Research ethics and data quality: The implications of informed consent

Patterns of research governance are changing rapidly in the field of social research. In current debates about these changes one issue of particular concern is the impact that new patterns of research governance will have on the quality of the data collected. The 'optimistic scenario on this issue is that more ethical research practice will lead to betterquality data, but a more 'pessimistic scenario exists in which the unintended outcome is poorerquality data. Drawing on material from a study of researchers experiences of dealing with the process of gaining informed consent from research participants, this article identifies the various ways in which the researchers position themselves in relation to the competing 'optimistic and 'pessimistic scenarios. It concludes by seeking to develop a synthesis of the two positions in which ethical research practice is treated neither as an automatic guarantee of, nor as an inevitable obstacle to, the collection of goodquality data.