Beyond the written words of informed consent:What participants would like to know about research

Informing the participants about the research is an essential part of the activities planned and accomplished in research projects in any field, including psychological sciences. Research teams, scientific associations, and universities have increasingly equipped themselves with tools (the informed consent) that help accomplish this activity. Drawing on three different qualitative studies, we focus our analysis on both the information found in the consent sheets concerning the study aims and procedures and the questions raised by participants on the same topics while talking with the researcher. Considering informed consents as cultural artifacts, we discuss the importance of designing them in such a way that would make them more sensitive to the participants’ information demands, and not only to the researchers’ community needs.