The ethics and implications of paying participants in qualitative research

Abstract

It appears that the practice of giving cash or gift vouchers to research participants is becoming increasingly common; however, this practice has received little attention from social researchers. Paying participants has implications in terms of the ethical requirement for consent and may have consequences in terms of recruitment for research projects and for the data collected. In this paper I consider how these issues arose in a research project with lone mothers and the way in which offering payments might help with gaining access to participants. I argue that the possible impact of making payments to research participants should be considered in research accounts and the possible impacts of payments should be more widely debated.

Keywords:

• ethics
• incentives
• payments
• research participants
• access

Notes

1. I posted the £10 payment to the three interviewees who had participated before this was introduced, along with a short note of explanation.

2. At my current institution this is set at a higher level, and does not have tax implications for the participant.