Scientific Integrity and Ethics in the Geosciences

Linda C. Gundersen

• Publisher: American Geophysical Union
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781119067689
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Science & Technology

Science is built on trust. The assumption is that scientists will conduct their work with integrity, honesty, and a strict adherence to scientific protocols. Written by geoscientists for geoscientists, Scientific Integrity and Ethics in the Geosciences acquaints readers with the fundamental principles of scientific ethics and shows how they apply to everyday work in the classroom, laboratory, and field. Resources are provided throughout to help discuss and implement principles of scientific integrity and ethics.

Volume highlights include:

• Examples of international and national codes and policies
• Exploration of the role of professional societies in scientific integrity and ethics
• References to scientific integrity and ethics in publications and research data
• Discussion of science integrity, ethics, and geoethics in education
• Extensive coverage of data applications

Scientific Integrity and Ethics in the Geosciences is a valuable resource for students, faculty, instructors, and scientists in the geosciences and beyond. It is also useful for geoscientists working in industry, government, and policymaking. Read an interview with the editors to find out more:
https://eos.org/editors-vox/ethics-crucial-for-the-future-of-the-geosciences

Section V:
Scientific Integrity, Ethics, and Geoethics in Education

12.
EXPERIENTIAL ETHICS EDUCATION

Vance S. Martin and Donna C. Tonini

National Center for Professional & Research Ethics, University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign, Illinois, USA

Abstract

Throughout human history most people have learned in an experiential way, as observers of and participants in their local environments. While many learners and practitioners across the globe consider “modern” education as a teacher‐led, textbook‐based method of learning, delivered en masse, that approach has only been in practice for about the last 150 years. However, this form of education has been criticized for not infusing the learning environment with experience. Dewey (1938) considered experience as central to the educational process, and Freire (1970) encouraged active participation in learners as opposed to being passive receptors of knowledge. Both educators espoused using the community as a schoolhouse from which to gain and share experience. Drawing on the idea of a “community of practice”, Lave and Wenger, 1991 offer a modern update to apprenticeship, framing “Legitimate Peripheral Participation” as a means by which new learners gain experience. A learner begins as an observer and minor actor (apprentice), and then progress to a more involved actor‐participant level (journeyman), before they become a full‐fledged participant (master) in the craft. Parents view a similar process as children go through developmental stages towards adulthood. As academics, we experience similar stages as graduate students progress from their first class to their dissertation to their first post‐doctoral job. However, what are graduate students learning as they progress through a doctoral program? Certainly they are learning content as they progress towards mastery. Yet, it is one thing to learn content, and another thing to learn how to apply knowledge and skills in a responsible and ethical manner. In the past, the tendency of those in both the hard and soft sciences to reproduce studies and publish in refereed journals offered a check and balance to research and scholarship, lending a self‐correcting nature to the field. However, the growth of PhDs in these fields coupled with the intensifying pressure to publish to stay competitive in both academia and industry has resulted in an increase in undesirable research related behaviors, which risk a loss of legitimacy and credibility in the sciences. High levels of undesirable research behavior and high‐profile cases of research misconduct threaten research integrity and “damage to institutions’ reputations, and loss of public trust in the research process” (Martinson, Thrush & Crain, 2013, p. 2). Academia, industry, and the public they serve all stand to benefit from a rigorous and systematic incorporation of ethics into the programs, products, and mindsets of all stakeholders involved in the research process. The question is, how do these stakeholders, especially graduate students master the inculcation of ethics into their approach towards their studies? Mumford (2007, 2008) discusses a 2 day ethical training program which yielded long‐term retention of the ethical material. This experiment was conducted on first year graduate students who showed retention over 6 months. In this article we will propose Mumford’s work as a basis for the ethical content which graduate students should learn. We will then discuss applicable learning theories to describe the potential best way to convey the material, initially and over time. We will finally examine the importance and potential of creating an ethical culture within the university.

12.1. Introduction

As researchers in an ethics center, my colleague and I were recently required to update our institutional review board (IRB) training online, the renewal of which is mandated every three years. As we were making our way through bland text and staid examples, we realized that we were not really internalizing any of the lessons. It was not that the screens were conveying information that was useless; rather, it was being delivered in a way that did not resonate with our situations and experiences. Instead of cultivating a passion for ethical practice and culture, it was driving us to click through the boxes as quickly as possible to “get through it and renew it.” It occurred to us that if academic institutions wanted to inculcate the practice of ethics into researchers’ and scholars’ everyday approach toward their fields and their work, a connection between ethical theory and practice needed to be made through the use of experiential teaching methods that link theoretical grounding to the lived experiences of the learners. Niemi [2015], in his paper “Six Challenges for Ethical Conduct in Science,” echoes that thinking, stating:

As all experienced teachers know, just presenting important learning contents to students is far from guaranteeing that they will be remembered a month later. We need to make sure that the importance of these challenges “sinks in” and this can best be achieved by creating situations in which students encounter them in personal and concrete ways (p. 14).

It is our intent to explore ways of teaching and learning ethics that do encourage the subject matter to “sink in,” ensuring that lessons are better understood, retained, and carried out in practice as students progress in their careers.

The field of research ethics is complex and spans the responsible conduct of research, including human subjects protection, the ethical treatment of animals, and ethical use of research to benefit the greater good and avoid harm to others. The need for the creation of an ethical culture spans all fields and departments, regardless of discipline or institutional setting. Thus, this piece has applicability to all fields that have ethical components, be they social or natural science disciplines that date back thousands of years, or newer sciences that are emerging and being established as new fields of study.

For this chapter we were asked to write about how to think about educating researchers on ethics in the new field. We envisioned this as the opportunity to start from scratch, thinking about some of the current work we have been involved in and coupling this with educational literature to ground it. In creating a new area of study, such as the geosciences, it is desirable to develop an internal culture of ethical behavior, as well as an ethical outlook on global problems. Knowledge and self‐understanding of participants is also needed in addition to content and pedagogy. In cultivating this internal culture of ethical behavior, we will explore how the use of experiential teaching methods achieves those aims. In this essay we will first discuss learning theory and how the experiences of graduate students and academics influence how they will act and behave. This chapter will then examine various methods for teaching ethics by reviewing both current practice and literature. We will conclude with insight from our work at the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics (NCPRE) and provide recommendations on the teaching of ethics education.

The modern educational system in the United States, and much of the world, can be characterized as a tri‐level system of elementary, secondary, and higher education. Elementary and secondary schooling is mandatory for all children in the United States, while higher education is reserved for a subset of those who graduate from secondary school. Prior to this system, which has been in effect for about 150 years, there were schools and tutors, but they were often limited to a very small minority of either promising students or children of the elite.

Today when we discuss how best to teach something, we often think of this tri‐level system and a setting with an expert who controls the time, content, and delivery of information. Educational debate often centers on discussions of how best to use the time, what content should be conveyed, or how to deliver the information.

An area that is discussed far less frequently is how people learn most effectively, not just within a prescribed school setting but overall. There are other ways of thinking about education beyond the modes of learning that occur inside of compulsory education. One of these is what Lave and Wenger [1991] refer to as legitimate peripheral participation, which focuses on the learning that occurs within a social setting, whether hierarchical or peer. An individual who is a novice is placed in a situation with one or more experts, and through observation and practice over time begins to become an expert. This approach has been a time‐honored tradition as an apprenticeship model for blacksmiths, woodworkers, printers, and other tradespeople, as well as professionals such as physicians. While we may see this method of learning as a remnant of the past, parents raise their children in this manner by modeling behavior and expecting their progeny to follow their example. Teachers are also trained using an apprentice‐type model, whereas they observe master teachers during their first few years of training, and nearing graduation, take over a classroom for a semester or more under the guidance of a master teacher. Professional academics also go from novice graduate student to master professor over their careers, through observation of advisors, participation in research, and peer interaction.

This layering, building, or scaffolding of knowledge has been an area of study for educational psychologists for many years. Attempting to understand how knowledge is “built” has been a grea...

Table of contents

• COVER
• TITLE PAGE
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• CONTRIBUTOR LIST
• PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• Section I: Examples of Recently Developed International and National Codes and Policies
• Section II: The Role of Geoscience Professional Societies in Scientific Integrity and Ethics
• Section III: Scientific Integrity and Ethics in Publications and Data
• Section IV: Ethical Values and Geoethics
• Section V: Scientific Integrity, Ethics, and Geoethics in Education
• Appendix A: CASE STUDIES FOR SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY AND GEOETHICS PRACTICE
• Appendix B: RESOURCES AND REFERENCES FOR SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY, ETHICS, AND GEOETHICS
• Index
• End User License Agreement