How Early-Career and Experienced Researchers Construe Academic Wrongdoings: A Repertory Grid Study

Abstract

The present paper investigates how early-career and experienced researchers construe or mentally represent academic wrongdoings. Particularly, early-career researchers are believed to be at risk of committing academic wrongdoings and have a crucial role in forming future research environments. Instead of employing self-reported survey data, a cognitive mapping methodology called the repertory grid technique (RGT) (Kelly, 1955) is applied to dig further into the underlying phenomena. Academic research integrity is a topic where clear definitions of safe behavior and misbehavior, the latter especially covering Questionable Researched Practices (QRPs) are lacking. This lack of clarity leads to misunderstandings amongst researchers about what is (not) allowed. Hence the need for studies exploring researchers’ real construal or mental models of academic wrongdoings. 63 researchers (early-career and experienced researchers) from major Belgian universities were interviewed using the repertory grid technique. Results indicate that there is a shift going on in researchers’ perception of QRPs. Both early-career and experienced researchers consider honorary authorship, duplicate publication, failing to present data that contradicts one’s research, and overlooking others’ misbehaviors not as really “damaging“ academic wrongdoings. Especially early-career researchers construed honorary authorship and overlooking others’ misbehaviors as innocent. These misbehaviors tend to be considered ‘normal misbehavior’ which might undermine academic integrity and the trust in academic research. Knowing what is considered as ‘normal misbehavior’ is pertinent with a view to fostering research integrity. Hence this study is helpful for defining academic integrity enablers. Practical suggestions are given to remove the laxity about ‘normal misbehavior’.