Mirabella, A. M., Berson, I. R., & Berson, M. J. (2025). Empowering voices: Implementing ethical practices for young children’s assent in digital research. Education Sciences, 15(5), 571.
This is an open access article. The full article is freely available to view and download via the Publisher’s Link below.
This article examines how young children express informed assent in educational settings in the USA and Ghana. Through video recordings, field notes, and action-oriented transcripts, the authors explored how children expressed comfort, curiosity, and agency across diverse digital tools, including virtual reality storytelling, video-cued reflection, and interactive eBooks. They highlight how assent was negotiated through gesture, movement, silence, humor, and peer interaction, leading the authors to argue that ethical research with children must prioritize multimodal communication, child-led pacing, and relational trust to support authentic and meaningful participation.