Beyond conflict of interest: the responsible conduct of research

This paper reports data and scholarly opinion that support the perception of systemic flaws in the management of scientific professions and the research enterprise; explores the responsibility that professional status places on the scientific professions, and elaborates the concept of the responsible conduct of research (RCR). Data are presented on research misconduct, availability of research guidelines, and perceived research quality. An earlier version of this paper was presented at an International Conference on “Conflict of Interest and its Significance in Science and Medicine” held in Warsaw, Poland, 5–6 April, 2002. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Office of Research Integrity, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or any other federal agency.     

Ambiguity, trust, and the responsible conduct of research

Ambiguity associated with everyday practice of science has made it difficult to reach a consensus on how to define misconduct in science. This essay outlines some of the important ambiguities of practice such as distinguishing data from noise, deciding whether results falsify a hypothesis, and converting research into research publications. The problem of ambiguity is further compounded by the prior intellectual commitments inherent in choosing problems and in dealing with the skepticism of one's colleagues. In preparing a draft code of ethics for the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), an attempt was made to take into account the ambiguities of practice. Also, the draft code adopted trust as its leading principle, specifically the importance of trust as a condition necessary for there to be science. During revision of the code, the focus on trust was changed. The new orientation was on trust as a consequence of carrying out science responsibly. By addressing the obligations necessary to engender trust, the ASBMB ethics code not only sets professional standards, but also makes a clear statement of public accountability.     

Group mentoring to foster the responsible conduct of research

This article reports on a method of group mentoring to strengthen responsible research conduct. A key feature of this approach is joint exploration of the issues by trainees and their faculty research supervisors. These interactions not only help participants learn about current ethical norms for research practice, but also draw on the accumulated experience of faculty and staff about practical problems of research conduct, and help to make faculty more articulate about responsible research conduct and so better able to guide their trainees. By working with departments or laboratories as a whole the method facilitates the formulation of specific norms appropriate to particular research situations and to strengthen the group’s ability to support appropriate behavior and deal with new issues as they arise. It also gives students more ways to ask questions about research practice and to benefit from the experience of all members of their department or group as well as their own research supervisors. The method is well tested and has been well received by a wide variety of departments and research groups. It provides the means for a constructive and enjoyable response to the Public Health Service’s (PHS) new Policy on Instruction in the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) that requires education in the responsible conduct of research for all those funded by PHS funds, including faculty and staff as well as trainees. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a National Science Foundation sponsored conference on Mentoring and Research Values: Students as Vital Human Resources, Chicago, IL, USA, March 1995.     

The concept of risk and responsible conduct of research

Assessment of risk is one of the key issues in the field of responsible conduct of research which covers discourses of research ethics and research integrity. The principle of minimizing risks and balancing of risks and benefits is one of the main requirements of research ethics. In addition, the content of informed consent that is another fundamental principle of research ethics derives from the assessment of risks and benefits related to a particular research project. Risk assessment also plays a crucial role in methodological design of the research project. This is an important point where research ethics and research integrity discourses overlap. Firstly, because the choice of a control group (e.g., placebo control) is a key ethical issue related to the protection of the research subjects' interests. Secondly, because the quality of the research data, that is one of the key elements of research integrity, is closely connected to the choice of research methodology as well. The problem of biased interpretation or manipulation of risk related features of biomedical research should also be taken into account. Despite the importance of the concept of risk to the field of biomedical research, its relevance has not yet attracted a sufficient attention in the responsible conduct of research debate.     

Effectiveness of a responsible conduct of research course: a preliminary study

Training in the responsible conduct of research (RCR) is required for many research trainees nationwide, but little is known about its effectiveness. For a preliminary assessment of the effectiveness of a short-term course in RCR, medical students participating in an NIH-funded summer research program at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) were surveyed using an instrument developed through focus group discussions. In the summer of 2003, surveys were administered before and after a short-term RCR course, as well as to alumni of the courses given in the summers of 2002 and 2001. Survey responses were analyzed in the areas of knowledge, ethical decision-making skills, attitudes about responsible conduct of research, and frequency of discussions about RCR outside of class. The only statistically significant improvement associated with the course was an increase in knowledge, while there was a non-significant tendency toward improvements in ethical decision-making skills and attitudes about the importance of RCR training. The nominal impact of a short-term training course should not be surprising, but it does raise the possibility that other options for delivering information only, such as an Internet-based tutorial, might be considered as comparable alternatives when longer courses are not possible.     

Mentors, advisors and supervisors: Their role in teaching responsible research conduct

Although the terms mentor and thesis advisor (or research supervisor) are often used interchangeably, the responsibilities associated with these roles are distinct, even when they overlap. Neither are role models necessarily mentors, though mentors are role models: good examples are necessary but not sufficient. Mentorship is both a personal and a professional relationship. It has the potential for raising a number of ethical concerns, including issues of accuracy and reliability of the information conveyed, access, stereotyping and tracking of advisees, and the abuse of power. Nevertheless, mentors can be critically important for professional success and are one of a number of elements that affect the responsible conduct of research. In addition, the community as a whole has a responsibility to mentor junior members. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a conference sponsored by the National Science Foundation on Mentoring and Research Values: Students as Vital Human Resources, Chicago, USA, March 1995.     

Using electronic discussion boards to teach responsible conduct of research

This study presents the results of a survey of student satisfaction with electronic discussion boards in a course on the responsible conduct of research (RCR). On a 1–5 scale, the respondents stated that the use of the electronic discussion board was an effective teaching tool (4.71), that it enabled them to get feedback from their peers (4.43), that it helped promote discussion and debate (4.36), that it helped them learn how to analyze ethical dilemmas in research (4.36), and that they would consider using an electronic discussion board, if they ever taught a course themselves (4.76). In their written comments, the respondents indicated that electronic discussion boards are a convenient way of promoting debate and in-depth discussion. These results suggest, but do not prove, that discussion boards can promote debate and discussion in courses on research ethics. Instructors who teach RCR should consider using electronic discussion boards in regular or online courses, and they should consider studying the effectiveness of electronic discussion boards in research ethics education. Although electronic discussion boards cannot replace the face-to-face interaction that occurs in a classroom setting, they may provide a useful medium for the exchange of ideas and opinions online.     

Six domains of research ethics. A heuristic framework for the responsible conduct of research

The purpose of this paper is to provide a simple yet comprehensive organizing scheme for the responsible conduct of research (RCR). The heuristic offered here should prove helpful in research ethics education, where the many and heterogeneous elements of RCR can be bewildering, as well as research into research integrity and efforts to form RCR policy and regulations. The six domains are scientific integrity, collegiality, protection of human subjects, animal welfare, institutional integrity, and social responsibility.     

Student perceptions of the effectiveness of education in the responsible conduct of research

Responsible conduct of research (RCR) courses are widely taught, but little is known about the purposes or effectiveness of such courses. As one way to assess the purposes of these courses, students were surveyed about their perspectives after recent completion of one of eleven different research ethics courses at ten different institutions. Participants (undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and faculty, staff and researchers) enrolled in RCR courses in spring and fall of 2003 received a voluntary, anonymous survey from their instructors at the completion of the course. Responses were received from 268 participants. Seventy-seven percent of open-ended responses listed specific kinds of information learned; only a few respondents talked about changes in skills or attitudes. The perception that courses did more to provide information than to foster skills or attitudes was verified in quantitative responses (P<0.0001). Over 75% of the respondents specifically noted that courses were useful in preparing them to recognize, avoid, and respond to research misconduct. The two principal findings of this multi-institutional study are that respondents reported: (1) a wide variety of positive outcomes for research ethics courses, but that (2) the impact on knowledge was greater than that for changes in skills or attitudes.     

Effects of training in the responsible conduct of research: A survey of graduate students in experimental sciences

In recent years, programs for training in research ethics have become widespread, but very little has been done to assess the effectiveness of this training. Because initial studies have failed to demonstrate a positive impact of research ethics training, this project defined two new outcome variables to be tested in a sample of graduate students at the University of California, San Diego. Trainees were surveyed to assess the role of ethics training in altering their perceptions about their own standards, or their knowledge of options available to them if faced with ethical problems that might arise in conducting and reporting research. In response to a mailing of 505 anonymous questionnaires, 283 replies were received. Similar to previous studies, perceptions of standards were not significantly affected by hours spent in informal discussions about research ethics, in attending courses on research ethics, or in discussions of case studies. However, self-reported knowledge of options for facing research ethics problems was significantly increased in association with increased hours of discussion, class time, or case study discussion. Taken together, this study emphasizes the need for increased attention to the definition and assessment of the goals of research ethics training.     

Promoting responsible conduct: Striving for change rather than consensus

I believe that the ASBMB and the SFN, as well as many scientific, engineering, and other professional societies have taken the right first step. They have taken some responsibility for providing guidelines to their members and others working in related areas. This is how it should be. If professional guidelines are to be meaningful, they must be defined in large part by the practitioners. Yet, having agreed that we need professional societies to become involved, we now must determine the nature of that involvement. I hope that a comparison of the ASBMB and SFN documents will serve to illustrate the differences between two approaches. I cannot be sure that one is better than the other. But I do believe that we should not, cannot, avoid the details. I also believe that to affect change one needs to capture the attention of the audience and to promote active thought—discussion if possible, controversy if necessary. And change is what we need.     

Mentoring and the impact of the research climate

In this article, we focus on the mentoring process, and we argue that the internal and external pressures extant at research universities may create a research culture that may be antithetical to appropriate mentoring. We developed a scale based on motivation theory to determine the perceived research culture in departments and research laboratories, and a mentoring scale to determine approaches to mentoring graduate students. Participants were 610 faculty members across 49 departments at a research oriented university. The findings were that a mastery-oriented research climate and an outcome-oriented research climate were manifested at the university. More importantly, each research climate had its own unique impact on how the faculty approached mentoring graduate students. A mastery research climate was related to a more supportive approach to mentoring than the outcome research climate. We concluded by suggesting that the outcome research climate may have an adverse effect on effective mentoring and on maintaining research ethics.     

Presidential reflections. Past and future

Key federal health initiatives and psychology's participation in public policy are briefly reviewed. There has long been agreement that psychologists have a responsibility to affirmatively address society's pressing needs, not only in health care but in other areas that affect the well being of society. The behavioral sciences are key to the United States' science and health policy in the 21st century. The unanswered question is, Has the field matured sufficiently to establish its own programmatic agenda via the public policy process? Community health, lifestyle choices, psychologically managed pharmacological treatment, and the use of telecommunications technology in education and treatment are areas in which psychology can contribute a great deal to the development of a healthier society.     

Clinical Pastoral Education: reflections on the past and future of a movement

In the year 2000, the celebration of seventy-five years of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) in the United States included attention to the history of the movement. A history of the past twenty-five years of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) was published, plus several regional histories. This article grows out of the author's study of the history of the Northeast Region of ACPE in the context of the history of the Clinical Pastoral Education movement. The focus of this article is "the vision question"; that is, "What has happened to the visions of clinical training that were important in the beginning of the movement?" The history of the relations of clinical training to theological education is traced from the beginnings of CPE to the present time, with special emphasis on developments in the Northeast. Two implications of this historical review for the future of the movement are suggested.     

Some suggestions for the conduct of biographical research

Despite the strong and growing interest in biography, few psychologists engage in such studies themselves or feel competent to supervise them. Yet biography is a naturalistic form of empirical research and a rich source of ideas about the development of the individual across the life span. I offer a set of five suggestions for the conduct of biographical research and illustrate its use with examples drawn from archival and biographical interviewing studies. Three of the five suggestions concern the selection, presentation, and interpretation of data, areas where the psychologist's concern about investigator bias and reliability of interpretation has been greatest.