This project, supported by the Science, Technology & Society program at NSF, examines ethical decision-making in research. Recurring reports of scientific misconduct, plagiarism and abuse of human and non-human research participants has dramatically increased awareness of the real and potential harms associated with the unethical practice of research. Institutions have attempted to prevent such misconduct through the development of regulatory policy and formal review mechanisms (e.g., Human Subjects Institutional Review Boards). In spite of opportunities to engage in research misconduct, the vast majority of scientists conduct research with the highest level of integrity. However, little is known about the decision processes that characterize those scientists whose research conforms to the highest ethical standards and presumably separate them from scientists in training or those who engage in questionable or unethical research practices.
This project seeks to examine and describe how scientists make ethical decisions in the research context--to discern patterns and principles in that practice--and to design education and potential regulatory checks around those principles.
The methods for studying decision-making are based on "protocol analysis" a cognitive science methodology that has been applied to study expert performance in a range of skill areas. In this method, experts are identified and then asked to solve realistic ethical challenges (scenarios) that might be encountered in the research process. The experts discuss the normally unexpressed thought processes they follow in analyzing and "solving" a challenging scenario and plotting a course of action regarding the problem. Those expressions provide data (evidence, clues) through which, over multiple scenarios and experts, common approaches can be discerned. In this project the experts will be practicing scientists and trained ethicists who are recognized for the quality of their ethical judgment. The decision-making processes for the experts will be contrasted with those of beginning graduate students in social and behavioral sciences in an effort to identify and benchmark crucial analytic and decision-making skills that might be incorporated into research training curricula.
