Interactivity and Multimedia 2

Research with human subjects requires that they be informed about the research study they are being asked to participate in and make a voluntary decision to participate. However, informed consent documents have become lengthy and complex, and participants often have difficulty understanding and remembering consent information. Many content specific interventions have been studied to improve the consent process. However, results have been inconsistent. Viewing informed consent as an instructional process, this study was designed to pilot a cognitive/perceptual approach to the informed consent process. Incorporating multimedia and interactivity into the consent process was hypothesized to improve learning of the presented content. This hypothesis was tested using an experimental design with random assignment to one of three conditions, (1) a standard, paper-based condition (control), in which the researcher explained the consent information to participants, (2) a multimedia condition in which participants viewed the consent information with very limited interactivity, and (3) an interactive multimedia condition in which participants viewed the consent information but had user control and received scripted questions with feedback. An IRB-approved informed consent document fo