FEATURE ARTICLE
Ethical Problems in Academic Research
A survey of doctoral candidates and faculty raises important questions about the ethical environment of graduate education and research
Judith Swazey, Melissa Anderson, Karen Louis
Interpreting the Data
Our surveys have relatively high response rates compared to those of
other efforts to study the various types of misconduct. Adjusted
response rates for graduate students and faculty were 72 percent and
59 percent, respectively. In addition, the degree of agreement
between faculty and student responses on most items reinforces the
reliability of our data. Some of the items on which student and
faculty observations are divergent reflect differences in
opportunities to observe misconduct. Faculty, for example, report
more knowledge of student plagiarism and cheating and more faculty
misuse of research funds and facilities, which probably reflects
faculty members' greater access to these types of information.
We have no reason to think that the data do not accurately reflect
the respondents' experiences, which may include self-reports of
their own activities. Nevertheless, we recognize the need for
several caveats in interpreting our findings. To begin with, we do
not know exactly how respondents defined the phrase "other
direct evidence" in the survey instructions. Second, since the
questionnaires did not ask the respondents to distinguish between
what they believed to be instances of misbehavior and cases that had
been confirmed by an official or unofficial type of investigation,
their responses should be viewed as "strongly suspected"
instances. A third important caveat bears repeating. Because it is
likely that more than one faculty or student respondent in a given
department reported the same incident in their questionnaires, one
cannot estimate from our data what percentage of faculty or graduate
students in a given department or in the four disciplines may be
engaging in a particular type of misconduct or questionable research
practice. Rather, growing out of the project's focus on the ways
that departments and disciplines affect the education and
socialization of graduate students, our objective was to document
the exposure of graduate students and faculty to what they believe
is ethically wrong or problematic conduct in their departments.
» Post Comment