Informed Consent for Psychological Research: Do Subjects Comprehend Consent Forms and Understand Their Legal Rights?

length of consent forms for research in Veterans Administration hospitals doubled over the 7-year time span from 1975 to 1982. They concluded that consent forms increased in length in order to include more information about subjects' rights in accordance with federal guidelines. It is unclear, however, if these statements about rights, liability, and confidentiality are understood by research participants. Indeed, the quasi-legal language may cause research subjects to think they have signed a legal document designed to protect researchers. This experiment compared psychology subjects' comprehension of two consent forms matched for readability level—a long, detailed form and a shorter, less detailed one. In addition, we looked specifically at the effectiveness of consent forms in conveying to subjects their legal rights by comparing subjects who had signed a consent form with subjects who had read an information sheet, but who had not signed a consent form.