Journal of Academic Ethics最新文献

The scientific community has tried to implement the FAIR guiding principles to foster open science actions in data-driven research in higher education since 2016. However, what strategies work and do not in fostering open science actions still need to be determined. This article is the first step to closing this research gap by examining one strategy, the effectiveness of FAIR training in higher education. With a pre-post test design, the study evaluates the short-term effectiveness of FAIR training on students’ scientific suggestions and justifications in line with FAIR’s guiding principles. The study also assesses the influence of university legal frameworks on students’ inclination towards FAIR training. Before FAIR training, 81.1% of students suggested that scientific actions were not in line with the FAIR guiding principles. However, there is a 3.75-fold increase in suggestions that adhere to these principles after the training. Interestingly, the training does not significantly impact how students justify FAIR actions. The study observes a positive correlation between the presence of university legal frameworks on FAIR guiding principles and students’ inclination towards FAIR training. The study underscores the training potential in driving the transition towards open science actions in higher education and shows how much university legal frameworks can push toward such training. Students rate FAIR training as very useful and satisfactory. Important learning factors in effective FAIR training seem to be creating a safe space, letting students contribute, and encouraging students to engage in the training. However, the study also reveals the need for further training improvement, particularly in enhancing students’ ability to justify FAIR actions.

The relation of social ethics to knowledge production is explored through a study about academic research enquiry on minoritised and racialised populations. Despite social change related to migration and ethnicity being a feature of contemporary Northern Ireland, local dynamics and actors seemed under-studied by its research-intensive ‘anchor universities’. To explore this, a critical discourse analysis of published research outputs (n = 200) and related authors’ narratives (n = 32) are interpreted within this paper through conceptualisations of consciousness. Insiders’ perspectives on the influences and structures of the research journey demonstrate the ways in which research cultures (mis)shape the politics of representation, authorship and ethicality. Societal and political disregard for the new publics, reproduced within universities’ hidden curriculum, has been negotiated and to some extent resisted in the research practices of those marginalised (such as women academics), those entering the system (migrant academics), and those local-born whose referential frames were developed external to local universities. Of concern is that the few research enablers were characterised by techno-rationality and doublespeak, impoverishing the depth of theorisation, complexity and intellectual debate necessary for challenging the existing dysconscious racism and xenophobiaism of the social imaginary.

Academic misconduct by students is a serious issue that threatens the public trust in higher education institutions. In the current study, we examine whether SACCIA (Sufficient, Accurate, Clear, Contextualised and Interpersonally Adaptive) communication predicts lower academic misconduct via attitudes towards cheating and understanding what ‘counts’ as academic misconduct. Participants (N = 319) completed an online questionnaire in Qualtrics measuring SACCIA-adherent communication, academic misconduct, positive attitudes towards cheating and understanding what constitutes misconduct, along with control variables (Big 5 personality traits and Honesty-Humility). The results indicated that the effect of SACCIA communication on academic misconduct was exerted via attitudes, but not via understanding of what constitutes ‘academic misconduct’. The more SACCIA-conforming the communication was, the lower the positive attitudes towards cheating, and the lower the positive attitudes the less self-reported misconduct. The findings suggest that universities could facilitate negative attitudes towards cheating and subsequently lower misconduct if they communicate about academic integrity in a SACCIA-adherent manner.

In all research, ethical considerations are crucial to reliability and quality and researchers are guided by various national and international documents and ethical committees. Despite different strategies to guide researchers and to ensure quality, there still seems to be uncertainty in educational science about how research ethics should be positioned and handled in practice. The aim of this study is to phenomenologically explore what meanings the phenomenon research ethics are given in Swedish doctoral dissertations in educational research based on how doctoral researchers position, frame and present research ethics in their ethical elaborations. The empirical data consists of 60 doctoral dissertations in educational science at Swedish universities from the past year. The result indicates very different meanings of ethical considerations despite a quite common point of departure in the Swedish Research Council’s guidelines and knowledge of the Ethics Review Act. Some variations can be related to the differences in the studies’ designs, but regardless of such explanations, the conclusion is that consensus regarding ethical considerations in research is largely lacking.

The ethics of citation has attracted increased attention in recent discussions of research and publication ethics, fraud and plagiarism. Little attempt has been made, however, to situate specific citation misbehaviors in terms of broader ethical practices and principles. To investigate researchers’ perceptions of citation norms, we surveyed active US researchers receiving federal funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Participants (n = 257) were asked about citation norms they endorse (norm reports), the behaviors they perceive others to engage in (peer reports), and their own citation behaviors (self-reports). Our analyses showed that while considerable discrepancies exist between norm reports, peer reports and self-reports, respondents’ discipline has no significant effect on these. Participants indicated that their own practices and that of their peers falls short of the norms they endorse, but that their own behavior is much less ethically deficient than that of their peers. An exploratory factor analysis revealed that ethically questionable citation behaviors could be grouped usefully into three categories: strategic citations, neglectful citations, and blind citations. Contrary to our hypothesis, the survey showed that greater experience does not always result in better citation practices. A particularly divisive issue pertained to intentionally citing authors from underrepresented demographic groups for reasons of social justice, but broad support for this practice is lacking, although arts and humanities scholars are slightly more supportive. Most researchers view questionable citation practices as negatively affecting their disciplines. Our findings suggest the need for clearer articulations of the citation norms and improved guidance and training about citations.

Student evaluations of teaching (SET) are typically highly biased. In this paper, three experiments are reported, examining gender bias in SET by manipulating lecturer gender and counterstereotypes. Each experiment involved a vignette about a lecture, with a different context: Study 1 − noisy students disrupting the lesson; Study 2 − students asking for consideration; Study 3 − neutral context of a routine lecture. Structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed that the effect of lecturer gender on SET depended on the context and was both directly (Study 1) and indirectly (Studies 2 and 3) mediated by gender stereotypes. The effect of student's gender was indirect and mediated by gender stereotypes in all studies. Counterstereotypical descriptions did not affect stereotypical perceptions in any of the experiments. The findings are discussed in terms of social dominance theory (SDT) and social role theory (SRT). They offer novel insights into the mechanism that explains gender and context bias in SET. In terms of practical implications, SET should be considered with caution, particularly when used for critical decisions such as tenure status. Finally, applying additional assessments and statistical methods to control for gender bias is important.

International research collaborations engage multiple countries, researchers, and universities. This enhances the magnitude of contextual challenges, including legal and ethical dimensions across various jurisdictions, that must be bridged in qualitative research regardless of discipline, also in the construction of informed consents. From a Scandinavian perspective, this discussion paper explores challenges pertaining to the construction of informed consents related to EU data protection legislation, to which research institutions are subject when processing data related to EU residents. Next, it discusses challenges related to different traditions in terms of handling informed consent and research participants’ integrity, including the possibilities to waive anonymity in research. In international, multidisciplinary studies where researchers also operate in relatively ‘unknown territory’, it is especially important to be aware of and reflect on (inter)national possibilities and limitations related to laws, ethics, and culture/traditions in societies and within the academic fields. The variations in laws, ethical guidelines, and traditions in different countries demand that researchers are up to date with laws and ethical guidelines in the studied countries. Their practical implementation in the countries at stake in international, collaborative research endeavours are important, especially since such regulations and guidelines are far from static and change over time. The implementation of good ethical research practice requires democratic, reflexive, and responsive processes in all phases of research. Especially the preparation phase functions as a period to increase and ensure the knowledge and legal/ethical competences of the entire research team to meet the demands in the countries at stake.

This research study explores academic integrity practices in higher education institutions in Türkiye during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a primary focus on online education. The study involves English language instructors and lecturers as participants. Data were collected through a survey comprising 24 semi-structured and open-ended questions, aiming to understand participants’ perceptions of academic misconduct, associated sanctions, and actions promoting academic integrity. Demographic information about the 29 participants from different universities in Türkiye was also gathered, with 65.5% being female and 34.5% male, and an average teaching experience of 9.5 years. The findings reveal significant insights into academic integrity practices, including common types of misconduct, challenges in evaluating language skills online, and an increase in cheating tendencies. Based on the results, the study recommends the implementation of institutional-level initiatives to promote academic integrity in online education, emphasizing the importance of effective policies to uphold a fair and honest learning environment.

Chatbots such as ChatGPT have the potential to change researchers’ lives in many ways. Despite all the advantages of chatbots, many challenges to using chatbots in medical research remain. Wrong and incorrect content presented by chatbots is a major possible disadvantage. The authors’ credibility could be tarnished if wrong content is presented in medical research. Additionally, ChatGPT, as the currently most popular generative AI, does not routinely present references for its answers. Double-checking references and resources used by chatbots might be challenging. Researchers must also be careful not to harm copyright law or cause plagiarism issues using applications such as ChatGPT. Chatbots are trained on publicly available sources on the internet, increasing the risk of copyright or plagiarism issues. Therefore, chatbots such as ChatGPT should not be used routinely for professional medical research for now. However, further developments could make chatbots usable in medical research in the near future.

Ethical conduct is a maxim in scholarly research as well as scholarly endeavour generally. In the case of research involving humans, few if any question the necessity for ethics approval of procedures by ethics boards or committees. However, concerns have been raised about the appropriateness of ethics approval processes for social science research arguing that the orientation of ethics boards and committees to biomedical and experimental scientific research, institutional risk aversion, and other factors lead to over-protection of research participants and overly restrictive processes that delay and sometimes prevent important social science research. This is particularly significant when social science research is required to respond to social, environmental, or health emergencies and in contract research projects for the reasons explained. This analysis of an ethics approval case study adds to increasing concerns that ethics approval processes can have perverse effects in the social sciences. While a single case study does not provide generalizable findings, in-depth analysis of a significant case can identify issues that need to be further explored. Recommendations offer pathways for facilitating social science research including in emergency situations in which timeliness is important and in collaborative approaches such as participatory action research, while maintaining high ethical standards.