Understanding Society respondents are asked to give their consent to various data linkages, this includes education, health and financial administrative records. These linkages provide important additional information for researchers and help reduce respondent burden.
The Innovation Panel has been used for a series of experiments on consent. The team have looked at question wording, the placement of consent questions, the mode of the interview, and the type of linkage. This experimental work found that:
Respondents who have better understanding of the data linkage are more likely to consent.
The only consistent predictors to giving consent are positive attitudes towards data sharing, trust in the admin data provider, and knowledge of what data they have.
Respondents are less likely to consent to data linkage if the wording of the request is difficult and the question is asked late in the questionnaire. Position has no effect on consent if the wording is easy; wording has no effect on consent if the position is early.
Priming respondents to think about trust in the organisations involved in the data linkage increases consent.
The only socio-demographic characteristic that consistently predicts objective understanding of the linkage request is education. Understanding is positively associated with the number of online data sharing behaviours, for example using online banking or posting on social media.
Easy wording of the consent question increases objective understanding of the linkage request. The position of the consent question in the questionnaire has no effect on understanding.
At Understanding Society we’ve also looked at how consent decisions are made. Only about a third of respondent’s report using a “reflective” decision process, considering the consequences of consent or their trust in the relevant organisations. Many more use an “instinctive” process (such as “gut feeling”). More reflective decision processes are associated with higher rates of consent, greater comprehension of the proposed data linkage and greater confidence in the decision.
If several administrative data sources are of interest, respondents are required to give consent to each of them, meaning that multiple consent questions have to be included in one survey. Survey methods research suggests that whether a participant provides consent for data linkage varies widely between data sources and over time. Experiments have been carried out in Understanding Society to see if the order of consent questions makes a difference to consent rates. This research suggests that the order in which multiple consent requests are asked does matter, but in complicated ways that depend on the particular outcomes which the participant is interested in.
Understanding Society has been used to find out why respondents are less likely to consent to data linkage in online than face-to-face interviews. Those doing an online interview were less likely to understand the data linkage request, less likely to process the consent request thoroughly, and more likely to be concerned about privacy and data security when answering online rather than in a face-to-face interview. Simplifying the language in the consent request increased understanding but had no effect on consent rates.
The Economic and Social Research Council is the primary funder of the study
The Study is led by a team at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex.
