Using video vignettes to evaluate children's personal safety knowledge: Methodological and ethical issues

Objective: The study aimed to assess children's personal safety knowledge b y seeking their responses to video-delivered simulations of child maltreatm ent. Method: In seeking to do this, methodological and ethical difficulties were encountered. These arose during several phases of consultation, the refine ment of an interview protocol to be used with the vignettes, and during dis cussions over the ethical integrity of the research. Results: Using visually graphic vignettes to probe children's personal safe ty knowledge proved to be methodologically difficult and ethically problema tic and controversial. The main objections to the approach were that it cou ld harm participants, and that parents needed extensive information about t he study to exercise "informed consent." Conclusions: The study demonstrated the nature and extent of negotiations t hat were needed to "push the boundaries" of evaluation research to develop more valid, authentic and complex ways of accessing children's thinking abo ut personal safety concepts and strategies. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.