Ethics in educational research: a comparative analysis of graduate student and faculty beliefs.(Report)

Now more than ever, graduate students and experienced researchers alike need to understand the professional and legal rules regarding the conduct of ethical research. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are differences in how graduate students and faculty" assess ethical dilemmas in the field of educational research. Graduate students (n = 84) and faculty (n = 38) completed an instrument consisting of nine ethical dilemmas, presented in vignettes. Participants were then asked to rate the extent to which they felt the behaviors depicted in the vignettes were unethical. Multivariate analysis of variance with follow-up tests revealed statistically significant differences for the mean ethics ratings of the two groups on two of the nine vignettes. In particular, graduate students reported lower mean ethics ratings (i.e., they felt the behavior depicted was more unethical; p

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The entire scientific enterprise is built, in part, on the assumption of honest, ethical behavior on the part of its stewards-the scholars and scientists who develop, conduct, and review research (National Academy of Sciences, 1995; Sailor, 1997). However, troubling reports regarding ethical misconduct among "university presidents, faculty members in fields as diverse as history and the sciences, and biomedical researchers" (Langlais, 2006, 1) have been commonplace recently, sharing airtime in the media alongside tales of greedy business leaders and crooked politicians. For example, in one of the most egregious cases to date, a professor from South Korea's top university resigned in 2005 after it was discovered he had fabricated results in his stem cell research; results that were published in the highly prestigious journal, Science, and which had raised hopes of new cures for numerous, hard-to-treat diseases (Wade, 2005).

Problems with irresponsible professional conduct and unethical behavior in the sciences are not limited to biomedical research. In a survey of 3,247 early- and mid-career scientists reported in the journal Nature, Martinson, Anderson, and de Vries (2005) found that one in three scientists admitted to committing at least one of 10 relatively serious acts of professional misconduct. For example, "15.5% said they had changed the design, methodology, or results of a study in response to pressure from a funding source; 12.5% admitted to overlooking others' use of flawed data; and 7.6% said they had circumvented minor aspects of requirements regarding the use of human subjects" (Wadman, 2005, p. 718). Although the majority of the misbehaviors reported in the survey were not as serious as fraud, their collective effect on the scientific enterprise may be no less destructive (Martinson et al., 2005; Wadman, 2005).

Considering these alarming examples of professional misconduct and unethical research behavior, it has become clear that institutions of higher education have a critical responsibility for providing their students and faculty with advanced training in ethical obligations and professional standards (Langlais, 2006). To this end, the Council of Graduate Schools and the Office of Research Integrity has funded 10 pilot projects at universities around the country in an attempt to establish "best practices" for educating students and faculty in, "professional standards, ethics, and the skills necessary to identify and make decisions about such issues as conflicts of interest, authorship, ownership and use of data, plagiarism, and mentor relationships and responsibilities" (Langlais, 2006, [paragraph] 9). Preliminary findings from this endeavor have suggested that, in general, very little is known about how to most effectively convey acceptable ethical standards to graduate students and faculty members in the sciences (Langlais, 2006).

Purpose of the Study

Now more than ever, scientists need to understand the rules and regulations regarding the conduct of ethical research (Sales & Folkman, 2000; Strike et al., 2002). Moreover, the importance of research ethics has been underscored by several recent reports of ethical misconduct (Langlais, 2006; Martinson et al., 2005; Wade, 2005; Wadman, 2005). Finally, as discussed by Sales and Folkman (2000), dramatic shifts have occurred with respect to the "research questions, settings, populations, methods, and societal norms and values" (p. ix) currently being explored by educational researchers. These changes have resulted in emerging ethical issues for social science researchers that did not exist only a few years ago.