My name is Ruth Fullwood and I am a Master’s student at the University of Central Lancashire. My Supervisor is Dr Philip Birch.



The research explores perceptions of a rape, using scenarios presented in a news article format. It will also consider how these perceptions relate to how you view yourself and others. The study will ask you for your age, sex, sexual orientation and employment or student status but it will not ask for your name or any other identifying information.



To participate in this study, you must be 18 years or older. You will be asked to read five fictional news articles depicting a rape scenario; you will then be asked to answer questions about your perceptions of the news article. The questionnaire will take approximately 20 to 30 minutes to complete. If you wish to proceed please answer the questions as honestly as you can.

You do not have to participate in this research. You can withdraw at any time until you submit at the end by simply closing the webpage and not continuing. Please allow sufficient time to complete the questionnaire in one sitting as if you close the browser there is no guarantee of an option to resume later and you may lose your previous answers.

Following the completion of the study we will keep your anonymous answers to use for future research, including presentations and publications. This may include sharing these answers with others doing similar research but only if we approve their request to access it; it will not be given out without this approval. You will not be identified from this; your answers will remain anonymous.



You also have the right to withdraw from the research at any point up to the completion of the questionnaire. As the questionnaire is anonymous it will be impossible to identify your data. Therefore, your data cannot be removed after submission. Please note that the data is saved as you progress through the sections and so it will not be possible to discard questions answered up to the point of exiting as your data will not be identifiable. However, any surveys that are not at least 50% completed will not be considered and will be discarded.

If you have any concerns about the research that you wish to raise with someone independent of the research team, you can do so with the University Officer for Ethics ( OfficerForEthics@uclan.ac.uk ). If you wish to contact the research team the details are below.