Scientific misconduct: Present problems and future trends

Substantial progress in handling scientific misconduct cases has been made since the first cases were investigated by the NIH Office of Scientific Integrity in 1989. The successor Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has simultaneously reduced the backlog of cases and increased the professionalism with which they are handled. However, a spate of lawsuits against universities, particularly those brought under the federal False Claims Act, threatens to undermine the ORI by encouraging use of the courts as an alternate route for resolving claims of research misconduct. Next steps should include establishing a government-wide definition of scientific misconduct, providing immunity from lawsuits for institutions that follow proper procedures in investigating charges of scientific misconduct, and participating in the development of international guidelines for maintaining scientific integrity. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the symposium entitled “Misconduct in Science: A Decade of Progress or Merely Years of Controversy” held during the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 13 February, 1998.     

Relational Considerations in the Use of Influence Tactics1

It is proposed that the existing relationship between the influencing agent and the target of influence plays a central role in the choice of using hard and soft influence tactics. In a field study, 3 key aspects of the relation between agent and target were examined, and the results generally supported our hypotheses. First, the more unfairly people felt they were treated, the more often they wielded influence, especially using harder influence tactics. Second, the better the influencing agent liked the target, the relatively less often he or she used hard tactics. Finally, the more the influencing agent felt dependent upon the target, the fewer influence tactics, both hard and soft, were used. The discussion focuses on both the practical and theoretical implications of these findings.     

Narcotics Use Among Miami's Public School Students, 1992: No Restraints

This analysis examines narcotics use by 464 adolescents in Dade County, Florida public schools during 1992. Significant factors that tend to increase the probability of narcotics use include peer use of narcotics, that they are White, that they are male, and that they tend to be good students.     

An analysis and replication of the Add-A-Word Spelling Program with mildly handicapped middle school students

The effects of the Add-A-Word Spelling Program was examined in two experiments with mildly handicapped middle school students. In Experiment I, the Add-A-Word program with daily testing of small word lists; drill through the copy, cover, and compare method; a high level of mastery before words were removed from the student's list; and reappearance of mastered words, was evaluated with a multiple baseline design across three students. The data indicated improved performance on daily spelling tests when the Add-A-Word system was implemented. The purpose of Experiment II was to compare the Add-A-Word spelling program to the more traditional Monday Pre- and end of the week Posttest spelling procedures found in most classrooms. The comparisons were made in a counterbalanced multiple baseline design across six students. The students' overall accuracy in spelling was higher during the Add-A-Word Program than during either Baseline (daily testing) or the Preand Posttest systems. However, student's spelling scores were also higher during the Pre-Posttest procedure than during the Baseline condition. Benefits of the Add-A-Word spelling program for middle school students were discussed.     

Software for advanced ANOVA courses: A survey

In response to a survey of faculty regarding their commercial software preferences for advanced analysis of variance courses, it was found that the most frequently used packages were SAS, SPSS^x, and BMDP, all originally mainframe packages. The fourth choice, SYSTAT, was written for microcomputers but is currently also available for other host computers. Difficulty for students was the most frequently cited reason fornot using one of these four packages. The most important criteria for choosing software packages were variety of designs, accuracy, and ease of use. Cost was a factor only for microcomputer licenses. Packages using the general linear model approach were paramount to some, while others would not consider such packages. Instructors decried the lack of the “ideal program,” but the diversity of their desires makes it clear that no program could be ideal for all of them. Many faculty seemed unaware of newer software packages or of the extent to which older packages (particularly Minitab) have been modified; some had their choices constrained by departmental limitations. Better dissemination of information about statistical software is needed, whether it be from software publishers or through the professional literature.     

Are children reliable reporters?

Fifty children, ranging in age from 6 to 16 years, and their mothers were interviewed using the same structured interview, which in its content follows the usual psychiatric examination of a child. Their answers were compared and it was found that there was an 80% average agreement on all questions. The agreement (between child and parent) was highest on questions relating to factual information (84%) and the agreement (between child's interviewer and parent) was lowest in the section dealing with mental status (69%). Girls were more reliable informants than boys.     

The preschool child's perception of adult approval in “nondirective” statements

Twenty children of nursery school age participated in a study of adult approval/ disapproval as conveyed by nondirective statements relating to play aggression. Though all sentences were tape recorded in a neutral voice, 10 of 15 conveyed disapproval in a significant proportion of judgments. All statements explicitly mentioning aggression were judged disapproving. It was concluded that nondirective play therapists must convey acceptance through other modes in order to avoid suppressing aggressive play.     

Patterning of the minority's responses and their influence on the majority

In reaction to the decades of research that tended to assume that social influence is synonymous with conformity, recent work has concentrated on the ability of a minority, by having a system of answers of its own, to influence the majority in the direction of their judgments. A study by Moscovici, Lage and Naffrechoux (1969) demonstrated this phenomenon but found that consistency of response, in the sense of repetition, was necessary for minority influence to be effected. They assumed that repetition was necessary to give the minority judgment the same value as that of the majority and to intensify the conflict that was engendered by the differences in opinion. Our position is that the lack of repetition in that study was construed to mean that the minority did not really have a position in which they were confident. As such, they were discounted. Thus, it is the attribution of consistency and confidence that leads to minority influence, not intensification of the conflict. The present study found that non-repetitious behavior by a minority could be seen as reflecting consistency and confidence and could lead to minority influence provided the inconsistency was patterned with some property of the stimulus. Such ‘inconsistency’ was perceived as favorable and as effective as any other condition and even more effective than one of the repetitious conditions.     

Eye fixations in prediction of recognition and recall

Eye fixations were recorded at viewing of picture-label stimuli presented under either recall or recognition instructions; both retention tests were administered. Ss performed substantially better on the retention test of which they were informed, indicating differential encoding of the same stimuli in anticipation of test type. There was no correlation between recognition and recall of items, evidence that different information from the encoded stimuli was utilized in performing each test. Encoding strategies had no effect on how Ss regarded the stimuli, but viewing patterns were related to memory performance: More word fixations was associated with better verbal recall, while fewer picture fixations was associated with better recall and with better picture recognition.