A: Basically, we changed our procedures because of a parent's complaint. The survey assessed tobacco and other substance use among 6th ñ 8th graders in 23 schools (Pokorny, et al., 2001). During the first year, a parent complained that passive consent was unethical in any type of study, and said that he was considering taking some kind of action if we did not change our consent protocol. We then consulted with our IRB, which stated that we could continue with the passive consent procedure that we had established in the first year. We also consulted the principal and superintendent where the child attended school. Both of these administrators supported our initial methods and said we could continue with the passive protocol. But we wanted to be sensitive to this parent's concern, so we made a concerted effort to get each school to change to active consent.

A: It was a very involved process. The project director met with the principals in each school to figure out the best method of getting active parental consent. Two of the 23 principals said that they could not accommodate the change, and would have to stick with passive consent, which we allowed them to do. The other 21 were willing to try, and we ended up with 3 different versions based on each principal's idea of what method would be the most successful.

A: When we compared 'active' students versus 'passive' students, we found that there was significant difference in gender and age. Active parental consent children were more likely to be female and younger than 13 years old. However, we didn't find significant differences for race, mother's education, or father's education.