Michael Sanders and Vanessa Hirneis

This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘Consent, assent and randomised evaluations’.

The last decade or so have seen an explosion in the number of randomised controlled trials conducted in schools in the UK, and a similar, if less stratospheric, rise elsewhere in the world. The rise in the UK can be attributed in large part not to methodological interest by education academics, but the creation of the Education Endowment Foundation. Forming part of the UK Government’s “What Works” network aimed at improving evidence-informed decision-making in policy and overseeing a budget of more than £100 million, the EEF has funded hundreds of randomised trials of different interventions to boost children’s and young people’s attainment.

Enthusiasts of randomised trials argue that they provide the best and simplest (or least statistically burdensome) way of findings out which interventions work. However, opponents, often those responsible for designing and delivering interventions, consider them unethical because they necessitate withholding a potentially beneficial intervention from young people. In our paper, we consider another aspect of the ethics of randomised trials with young people – consent.

Informed consent is the cornerstone of postwar research, and aims to ensure that people are not experimented on against their will. As a principle, it is hard to argue with and should be at the centre of our thinking about how to run these kinds of trials.

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