Ethics and Honesty in Conducting and Reporting Educational Research

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• Ethics and Honesty in Conducting and Reporting
  Educational Research

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Two Major Issues

• Conducting the Research

• Reporting the Research

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The Nuremberg Trials

• The public was outraged to learn of the
  scientific experiments conducted by Nazi
  physicians and scientists during WWII. As a
  result 10 principles to guide research were
  formulated The Nuremberg Code

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Tuskegee Syphilis Study

• Poor Black men in the South were not told they
  had syphilis and the available treatment was
  withheld to see what would happen. This went from
  1932-1972. The public was outraged. President
  Clinton issued an apology.

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The Belmont Report

• Because of the public outcry, the federal
  government organized the National Commission for
  Protection of Human Subjects of Behavioral and
  Biomedical Research to develop guidelines for
  research with human subjects. This group issued a
  report in 1979 known as The Belmont Report.

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The Belmont Report

• Beneficence Do no harm (risks to subjects must
  be balanced against the benefits to them and to
  others)
• This is not a major problem in agricultural and
  extension education research.

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The Belmont Report

• Justice really should be labeled as equality.
  Protects one part of the population from bearing
  the brunt of the research.
• Are death row inmates involved in potentially
  risky research?
• Where are garbage dumps located?

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The Belmont Report

• Respect for persons allow people to make their
  own decisions about whether or not to participate
  in the research.

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Federal Regulations

• In 1991 the Federal Government established Title
  45 Code of Federal Regulations (part 46) to
  govern federally funded research activities.
• The regulations are administered by the Office
  for Human Research Protections (OHRP)
• Since NCSU receives federal research money, we
  must abide by these guidelines.

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Federal Regulations

• Institutions like NCSU must have an Institutional
  Review Board (IRB) that reviews and approves any
  research involving humans (and animals).
• This board makes sure our research is in
  accordance with federal guidelines.

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The IRB

• The IRB has the authority to
• approve
• approve with modifications
• table, or
• disapprove any research proposal involving human
  subjects.
• They also have the authority to suspend or stop
  any research project involving human subjects.

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The IRB

• If an investigator conducts human subject
  research without obtaining appropriate IRB review
  and approval, a number of consequences may arise.
  The investigator may be unable to publish his/her
  findings, study data may be confiscated, sources
  of funding may be lost, and ultimately, an
  institution could lose its assurance, thereby
  losing its privilege to conduct research with
  human subjects.

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IRB Levels of Approval

• Exempt Determined by the IRB Administrator. At
  NCSU we call this Administrative Review instead
  of exempt.
• Even if the researcher knows the study is exempt,
  IRB review is required.
• The IRB must determine it is exempt.

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So What is Exempt?

• 1. Research conducted in established or commonly
  accepted educational settings, involving normal
  educational practices, such as (i) research on
  regular and special education instructional
  strategies, or (ii) research on the effectiveness
  of or the comparison among instructional
  techniques, curricula, or classroom management
  methods.

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So What is Exempt?

• 2. Research involving the use of educational
  tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude,
  achievement), survey procedures, interview
  procedures or observation of public behavior,
  unless (i) information obtained is recorded in
  such a manner that human subjects can be
  identified, directly or through identifiers
  linked to the subjects and (ii) any disclosure
  of the human subjects' responses outside the
  research could reasonably place the subjects at
  risk of criminal or civil liability, or be
  damaging to the subjects' financial standing,
  employability, or reputation.

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So What is Exempt?

• 3. Research involving the use of educational
  tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude,
  achievement), survey procedures, interview
  procedures, or observation of public behavior
  that is not exempt under paragraph (b)(2) of this
  section, if (i) the human subjects are elected
  or appointed public officials or candidates for
  public office or (ii) federal statute(s)
  require(s) without exception that the
  confidentiality of the personally identifiable
  information will be maintained throughout the
  research and thereafter.

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So What is Exempt?

• 4. Research, involving the collection or study of
  existing data, documents, records, pathological
  specimens, or diagnostic specimens, if these
  sources are publicly available, or if the
  information is recorded by the investigator in
  such a manner that subjects cannot be identified,
  directly or through identifiers linked to the
  subjects.

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So What is Exempt?

• 5. Research and demonstration projects, which are
  conducted by or subject to the approval of
  department or agency heads, and which are
  designed to study, evaluate, or otherwise
  examine (i) public benefit or service programs
  (ii) procedures for obtaining benefits or
  services under those programs (iii) possible
  changes in or alternatives to those programs or
  procedures or (iv) possible changes in methods
  or levels of payment for benefits or services
  under those programs.

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So What is Exempt?

• 6. Taste and food quality evaluation and consumer
  acceptance studies, (i) if wholesome foods
  without additives are consumed, or (ii) if a food
  is consumed that contains a food ingredient at or
  below the level and for a use found to be safe,
  or agricultural chemical or environmental
  contaminant at or below the level found to be
  safe.

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IRB Levels of Approval

• Expedited If the potential for harm of human
  subjects is neglible, a review from one or more
  committee members is all that is needed.

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IRB Levels of Approval

• Full Board Review by the full board with a
  quorum being present.

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The Review

• The IRB must see everything the subject will see
  (cover letter, survey instrument, etc.)
• This must be done before any type of data
  collection.
• For ongoing projects, you must get IRB approval
  every year.

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Possible Research Risks

• Physical Harm
• Confidentiality (leaking information about a
  participant)
• Intrusion on Privacy (conducting part of a study
  in a public setting)
• Emotional/Psychological

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How to Reduce Risks

• Have an informed consent form
• Use code numbers instead of names to identify
  people
• Destroy raw data when study is over

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The NCSU IRB

• http//www.ncsu.edu/sparcs/irb/

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Two Major Issues

• Conducting the Research

• Reporting the Research

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Scientific Misconduct

• Basically, there are three major types of
  scientific misconduct
• fabrication
• falsification
• plagiarism or
• other practices that seriously deviate from those
  that are commonly accepted within the research
  community for proposing, conducting, and
  reporting research.

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Fabrication

• Inventing or making up data
• Did anyone see Krippendorfs Tribe?
• An anthropologist creates a fictitious lost New
  Guinea tribe using his family members to cover-up
  for his mis-use of grant moneys.
• This does happen in Academia, but shouldnt

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Falsification

• Falsification of data is the selective alteration
  of data collected in the conduct of scientific
  investigation.
• Falsification also includes the selective
  omission/deletion/suppression of conflicting data
  without scientific or statistical justification.

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Plagiarism

• As a general working definition, the Office of
  Research Integrity (a federal agency) considers
  plagiarism to include both the theft or
  misappropriation of intellectual property and the
  substantial unattributed textual copying of
  another's work. It does not include authorship or
  credit disputes.

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Examples of Plagiarism

• Use of sources from the internet without
  proper documentation
• Undocumented use of sources from other written
  materials, i.e. books, magazines, etc.
• Use of other students work as ones own

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Citations

• Quotation marks should be used to indicate the
  exact words of another.
• Summarizing a passage or rearranging the order of
  a sentence and changing some of the words is
  paraphrasing.
• Each time a source is paraphrased, a credit for
  the source needs to be included in the text.
• APA Manual

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Scientific Misconduct
Source http//www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-11/
p42.htmlcap1
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Other Examples of Misconduct

• False citation is the deliberate citing of a
  source for information, when the source does not
  contain that information, with intention to
  mislead.

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Other

• Misuses of the refereeing process
• a) Misappropriation of ideasstealing ideas from
  papers that one referees
• b) Misappropriation of prioritypublishing an
  idea first by delaying publication of papers that
  one referees

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One Other Issue - Authorship

• Conflicts often occur over authorship of research
  papers.
• For graduate student research, it is common
  protocol to include the major professor and other
  committee members who made substantial
  contributions to the research in the list of
  authors of a paper/manuscript.
• The graduate student name goes first.

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What is a substantial contribution?

• Authorship credit should be based on 1)
  substantial contributions to conception and
  design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and
  interpretation of data 2) drafting the article
  or revising it critically for important
  intellectual content and 3) final approval of
  the version to be published. Authors should meet
  conditions 1, 2, and 3.

From the International Committee of Medical
Journal Editors.
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Authorship

• Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or
  general supervision of the research group, alone,
  does not justify authorship.
• All persons designated as authors should qualify
  for authorship, and all those who qualify should
  be listed.
• Each author should have participated sufficiently
  in the work to take public responsibility for
  appropriate portions of the content.

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Fairness

• Since professors are expected (really required)
  to publish, and typically have a substantial time
  investment in a graduate student research
  project, then students really should make a
  concerted effort to publish their research.
• If the student doesnt have an inclination to
  publish the research, then the professor should
  have the right to do so of course giving major
  credit to the student.