Duncan Mayer, a PhD student at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, and Victor Groza, the Grace F. Brody Professor of Parent-Child Studies, recently co-authored an article published in the American Journal of Evaluation.
In their article, titled “Promoting Children’s Rights and Protections in Program Evaluation,” Mayer and Groza explored protecting research participants—particularly children—in program evaluation. While the Nuremberg Code established ethics for the involvement of humans in research in the area of health and medical research and was later extended to aspects of social and behavior sciences, program evaluation does not always implement those policies, procedures, and protocols.
Drawing on a children’s rights framework and highlighting participatory and trauma-informed approaches, this article explores the areas of consent, assent, cultural considerations, protocol/data collection procedure review, and participant safety. The paper proposes recommendations that fit a range of evaluation settings and resource levels.