Passive Consent

Passive consent, at least in the field of research, is an ethically questionable method of recruiting subjects for study. Active consent is where the participants (or their representatives) sign waivers and actively agree to participation. If the participants do not actively agree to participate then they are not included in the research.

Passive consent is where a subject becomes part of the study chiefly through failure to refuse participation.

An example of this would be research involving a new teaching method. To see if it's effective an educational researcher may want to compare the test scores of a class exposed to the new teaching method and a class who used the previous method. Passive consent would be sending out a form to the parents telling them the nature of the research and providing means of them denying permission for this (i.e., "sign and return this form to exclude your child from this study"). All children would be included unless their parent returned the form.

Active consent would be sending a form that requires the parents to sign and return if they want their child to participate. Only the children whose parents signed and returned the form signifying consent would be included in the study.