you participate in this study.
You will receive $50 upon completion of this study. Your speaking test will be recorded and
analyzed. The principal investigator and authorized research assistants have access to the data.
Expected duration of this study is one year. The study will be conducted in the participants’ home
institution.
Participant Requirements
Participants need to be first-year students in the English program with age ranging from 19 to 22.
Risks
The risks and discomfort associated with participation in this study are no greater than those
ordinarily encountered in daily life or during the performance of routine physical or psychological
examinations or tests.
Benefits
There may be no personal benefit from your participation in the study but the knowledge received
may be of value to humanity.
Compensation & Costs
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You will receive $ 50 upon completion of this study. There will be no cost to you if you participate
in this study.
Confidentiality
By participating in the study, you understand and agree that X may be required to disclose your
consent form, data and other personally identifiable information as required by law, regulation,
subpoena or court order. Otherwise, your confidentiality will be maintained in the following
manner:
Your data and consent form will be kept separate. Your consent form will be stored in a locked
location on X property and will not be disclosed to third parties. By participating, you understand
and agree that the data and information gathered during this study may be used by X and
published and/or disclosed by X to others outside of X. However, your name, address, contact
information and other direct personal identifiers in your consent form will not be mentioned in
any such publication or dissemination of the research data and/or results by. The researchers will
take the following steps to protect participants’ identities during this study: (1) Each participant
will be assigned a number; (2) The researchers will record any data collected during the study by
number, not by name; (3) Any original recordings or data files will be stored in a secured location
accessed only by authorized researchers.
Optional Permission
I understand that the researchers may want to use a short portion of any audio recording for
illustrative reasons in presentations of this work for scientific or educational purposes. I give my
permission to do so provided that my name and face will not appear.

Rights
Your participation is voluntary. You are free to stop your participation at any point. Refusal to
participate or withdrawal of your consent or discontinued participation in the study will not result in
any penalty or loss of benefits or rights to which you might otherwise be entitled. The Principal
Investigator may at his/her discretion remove you from the study for any of a number of reasons. In
such an event, you will not suffer any penalty or loss of benefits or rights which you might
otherwise be entitled.
Right to Ask Questions & Contact Information
If you have any questions about this study, you should feel free to ask them now. If you have
questions later, desire additional information, or wish to withdraw your participation please
contact the Principal Investigator by mail, phone or e-mail in accordance with the contact
information listed on the first page of this consent.
If you have questions pertaining to your rights as a research participant; or to report objections to
this study, you should contact the Research Regulatory Compliance Office at X University.
Email: [email]. Phone: [number 1] or [number 2].
148

Conflict of Interest
None
Voluntary Consent
By signing below, you agree that the above information has been explained to you and all your
current questions have been answered. You understand that you may ask questions about any aspect
of this research study during the course of the study and in the future. By signing this form, you
agree to participate in this research study.

PARTICIPANT SIGNATURE

DATE

I certify that I have explained the nature and purpose of this research study to the above individual
and I have discussed the potential benefits and possible risks of participation in the study. Any
questions the individual has about this study have been answered and any future questions will be
answered as they arise.
SIGNATURE OF PERSON OBTAINING CONSENT

149

DATE

F
Research Participant Information and Consent Form
You, a student, are being asked to participate in a research project. Researchers are required to
provide a consent form to inform you about the study, to convey that participation is voluntary, to
explain risks and benefits of participation, and to empower you to make an informed decision.
You should feel free to ask the researchers any questions you may have.
Study Title:
Researcher and Title: Carol Comb, associate professor
Department and Institution: X College
Address and Contact Information: [address].
1. PURPOSE OF RESEARCH:
You are being asked to participate in a research study of writing in the content courses.
You have been selected as a possible participant in this study because English is not your first
language. You will be asked about the writing assignments that you do in your classes. From this
study, the researcher hopes to learn how to better respond to your writing needs.
37. In this study, 12 people are being asked to participate.
38. Your participation in this study will take about 45-60 minutes during and at the end of the
regular semester.
39. If you are under 18, you cannot be in this study.
2. WHAT YOU WILL DO:
1. The researcher will meet with you and discuss copies of the course syllabi and the
directions for the assignments.
2. You will be asked some questions about writing in this class. You will bring one or more
of your written assignments and we will discuss how you completed them. The
interview(s) will be digitally recorded and will take approximately 45-60 minutes. The
digital recording is required of all participants in this study.
3. POTENTIAL BENEFITS:
9. You will not directly benefit from your participation in this study. However, your
participation in this study may contribute to the understanding of how to improve writing
instruction for students learning English as a second language at X College.
4. POTENTIAL RISKS:
10.There are no known risks associated with participation in this study. Your course grade
will not be affected by your participation in this study.
5. PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY:
11.The data for this project will be kept confidential. You will select a pseudonym that will
be known only by you and the researchers. Your real name will not be used on the data.
 The information and data for this project will be kept in a locked area in the researcher’s
cellar. Records will be kept for one year; only the secondary researcher will have access
150




to the data.
Your instructor will not have access to your responses or the survey data. The researchers
may have a photo-copy of your regular assignments using your pseudonym.
The results of this study may be published or presented at professional meetings, but the
identities of all research participants will remain confidential. The pseudonym will be
used. Information about you will be kept confidential to the maximum extent allowable
by law.

6. YOUR RIGHTS TO PARTICIPATE, SAY NO, OR WITHDRAW
4. Participation in this research project is completely voluntary. You have the right to say
no.
5. You may change your mind at any time and withdraw. The researchers will destroy any
data you had submitted up to that time.
6. You may choose not to answer specific questions or to stop participating at any time.
7. Choosing not to participate or withdrawing from this study will not make any difference
in
1. the quality of any services you may receive.
2. benefits to which you are otherwise entitled.
8. Whether you choose to participate or not will have no affect on your grade or evaluation.
9. You will be told of any significant findings that develop during the course of the study
that may influence your willingness to continue to participate in the research.
7. COSTS AND COMPENSATION FOR BEING IN THE STUDY:
 There are no costs to you, the student.
 There is no credit or extra credit for participation in this study. You will perform your
regular coursework for your instructor.
 A $25.00 fuel card is available to be given to you after data collection is complete. You
will not receive any other form of compensation for participating in this study.
8. CONTACT INFORMATION FOR QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS
If you have any questions about this study, such as scientific issues, how to do any part of it, or
to report an injury, please contact the researchers:
Sandy Fronz
Carol Comb
(secondary researcher)
(primary researcher)
[Address]
Department of X
X College
[Address]
[phone number]
[X University]
[email]
[phone number]
If you have questions or concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like
to obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you
may contact, anonymously if you wish, the X University’s Human Research Protection Program
at [number], Fax [number], or e-mail [email] or regular mail at [address].
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9. DOCUMENTATION OF INFORMED CONSENT.
Your signature below means that you voluntarily agree to participate in this research study.
________________________________________
Signature

You may have a copy of this form to keep.

152

____________________
Date

G
Participant Consent Form
Research Study Title:
Principal Investigator: Dr. Helga Miller, Dept. of X, X University
Secondary Investigator: Yolanda Wood, Ph.D. student in X, X University
Objective: To investigate developmental patterns of second language writing in two types
Eligibility: You are eligible to participate if you are adult learners of English. Please note that
you must be 18 years of age or older to participate.
Research Study Procedures: You will do in-class writing as part of your regular coursework,
although the specific topics have been chosen by the researcher. Your teacher will use some of
your essays for in-class activities, but will also give the researcher a copy or your essays if you
agree.
Total Time Commitment: Approximately 30 minutes each time
Voluntary Participation: Your participation in this study is voluntary.
Risks: No risks are anticipated.
Benefits: Participation in this research will provide you with an opportunity to practice writing in
English, and you will be given feedback on your writing. You will also contribute to the
advancement of knowledge in the field of second language writing.
Confidentiality: Your data will be kept confidential and your privacy will be protected to the
maximum extent allowable by law. Research materials and data will be kept in the researcher’
office, which is locked at all times, and on password-protected computers.
Contact Information: if you have any questions or concerns regarding this study, please contact
the Secondary Investigator, Yolanda Wood, Ph.D. student at [phone number] or by email at
[email]. The researcher agrees to answer any inquiries you may have about the procedures. If you
have any questions not addressed by the consent form, please do not hesitate to ask. You will
receive a copy of this form, which you should keep for your records. If you have questions or
concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like to obtain information or
offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you may contact, anonymously
if you wish, the X University's Human Research Protection Program at [number], Fax [number],
or e-mail [email] or regular mail at [address].

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I agree to participate in this study.

_______________________
Signature & Printed Name

154

____________
Date

H
Human Subject
Informed Consent
English Department, [Address] [phone number]
Project Title:
Dear Participant:
You are being asked to participate in a project conducted through the English Department at X
University by Samantha Printer that involves research. The researcher is required to receive
your informed consent before you participate in this project.
Samantha Printer will explain to you in detail: (1) the purpose of the project; (2) what you will
be asked to do and how long your participation will last; (3) how your personal information, if
collected, will be kept confidential; (4) if you will receive any compensation; (5) the benefits;
and (6) potential risks of participation.
Your participation in research is voluntary. If you choose not to participate, there are no
penalties or loss of benefits or services that you are otherwise entitled. If you decide to
participate and then withdraw or skip a question there are also no penalties or loss of benefits or
services. Whether or not you choose to participate in this project will have no effect on your
relationship with X now or in the future.
A basic explanation of the project is written below. Please read this explanation and discuss it
with Samantha Printer. Feel free to ask questions to help you understand the project. After any
questions you may have are answered and you decide to participate in the research, please sign
on the last page of this form in the presence of the person who explained the project to you. A
copy of this form will be given to you to keep.
1. PROJECT PURPOSE:
The purpose of this project is to determine if prior musical training influences a person’s ability
to discern slight differences in the sounds that make up certain languages. This ability, called
phonemic awareness, is potentially linked to language-learning aptitude.
2. EXPLANATION OF PROCEDURES:
This study will consist of two parts. In the first part, subjects will be given a test of phonemic
discrimination. The test itself will be a recording that subjects will listen to. The recording will
contain samples of a foreign language, and subjects will be asked to decide if the samples sound
the same or different.
In the second part, subjects will be asked to complete a brief survey to collect basic
demographic information (age, gender, etc.), to collect information about their languagelearning experiences (successful or otherwise), and to collect information about any prior
155

musical training they may have.
The entire process will take approximately 20 minutes.
3. CONFIDENTIALITY:
Subjects will be given a number-letter combination and will write that on both their test and
their survey. There will be no list of names of the subjects. The tests and surveys, once
collected, will only be viewed by the researcher and possibly members of the English faculty.
Individual responses to test or survey questions will not be reported in any publications or
presentations.
4. COMPENSATION:
Participants will not be compensated for this study.
5. BENEFITS:
The potential benefits to the field are an increased understanding of one of the potential
elements of language-learning aptitude and additional support for a music-language link. The
implications of this study could affect language-teaching practices, and they could also present
an argument for including music education in schools.
6. RISKS:
I do not foresee any risks in this study.
7. CONSENT:
I have read the above information about
______________________________________________ ________ and have been given an
opportunity to ask questions. I agree to participate in this project, and I have been given a copy
of this consent document.

____________________________________________
Signature of Participant

Date _________________

____________________________________________
Printed Name of Participant
____________________________________________
Signature of Research Representative

Date _________________

____________________________________________
Printed Name of Research Representative
The dated approval stamp in the header of this consent form indicates that this project has been
reviewed and approved by the X University Institutional Review Board (IRB) for the Protection
of Human Subjects in Research. Contact the Human Research Protections Office at [number] if
156

you have any questions about: (1) the conduct of the project, or (2) your rights as a research
participant, or (3) a research-related injury. Any other questions about the research project
should be directed to:
Samantha Printer (Graduate Student)
X English Department
[phone number]
NAME OF FACULTY SPONSOR (IF STUDENT RESEARCHER)
Dr. X [email]

157

I
Informed Consent to Participate in Research
Information to Consider Before Taking Part in this Research Study
IRB Study # ____
You are being asked to take part in a research study. Research studies include only people who
choose to take part. This document is called an informed consent form. Please read this
information carefully and take your time making your decision. Ask the researcher or study staff
to discuss this consent form with you; please ask him/her to explain any words or information
you do not clearly understand. We encourage you to talk with your family and friends before
you decide to take part in this research study. The nature of the study, risks, inconveniences,
discomforts, and other important information about the study are listed below.
We are asking you to take part in a research study called: __________________________
__________
The person who is in charge of this research study is Heather Crawly-Trains. This person is
called the Principal Investigator. However, other research staff may be involved and can act on
behalf of the person in charge. She is being guided in this research by Dr. X.
The research will be conducted at X College (XC).



Purpose of the study
The purpose of this study is to:
Ascertain the affects (if any) of an individual’s concept of an L2 Ideal Self on his/her
pragmatic production, and whether the English language learner’s (ELL’s) proficiency in English
has an effect in this relationship. “Pragmatics” is defined as a speaker’s ability to say the
socially appropriate thing at the right time within the context of a conversation in the English
language. “Attitude” includes whether the ELL imagines himself/herself speaking English
nearly perfectly in the future. “Proficiency” includes how well the ELL can listen, read, write,
and use grammar in the English language. Additionally, the participant should realize that they
may be benefiting future ELLs since the result of this study may have implications for the
instruction of ELLs.
Study Procedures
If you take part in this study, you will be asked to:



Fill the English Language Learner Questionnaire (ELL Q), which has fifty five items on
the L2 Ideal Self. This will help the researcher to ascertain the participant’s attitude, whether
s/he has a vision of himself/herself as an ideal L2 (English) speaker. Completing the survey will
entail reflecting on one’s own experiences, plus associated thoughts and feelings while learning
English. The questionnaire has items to which the participant can agree strongly, agree
somewhat, disagree somewhat, disagree strongly, or remain neutral. The questionnaire will be
158

administered only once.


Respond to the scenarios in the Pragmatic Speaking Test (PST). For the purposes of this
study, pragmatics will measured by a short speaking test, the Pragmatics Speaking Test (PST).
Each participant will be given eight scenarios. After the scenario is described, the participant
will be asked to respond as though s/he were actually taking part in the conversation. These will
be audio-recorded. However, the recordings will be erased as soon as they are transcribed. The
PST will be administered only once.



Self-report your grades from the previous semester. The grades for each participant will
be used as the documentation of his/her proficiency in English.



A select group of participants will be interviewed. Since the P.I. has only functional
fluency in the Korean language and does not speak Vietnamese or any dialect of Chinese, only
participants who are high intermediate or advanced, as ascertained by placement in XC-EAP
levels 4, 5, or 6, will be interviewed. You are welcome to decline the interview, even if you
agree to participate in the other parts of the study. All the data will be confidential. This means
that participants’ names will not be used. The interview will take between forty five minutes and
one hour, at a time agreed upon by the P.I. and the participant. All participants’ data will remain
confidential.



The research will be conducted at X College. In regards to the time commitment, the
questionnaire will take approximately forty-five minutes; it will not exceed one hour. The PST
will take about thirty minutes. Not all participants will be interviewed. The interview will take
place on a separate occasion from the administration of the ELL-Q and PST. However, the
interview will take between 45 minutes and one hour. It will be scheduled at a convenient time
for the participant.



The PST will be audio-recorded. However, the recordings will be destroyed directly after
the transcription. These audio recordings will be on a password protected computer that is stored
in a locked room when not in use. If the participant prefers, the researcher can take short hand
notes on his/her comments in the PST in lieu of making an audio-recording This, however, is not
the preferred method.
Total Number of Participants
A total of 30 individuals will participate in the study at all sites.
Alternatives
You do not have to participate in this research study.
Benefits
The participant may find it interesting to reflect upon his/her own thoughts and feelings toward
learning English.
Risks or Discomfort
This research is considered to be minimal risk. That means that the risks associated with this
study are the same as what you face every day. There are no known additional risks to those who
take part in this study.
159

Compensation
You will receive three XC souvenir pencils or one XC notebook for completing each of the
following: The ELL Questionnaire, the PST and the interview. A one dollar payment for each is
optional if the participant prefers that. The compensation will be given immediately after you
complete the task.
Cost
There will be no additional costs to you as a result of being in this study.

Privacy and Confidentiality
We will keep your study records private and confidential. Certain people may need to see your
study records. By law, anyone who looks at your records must keep them completely
confidential. The only people who will be allowed to see these records are:







The research team, including the Principal Investigator, study coordinator, and all other
research staff, including I2.
Certain government, university and college people who need to know more about the
study. For example, individuals who provide oversight on this study may need to look at your
records. This is done to make sure that we are doing the study in the right way. They also need
to make sure that we are protecting your rights and your safety.
Any agency of the federal, state, or local government that regulates this research. This
includes the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Office for Human
Research Protection (OHRP).
The X Institutional Review Board (IRB) and its related staff who have oversight
responsibilities for this study, staff in the X Office of Research and Innovation, X Division of
Research Integrity and Compliance, and other X offices who oversee this research.
The XC Institutional Review Board (IRB) and related staff who have oversight
responsibilities for this study.
We may publish what we learn from this study. If we do, we will not include your name or any
data that can directly or indirectly identify you. We will not publish anything that would let
people know who you are.
Voluntary Participation / Withdrawal
You should only take part in this study if you want to volunteer. You should not feel that there is
any pressure to take part in the study. You are free to participate in this research or withdraw at
any time. There will be no penalty or loss of benefits you are entitled to receive if you stop
taking part in this study. The decision to participate or not to participate will not affect your
student status (course grade).
New information about the study
During the course of this study, we may find more information that could be important to you.
This includes information that, once learned, might cause you to change your mind about being
in the study. We will notify you as soon as possible if such information becomes available.
You can get the answers to your questions, concerns, or complaints
160

If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about this study, or experience an adverse
event or unanticipated problem, call Heather Crawly-Trains at [phone]. You may also contact X,
who is overseeing this study, via email at [email].
If you have questions about your rights as a participant in this study, general questions, or have
complaints, concerns or issues you want to discuss with someone outside the research, call the X
IRB at [phone].
Consent to Take Part in this Research Study
It is up to you to decide whether you want to take part in this study. If you want to take part,
please sign the form, if the following statements are true.
I freely give my consent to take part in this study. I understand that by signing this form I am
agreeing to take part in research. I have received a copy of this form to take with me.
_____________________________________________
Signature of Person Taking Part in Study

____________
Date

_____________________________________________
Printed Name of Person Taking Part in Study






Statement of Person Obtaining Informed Consent
I have carefully explained to the person taking part in the study what he or she can expect from
their participation. I hereby certify that when this person signs this form, to the best of my
knowledge, he/ she understands:
What the study is about;
What procedures will be used;
What the potential benefits might be; and
What the known risks might be.
I can confirm that this research subject speaks the language that was used to explain this research
and is receiving an informed consent form in the appropriate language. Additionally, this subject
reads well enough to understand this document or, if not, this person is able to hear and
understand when the form is read to him or her. This subject does not have a
medical/psychological problem that would compromise comprehension and therefore makes it
hard to understand what is being explained and can, therefore, give legally effective informed
consent. This subject is not under any type of anesthesia or analgesic that may cloud their
judgment or make it hard to understand what is being explained and, therefore, can be considered
competent to give informed consent.
____________________________________________________________
_____________
Signature of Person Obtaining Informed Consent / Research Authorization
Date
_______________________________________________________________
Printed Name of Person Obtaining Informed Consent / Research Authorization
161

J
X UNIVERSITY Consent to Participate in Research
I.R.B. _______ Application No.______
Project Name: _____________________
Primary Investigator
Dr. X
Dept. of X
[Address]
Phone: [number]
Fax: [number]
[email]

Secondary Investigator
Kara Fannar
Dept. of X
[Address]
[number]
[number]
[email]

Introduction and Explanation of the Study: You are invited to participate in this research
study. This study evaluates students’ attitudes toward the accents of different speakers. If you
volunteer to participate, you will first fill out a language background questionnaire. Then, you
will listen to 18 short audio clips, answer questions based on the audio file, and complete a
dictation task. The entire project will take approximately 45 minutes.
Risks and Benefits: There are no known risks associated with participation in this study. Your
language acquisition may benefit from this study in that you will be exposed to varieties of
accented English. Your language listening may benefit from the extra listening practice.
Confidentiality: Your confidentiality will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law.
All information collected will be confidential and will only be used for research purposes. The
researchers will use an ID# from 1 to 200 (unrelated to any official X ID# you may have) to
identify your data instead of using your name. Whenever data from this study are published, your
name will not be used. All data collected will be kept in a locked cabinet in the Primary
Investigator's locked office at X (see the address above) for at least three years after the project
closes. Electronic data will be kept on the Primary Investigator's password protected computer;
however, no participant names will be stored on the computer. All data will be collected by the
two investigators listed on this application. Only the two researchers will see and use the data,
but the Institutional Review Board (IRB) can also see the data.
Your participation: Participation in this study is entirely voluntary. You may choose not to
participate at all, or you may refuse to answer certain questions or discontinue your participation
at any time without consequence. Your refusal to participate will involve no penalty or loss of
benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. You may also discontinue participation at any time
without penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. Your decision to
participate will in no way affect your course grade.
Researcher’s contact information: If you have concerns or questions about this study, such as
scientific issues, how to do any part of it, or to report an injury, please contact the primary
investigator (Kara Fannar, Dept. of X, [address]; e-mail: [email]; phone: [number]).
162

IRB’s contact information: If you have questions or concerns about your role and rights as a
research participant, would like to obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a
complaint about this study, you may contact, anonymously if you wish, the X University’s
Human Research Protection Program at [number], Fax [number], or e-mail [email] or regular
mail at [address].
Subject's consent
Yes, I release my data for the purposes of this research.
No, I do not release my data for the purposes of this research.

163

K
X University
Consent to Participate in Research
IRB Application ID#
Project Name: ______________________________________________
Principal Dr. X
Investigator: [dept]
[address]
Phone: [number]
[email]

Secondary Lee Crow
Investigator: [dept]
Phone: [number]
[email]

Introduction and Explanation of the Study: You are invited to participate in the study
investigating the relationship between the involvement loads of tasks, eye-fixation durations, and
vocabulary acquisition. You have been selected as a participant as a result of your volunteering to
participate after obtaining the information about the study. You will complete the proficiency test
first and then perform a reading task. To measure attention, your eye movements will be recorded
and analyzed.
Potential Benefits and Risks: Expected risks are minimal. There are no foreseeable risks or
problems associated with any cultural contexts and backgrounds of foreign countries. All
participants will be regularly matriculated students at X.
Privacy and Confidentiality: You will complete study tasks individually in a quiet room with
no one present except for the secondary investigator (Lee Crow). The data will be stored on the
primary and secondary investigator's password protected computer. All data will be stored with a
project-generated ID and names of the participants will not be stored on the computer. The data
will be destroyed 3 years following closure of the project.
Your participation: Participation in this study is strictly voluntary; you have the right to say no.
You are free to change your mind and withdraw at any time without consequence or penalty. The
decision to participate, decline, or withdraw from participation will have no effect on your grades
or future relations with X or any other institution.
Compensation for being in the Study: You will not be compensated.
Contact Information for Questions and Concerns: If you have concerns or questions about
this study, such as scientific issues, how to do any part of it, or to report an injury, please contact
the principal investigator (X, [address], Phone [number] Email: [email]), or the secondary
investigator (Lee Crow, Phone [number] Email: [email]). If you have questions or concerns
about your role and rights as a research participant, would like to obtain information or offer
input, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you may contact, anonymously if
164

you wish, the X University’s Human Research Protection Program at [number], Fax [number], or
e-mail [email] or regular mail at [address].

By completing and returning the questionnaire you are acknowledging that you are 18
years of age or older and are consenting to participate in this study.

You will be given a copy of this form to keep.

Name __________________________________________
Printed Name____________________________________
Date_________________________________

165

L
Informed Consent to Participate in Research
Information to Consider Before Taking Part in this Research Study
IRB Study # __________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
You are being asked to take part in a research study. Research studies include only people who
choose to take part. This document is called an informed consent form. Please read this
information carefully and take your time making your decision. Ask the researcher or study staff
to discuss this consent form with you, please ask him/her to explain any words or information
you do not clearly understand. We encourage you to talk with your family and friends before you
decide to take part in this research study. The nature of the study, risks, inconveniences,
discomforts, and other important information about the study are listed below.
Please tell the study doctor or study staff if you are taking part in another research study.
We are asking you to take part in a research study called:

The person who is in charge of this research study is Helena Charpt. This person is called the
Principal Investigator. However, other research staff may be involved and can act on behalf of
the person in charge. She is being guided in this research byX.
The research will be conducted at X University, X, Turkey.

Purpose of the study
The purpose of this study is to:
 explore English language use in office hour interactions between university students and
professors. The study also aims to investigate the organizational structure of office hour
interactions, suggestion strategies in discourse, relational work between students and
professors, and the primary function of office hour interactions. I anticipate having several
important implications for EFL education and programs specifically at the university level in
Turkey. The participants should be registered undergraduate students with Turkish L1
background at the foundational university where this study will take place. This study will
include 2-3 foreign professors and 15 Turkish EFL students.
Study Procedures
 be audio-recorded while you are talking to their professors during office hours. These
audio-recordings will be the main source to understand English language use by the
participants. The number of office hour recordings will depend on your own choice of
coming to talk to the professors. Therefore, time commitment on your part might vary
from a minute to 15 minutes. Once you arrive at your professor’s office, you will be
informed of audio-recording again. During office hour interactions, the researcher will be
166




making observations and taking notes. After the office hour visit, you will be given a
survey that consists of three parts. It will take around ten minutes to complete it. The
purpose of this survey is to gain demographic information about you as well as insight
into your language background and current office hour experience. Additionally, there
will be once or twice classroom observations till the end of the semester.
The study will take place at X University and the data collection will occur during Spring
and Summer 2014 according to the academic calendar in Turkey. All the data collection
procedures will be in either professors’ offices or classrooms.
You will be informed of audiotaping and given the option to agree to the recording. Only
the researcher will have access to these tapes and all related transcripts will be stored in
the principal investigator’s password protected personal computer. Physical data such as
answers to survey and transcriptions will also be kept in the principal investigator’s
personal drawer at home. Your names will not be used while reporting in any part of this
study and you will be asked to create a pseudonym for yourselves. During the data
analysis, all names will be kept confidential and pseudonyms will be used instead.
However, the researchers will know the link between the pseudonyms and your identity
because the data collection will be face-to-face. The data will be kept for a minimum 5
years after the close of the study with the X IRB. The electronic/recorded data will be
deleted from the computer and the paper data will be recycled.

Total Number of Participants
About 2-3 foreign professors and their students in Spring and Summer 2014 will take part in this
study at X University.
Alternatives
You do not have to participate in this research study.
Benefits
The researcher is unsure if you will receive any benefits by taking part in this research study.
Risks or Discomfort
This research is considered to be minimal risk. That means that the risks associated with this
study are the same as what you face every day. There are no known additional risks to those who
take part in this study.
Compensation
You will receive no payment or other compensation for taking part in this study.
Cost
There will be no additional costs to you as a result of being in this study.
Privacy and Confidentiality
We will keep your study records private and confidential. Certain people may need to see your
study records. By law, anyone who looks at your records must keep them completely
confidential. The only people who will be allowed to see these re
167



The Principal Investigator



Certain government and university people who need to know more about the study. For
example, individuals who provide oversight on this study may need to look at your
records. This is done to make sure that we are doing the study in the right way. They also
need to make sure that we are protecting your rights and your safety.
Any agency of the federal, state, or local government that regulates this research. This
includes the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Office for
Human Research Protection (OHRP).
The X Institutional Review Board (IRB) and its related staff who have oversight
responsibilities for this study, staff in the X Office of Research and Innovation, X
Division of Research Integrity and Compliance, and other X offices who oversee this
research.





We may publish what we learn from this study. If we do, we will not include your name. We will
not publish anything that would let people know who you are.
Voluntary Participation / Withdrawal
You should only take part in this study if you want to volunteer. You should not feel that there is
any pressure to take part in the study. You are free to participate in this research or withdraw at
any time. There will be no penalty or loss of benefits you are entitled to receive if you stop
taking part in this study. Decision to participate or not to participate will not affect your student
status
New information about the study
During the course of this study, we may find more information that could be important to you.
This includes information that, once learned, might cause you to change your mind about being
in the study. We will notify you as soon as possible if such information becomes available.
You can get the answers to your questions, concerns, or complaints
If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about this study, or experience an adverse
event or unanticipated problem, call Helena Charpt at [phone]
If you have questions about your rights as a participant in this study, general questions, or have
complaints, concerns or issues you want to discuss with someone outside the research, call the X
IRB at [phone]
Consent to Take Part in this Research Study
It is up to you to decide whether you want to take part in this study. Please understand that by
proceeding with the procedures described in this consent document, you are agreeing to
participate in research.

168

M
X University Consent to Participate in Research
IRB_______; Application #_______
Project Name: ___________________________
Secondary Investigator
Mr. Mitch Poundier
Dept X
[address]
[address]
Phone [phone]
Fax: [number]
[email]

Primary Investigator
Dr. X
Dept. X
[address]
[address][phone]
[phone]
Fax: number]
[email]

Introduction and Explanation of the Study: You are invited to participate in this research
study. This study evaluates students’ knowledge of English humor. If you volunteer to
participate, you will first fill out a language background questionnaire and take a short test on the
computer. Next you will be shown several situations with incomplete dialogs. You will be asked
to select a funny response that completes the dialog. This project is self-paced. It is expected to
take around 60 minutes. Once you have completed the study, you will also be asked to volunteer
for an additional informal interview. You will be asked several questions and audio-recorded.
This interview will take around 10 minutes and will be happen directly after part one.
Risks and Benefits: There are no known risks connected with participation in this study. Your
language abilities may benefit from this study in that you may gain a clearer understanding of
your knowledge of English humor. Your language reading may benefit from the extra reading
practice. You might also laugh which is always a good thing!
Confidentiality: Your confidentiality will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law.
This means that all information collected will be kept secret and will only be used for research
purposes. The researchers will never use your name or any information that identifies you.
Instead you will be given an ID number (unrelated to any official X ID# you may have) to
identify your data. Whenever data from this study is published, your name will not be used. All
data collected will be kept in a locked cabinet in the Primary Investigator's locked office at X
(see the address above) for at least three years after the project closes. Electronic data will be
kept on the Secondary Investigator's password protected computer; however, no participant
names will be stored on the computer. All data will be collected by the two investigators listed on
this application. Only the two researchers will see and use the data, but the Institutional Review
Board (IRB) can also see the data.
Your participation: Participation in this study is entirely voluntary which means that you
choose to participate. You may choose not to participate at all, or you may refuse to answer
certain questions or discontinue your participation at any time without consequence. Your refusal
169

to participate will involve no penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. You
may also discontinue participation at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which you
are otherwise entitled. Your decision to participate will in no way affect your course grade
Researcher’s contact information
If you have concerns or questions about this study, such as scientific issues, how to do any part
of it, or to report an injury, please contact the investigators (Mitch Poundier, Deptment X,
[address]; e-mail: [email]; phone: [phone] or Dr. X, Department X, [address]; e-mail: [email];
phone: [phone] .
IRB’s contact information
If you have questions or concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like
to obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you
may contact, anonymously if you wish, the X University’s Human Research Protection Program
at [phone], Fax [phone], or e-mail [email] or[address].
Subject's consent
I voluntarily agree to participate in this study

Your name (PLEASE PRINT):

_________________________

Date:

_________________

Your signature:

_________________________

Check this box if you agree to volunteer to be interviewed and have your audio recorded. If
you do not wish for your audio to be recorded you cannot participate in part two of the study.

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N
Consent Form Script
X University
Institutional Review Board
INFORMED CONSENT
You are being asked to participate in a research study being conducted in our class. The purpose
of this is to obtain information on how advanced ESL students spontaneously attend to English
language forms. More specifically, I am interested in how different genders and cultures
spontaneously attend to form. Obtaining such information will better help ESL teachers and
researchers develop materials and techniques aimed at improving all ESL students' participation
in ESL classroom activities and their knowledge of English language forms.
Participation in the study requires no additional work on your behalf. We will do our normal
classroom activities. However, during group work, I will record your participation in the
particular group work activity that we are doing.
Your participation in this study is completely voluntary. If you agree to participate, at any time
while being recorded, you may decide to cease being recorded. There are no penalties for
refusing to participate in this study. No class privileges will be denied you should you decline to
participate or change your mind about participating.
Since your participation will be kept strictly confidential, feel free to participate as you normally
do. Do you have any questions? If you have any questions about the laws and procedures of
human subject research in the United States of America, you may contact me at [phone], my
research advisor, Dr X at [phone], or the Institutional Review Board at [phone].
I have read the Informed Consent script. Completion of the survey instrument indicates consent
of the subject to freely and willingly participate in the study.

____________________________________________________
Signature

171

_______________
Date

O
X University
INFORMED CONSENT FORM
For Students
Title of Study: ____________________________________________________________
Principal Investigator: Lara Roy
Faculty Sponsor: Dr. X and Dr. X
Your class has been selected to participate in a research study involving online chat
room from March 14th to April 22, 2005. The purpose of this study is to determine
whether participating in small group chat room discussions is a good practice for
oral communication. For five weeks, you will participate in a curriculum designed
specifically for this study. Activities will be similar to what are typically offered in
an ESL speaking class with the addition of participating in small group online chat
room discussions and receiving tailored classroom instructions based on chat room
transcripts. Also, eight students will be asked to agree to be interviewed before and
after the study period.
You will be asked to agree to the following terms:
 to fill out a questionnaire on March 7, 2005 to provide information about your personal
background, your experience of learning English, your attitudes towards learning
English, and your experience of using the chat room
 to possibly participate in a one-on-one interview during the week of March 7, 2005 to
discuss your preconceived ideas about integrating the chat room into an ESL listening
and speaking class
 to possibly participate in a one-on-one interview during the week of April 25th, 2005 to
discuss your perceptions and reflections about participating in small group chat room
discussions as a practice for oral communication
 to participate in a chat room focus group interview either on April 28th or 29 th to discuss
about your experience of using the chat room in an ESL class
 to grant the researcher access to the chat room transcripts
 to review the researcher’s analysis and interpretation of the data for accuracy during the
first week of June (can be done via email
The information in the study records will be kept strictly confidential in the following
ways:
 Data from the interviews, questionnaire, and observations will be stored securely and will
be made available only to the researcher unless you specifically give permission in
writing to do otherwise.
 When transcribing individual interviews, identifying codes will be assigned.
 Identifying codes will be assigned to chat room transcripts.
 When reportin g the findings of this study, pseudonyms will be used.
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


The name of the institution will not be identified.
The interviews will be audio taped, and the audiotapes will be destroyed after the
completion of the study.

Although there will not be any major risks to you for participating in this study, you may feel
anxious about using the chat room if you are not computer literate. Thus, I will ensure that you
receive proper training prior to the study. You may also feel stress and anxiety from being
interviewed, so I will not interview you unless you sign this consent form. During the interview,
you are not required to state anything that might make you feel uncomfortable. Your responses to
the interviews and the questionnaire will not affect your grades in any way, and will not be
shared by your teacher.
You may produce more language during chat room discussions than during face-to-face
classroom discussions due to the non-threatening nature of the chat room environment. This is a
potential benefit, because ac cording to research, more practice in language production leads to
faster acquisition. Additionally, receiving tailored classroom instructions can be another obvious
benefit for you. Your participation in this study is voluntary; you may decline to participate
without penalty. If you decide to participate, you may withdraw from the study at any time.
If you withdraw from the study before data collection is completed, your data will
be returned to you or destroyed.
If you have questions at any time about the study or the procedures, you may contact the
researcher, Lara Roy, at [address], or [phone]. If you feel you have not been treated according to
the descriptions in this consent form, or your rights as a participant in research have been
violated during the course of this project, you may contact Dr. X, Chair of the
X IRB for the Use of Human Subjects in Research Committee, [address], [phone] or Mr. X,
Assistant Vice Chancellor, Research Administration, [address], [phone]
I have read and understand the above information. I have received a copy of this form. I agree to
participate in this study.

Subject's signature ________________________________Date _________________

Investigator's signature__________________________________
Date _________________

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P
INFORMED CONSENT
Study Title
_____________________________________
University of X, Doctoral Program

Carol Gomez, Doctoral Candidate, ABD
X Adult Education
I plan to study your skill in learning English as a Second Language using the computerbased Rosetta Stone program. I would like to invite you to join in this study. Using your answers
and answers from other students, I hope to look at how the computer-based Rosetta Stone
program has helped you to learn English as a Second Language.
If you choose to join the study, I, the researcher, will interview you and other XAdult
Education students. In these interviews I will ask you questions about the computer-based
Rosetta Stone program and how this program has helped you to learn English as a Second
Language. Interviews should range from to 30 to 60 minutes and can be completed during your
regularly scheduled classroom time. Interviews will have code names so your real name will be
kept confidential. Interviews will be recorded and the actual recordings will be transcribed
(written). Once transcribed the audio recordings will be destroyed. The written data
(information) will be kept locked up in storage. The written information will be destroyed after
the study has been completed.
The promise of strict confidentiality is guaranteed in both the collection and reporting of
results to the best of my ability. Results from this study will be presented in such a way that no
individual or school district will be recognizable. I would ask that you do not discuss you
answers with other members ofXAdult Education, or University of X students or teachers.
Absolute confidentiality cannot be guaranteed, since research documents are not protected from
subpoena. By signing this document, you give us permission to publish our results from the
study.
Your personal decision whether or not to join this study will in no way affect your future
relationship with X Adult Education, or the University of X. You may stop giving your answers
in the study at any time without punishment. If you decide to stop the study, you may also take
any information that has been provided to us. If you have any questions about the study, please
feel free to contact the researcher Carol Gomez,, Doctoral Candidate, ABD, at [phone] or [email]
or the Human Subjects Committee at[phone].
YOU ARE MAKING A DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO PARTICIPATE. YOUR
SIGNATURE INDICATES THAT YOU HAVE DECIDED TO PARTICIPATE HAVING
READ THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ABOVE.

______________________________

____________________________

Date

Participant's Signature

174

Q
You are invited to participate in this study entitled ________________________. The
following information is provided in order to help you to make an informed decision whether or
not to participate. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
The purpose of this study is to explore ESL students' writing experiences in both previous
and current contexts in order to gain a better understanding of the issue of ESL students' writing
apprehension. Participation in this study will require approximately six hours of your time and is
not considered a part of English 101. Participation or non-participation will not effect the
evaluation of your performance in this class. I will observe you class and audio-tape some
activities. In addition, I will collect some of your work in this class. You will be asked to
participate in interviews and group discussions.
Your participation in this study is voluntary and you may withdraw from participation at
any time. Your decision will not result in any loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled.
If you choose to participate, all information will be held in strict confidence and will have no
bearing on your academic standing or services you receive from the University. You can decide
not to participate in this study at any time. If you decide to drop from this study, I will delete all
reference to you from audio tapes and my notes. Your name will not be used in this study;
instead, pseudonym will be used. There is no risk involved in participating in this study.
If you are willing to participate in this study, please sign the statement below.
Thank you very much for you cooperation.
Project advisor
Dr. X
Professor of English
[Address]
Phone: [phone]
E-mail: [email]

Project Director
Hyo-Ryo Kim
Ph.D. Candidate in X
[Address]
Phone: [phone]
E-mail: [email]

Informed Consent Form (continued)
VOLUNTARY CONSENT FORM:
I have read and understood the information on the form and I consent to volunteer to be a subject
in this study. I understand that my responses are completely confidential and that AI have the
right to withdraw at any time. I have received an unsigned copy of this Informed Consent Form
to keep in my possession.
Name (PLEASE PRINT)________________________________________________

175

Signature____________________________________________________________
Date_______________________________________________________________________
Phone number or location where you can be reached________________________________
Best days and times to reach you________________________________________________

I certify that I have explained to the above individual the nature and purpose, the potential
benefits, and possible risks associated with participating in this research study, have answered
any questions that have been raised, and have witnessed the above signature.

_________________________________________________________________________
Date
Investigator's Signature

176

R
INFORMED CONSENT FOR STUDENT

Dear_______________,
My name is Eliza Smith, and I am a doctoral student in X in the College of Education at
The University of X. I am conducting a research study for a doctoral dissertation and you are
being invited to take part in this project. This letter explains the study for which I seek your
consent to participate. You must be at least 18 years old to participate.
About the Study
The project has been developed to investigate English as a Second Language (ESL)
students' understanding about and response to writing prompts. Specifically, I want to learn about
how writing prompt selection (both teacher-directed and student-generated) affects ESL college
students' perceptions of task, teacher, and text.
What you will Be Asked to Do
If you consent to participate in this study, the data I will collect will include observational
fieldnotes to be taken during the class sessions in which you engage in writing tasks, a collection
of the to written texts (1 initial draft and 1 revised, final draft), and three interviews that will be
audio taped and transcribed. The interviews will take place at the University of X Intensive
English Institute, will be held outside of class time, and will last no longer than 60 minutes each.
Your participation is entirely voluntary and, if you agree to participate in the interviews, you may
choose to withdraw or not to answer a question at any time.
Confidentiality
All data will be De-identified at the time of collection or in the case of interviews, at the
time of transcription. De-identified transcripts and observational fieldnotes will be stored on my
home computer in a password-protected file. Photocopies of your written texts will be deidentified and stored in my home office. De-identification will include the use of pseudonyms.
Your names will not appear in any documents stored in my home computer and office and will
not be used in the dissertation report or any other publications. All data will be stored in a locked
cabinet of my home office until June 2012. At that time, the data will be shredded.
Risks and Benefits
Other than the inconvenience of time devoted to interviews, risks to you are minimal
beyond those associated with your regular schooling. While there will likely be no direct
personal benefits in participating in this study, you may have the occasion in the context of
177

interview sessions to reflect on you won learning. The primary benefits of this study will result
from eventual publication in journals read by ESL researchers and practitioners. Published
reports will likely assist to better understand how the design of composition writing topics (both
teacher-directed and student-generated) affects ESL college students' perceptions of teacher, task,
and text.
Contact Information
If you have any further questions about this study, please, contact me, Eliza Smith, at
[phone], address [address] or at [email]. You may also contact my advisor, Dr. X, at [phone] or at
[email]. If you have questions about your rights as a research participant, please contact X,
Assistant to the University of X's Protection of Human Subjects Review Board, at [phone] or email [email].

Your signature below indicates that you have read and understand the above information.
Your signature also indicates that you consent to participate in this study. You will receive a copy
of this form.

_________________________________
Signature of consent

_____________________
Date

178

S
X University
X Department
Rashad Melinchor

Before agreeing to participate in this study, it is important that the following explanation
of the proposed procedures be read and understood. It describes the purposes, risks, and benefits
of the study. It also describes the right to withdraw from the study at any time. It is important to
understand that no guarantee of assurance can be made as to to the results.
Purpose:
The purpose of this study is to determine the overall effects of applying computers in writing
classes.
Duration:
The study will last for one semester (Fall 2004). The research will spend the whole semester
observing the class (no classes/weeks; and (hour) each) and writing notes.
Procedure:
Students registered in this class will do their routine jobs as required by their professor. They will
be requested to fill in other forms as shown in the Appendixes (B, C, D, and E). The researcher
and the dissertation committee (the instructor is a member of the committee) can access samples
of the students' writing and the filled-in forms shown in the Appendixes.
Costs:
Participation in this study does not involve any expense for the participants.
Benefits:
No benefits are expected by the participants.
Security and Deposition of Data:
The dissertation committee can access the collected data. However, other than the instructor, the
only person who will examine the samples is the researcher. After analysis of data, the samples
will be handed back to the instructor. The results of the study will be stated in the dissertation
upon its completion.
Right to Withdraw:
Participation in this study is voluntary. Student may withdraw from the study at any time without
negative consequences/penalty by letting the instructor the supervisor of the researcher, Dr X
[[EMAIL] Tel [phone] (w); [phone] (H)], or the researcher, Rashad Melinchor [email], know
(verbally, in writing, or via email).
179

Potential risks:
The grade of this course are decided by neither the researcher nor by any of the dissertation
committee members. Neither participation in the study nor the researcher can influence the
student's grade. So there are no foreseeable risks of the study.
Confidentiality:
Nothing in the study will refer to the identity of the participants. Just in case, students can choose
any name they like (pseudonym) to appear in any report about the study. If you have additional
questions about this research, you are welcome to contact Rashad Melinchor, the researcher, or
Dr. X, the instructor and supervisor at the above email addresses.

If you agree to participate in this research, please sign below.

Thank you for you participation!

Signature:_____________________________________________________

180

T
CONSENT FORM
Project Title: __________________________________________________________________

Investigator: Lee-Young Min, College of X, X University,
Philadelphia, [phone]
Advisor: Dr. X, College of X, X University
Philadelphia, [phone]
Purpose of Research
My research examines whether L2 (English as a second language) learners’ perspectives on
reading-writing relationships (ie, the range of the views on integrating reading and writing) can
help to explain the literacy behaviors in the context of university reading for writing class. This
research will explore the role of the L2 learners’ perspectives on reading-writing relationships
and their influence on literacy behaviors. Three types of data will be collected. The questionnaire
I developed will access the range of the views on integrating reading and writing held by L2
learners. Data collected from classroom observation will be analyzed to examine what, if any, the
similarities and differences in the approaches to reading-writing behaviors (ie, ways of
connecting reading and writing behaviors or ways of engaging in reading-writing activities in the
classroom) between the groups located at the different ranges of views on reading-writing
relations are. Student interview will also be conducted and analyzed to examine the similarities
and differences in the approaches to reading-writing behaviors.
General Experimental Procedures
I understand that I will participate in a research study which will be conducted in my English X
class throughout this semester. I understand that throughout the semester period I will be
observed in the classroom and will be interviewed outside the classroom by the researcher. I also
consent that I will provide the data including my writing assignments, reading journals and
narratives upon the researcher’s request.
Confidentiality
I understand that the data I will provide will be recorded with pseudonyms and any data about
me that will be collected by the researcher will be held in the strictest confidence. The data will
be kept for the duration of the study and they will be destroyed after the completion of the study.
Disclaimer/Withdrawl
I understand that my participation in this study is on voluntary basis, and I may refuse to
181

participate at any time without consequence or prejudice.
Institutional Contacts
I understand that if I have questions about my rights as a research subject, I can contact Mr X,
the Coordinator for Research, Institutional Review Board, X University, [address], phone
[phone].
Signing my name below indicates that I have read and understood the contents of this Consent
Form and that I agree to take part in this study.

_________________________________________________
Participant's Signature

______________________
Date

_________________________________________________
Investigator's Signature

______________________
Date

182

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183

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