ABSTRACT
Primary care educational research is subject to the ethical requirements and principles that govern research and evaluation in general. Even ‘good’ researchers may fail to see potential conflicts or give insufficient weight or consideration to the competing interests of participants when under pressure to produce research or simply filled with enthusiasm for a research project. Research ethics is primarily concerned to help good, well-intentioned researchers avoid such errors and missteps and to produce valuable research, ethically. Informed consent is fundamental to ethical research. It is not a purely formal or procedural matter – it is not about the signature on the form – and nor is it a discrete one-time event: it should be ongoing and available for review throughout the research process. Full information may lead participants to modify their behaviour in ways which undermine legitimate research.
