Ethical considerations

All research activity was undertaken with the consideration of professional ethics and ethical responsibilities, to meet the standards of the British Psychological Society. Ethical clearance was gained for all studies from the University of Central Lancashire School of Psychology Ethics Committee. In order to comply with ethical guidelines, a number of issues were addressed. Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to them engaging in the research. In order to give informed consent, participants were provided with information regarding the general area of research on the front sheet of the questionnaire. Consent was provided verbally in order to avoid collecting participant‟s names, which preserves anonymity with the data relating to offending behaviour and minimises socially desirable responding. Participants were asked to read the coversheet and ask any questions or seek clarification, and then make the decision whether to take part in the study or not. Participants were considered as having consented to take part by returning the questionnaire.

The front cover sheet provided information to participants including details of their right to withdraw from the research and also how confidentiality and anonymity would be maintained. Participants were told that they could withdraw from the study at any time prior to submitting their completed questionnaire by not returning it. However, once

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submitted, withdrawal would not be possible due to the anonymity of the questionnaire. Participants were informed that their participation in the research was entirely voluntary and that no identifying data would be linked to their submission (i.e. their name). Therefore their responses were completely anonymous. They were also told that all responses would remain confidential, as no individual data would be identified and only group data would be used in publications or presentations. Participants were also advised to be mindful of their surroundings whilst completing the questionnaire, to make sure no one could see what they were writing, as they may not want to share their answers with anyone.

Participants were given a detachable information sheet as part of their debriefing and this contained the purposes of the research, researcher contact details and sources of support. Researcher contact details were provided so that participants could contact the researcher for further information regarding the study or for details of the overall findings. Details of helplines and support services were provided should participants have been affected by the content of the questionnaires. Participants in Studies 2 and 3 were asked to return completed questionnaires to a secure locked metal mailbox in the university to which only the researcher had access, further assuring anonymity of the responses.

The research for Study 1 was conducted online and therefore additional ethical considerations were necessary and are detailed here. Cache clearance was considered so that the web history could not be viewed by future users of the PC to ensure that the participant was not endangered by taking part in a study that related to IPV. Participants were able to leave the study at any time and at any point they left they were diverted to a screen that contained details of helplines and support services should they have been affected by the content of the questionnaires. Participants were provided with a printable debrief information sheet.

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Questionnaire content avoided using terms such as „domestic violence‟ or „partner violence‟ in order to minimise socially desirable responses which may occur if these terms were applied to these behaviours. Instead, so that participants remained fully informed regarding the content, and in order to avoid potentially causing distress to the participants, they were told that the study contained questions of a sensitive nature, which relate to subjects that people may find distressing. They were informed that they would be asked to respond to questions regarding their own behaviour or behaviour of others that has affected them, and that some of these are extremely violent and/ or sexual criminal offences, as well as drug, criminal and antisocial behaviour.

2.3. Sampling

The current research employed two sampling methods: an online sample (study 1) and a traditional pencil and paper sample (all other studies). An online sample was chosen for study 1 in response to a request from the Ethics Committee to increase the anonymity of the participants taking part, due to the serious nature of some of the items on the

questionnaire (e.g. Involved in illegal political acts, Helped suicide). Such items were found to have low base rates and were therefore excluded from further studies, and so traditional samples were used for all remaining studies.

For the online sample, a link to the webpage was emailed to Psychology students (predominantly first year students), and was also advertised to University staff and students on other courses using the University electronic newsletter and University plasma screens located in various venues around campus, e.g. Canteens, reception areas, library. The link was also placed on research websites (e.g. the Online Psychology Research website). For the pencil and paper samples, participants were recruited on campus from open access

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computer rooms, the university library and from large lectures. Participants were from a variety of courses, including Psychology.

There have been a number of criticisms associated with the use of online samples versus using traditional sampling methods, such as online samples not being as

representative as traditional samples. For example, online participants need to be technologically proficient, and tend to be young, educated, white, middle class males (Hewson, 2003). But some studies have suggested that whereas traditional samples tend to comprise mainly female participants, online samples tend to be more balanced (e.g.

Buchanan & Smith, 1999; Smith & Leigh, 1997). Therefore it may be that the growth of the internet population is increasing its representativeness (Hewson, 2003). Hewson (2003, p. 291) states that “that an internet sample could usefully complement a traditional sample by redressing the gender bias”.

Further criticisms of online research are that it may be more difficult to verify the identity of participants (Kraut, Olson, Banaji, Bruckman, Cohen & Couper, 2004) with online than traditional research. Also, researchers have less control over the circumstances under which data are collected. For example it may not be known whether participants are intoxicated with drugs or alcohol, or are distracted during participation, and factors such as these may affect the validity of the data (Hewson, 2003). However it can be argued that these factors may also be true for paper, postal and telephone samples which can share similar problems. Hewson (2003, p. 293) states that “level of trust of participants on the part of the researcher will always be required” whatever sampling method is used.

Online research can also have its advantages, such as allowing researchers to gather large quantities of data economically, reducing the likelihood of data entry errors, and reducing the timescale of research (Hewson, 2003). Additional benefits are that participants

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may be more honest in online research (Joinson, 2001) and social desirability bias may also be reduced (Joinson, 1999) due to there not being a direct researcher presence.

Furthermore, Kraut et al., (2004) state that online research is no riskier than traditional research methods.

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CHAPTER 3