Checking Consent Beforehand
Launch library · evergreen read
Confirming that a subject understands and agrees to how an interview will be recorded and used, before any substantive question is asked, is not merely a formality. It establishes the basic trust that everything meaningful in the conversation will later depend on. Skipping or rushing this step undermines everything that is meant to follow from it.
This checking should be genuine rather than perfunctory: a subject rushed through a consent explanation, eager to get to the real conversation, may agree to terms they have not fully absorbed, which risks trouble later when expectations turn out to have diverged. A short pause to confirm understanding costs little against what it protects later.
Taking the extra few minutes to confirm understanding clearly, and to answer any questions the subject has about it, tends to pay for itself many times over in the openness it earns for the remainder of the sitting. That small investment of time tends to return considerably more trust than it costs in the sitting itself.