Abstract
IntroductionIn this study, we tested a simple, active “ethical consistency” intervention aimed at reducing researchers’ endorsement of questionable research practices (QRPs).MethodsWe developed a simple, active ethical consistency intervention and tested it against a control using an established QRP survey instrument. Before responding to a survey that asked about attitudes towards each of fifteen QRPs, participants were randomly assigned to either a consistency or control 3–5-min writing task. A total of 201 participants completed the survey: 121 participants were recruited from a database of currently funded NSF/NIH scientists, and 80 participants were recruited from a pool of active researchers at a large university medical center in the southeastern US. Narrative responses to the writing prompts were coded and analyzed to assist post hoc interpretation of the quantitative data.ResultsWe hypothesized that participants in the consistency condition would find ethically ambiguous QRPs less defensible and would indicate less willingness to engage in them than participants in the control condition. The results showed that the consistency intervention had no significant effect on respondents’ reactions regarding the defensibility of the QRPs or their willingness to engage in them. Exploratory analyses considering the narrative themes of participants’ responses indicated that participants in the control condition expressed lower perceptions of QRP defensibility and willingness.ConclusionThe results did not support the main hypothesis, and the consistency intervention may have had the unwanted effect of inducing increased rationalization. These results may partially explain why RCR courses often seem to have little positive effect.
Highlights
In this study, we tested a simple, active “ethical consistency” intervention aimed at reducing researchers’ endorsement of questionable research practices (QRPs)
While the prevalence of QRPs in the fields of psychology and medicine have received the most scrutiny [8,9,10], evidence of pervasive QRP use is emerging in disciplines as otherwise disparate as ecology, evolutionary biology, economics, communication science, and environmental toxicology [11,12,13,14]
Willingness No difference emerged between the consistency (M = 2.83, SD = 0.93) and control conditions (M = 2.63, SD = 0.94) in willingness to engage in QRPs, t(198) = 1.50, p = 0.134, d = 0.21, 95% CI [− 0.06, 0.46], MDiff = 0.20
Summary
We tested a simple, active “ethical consistency” intervention aimed at reducing researchers’ endorsement of questionable research practices (QRPs). Over the past several years, scientists have become increasingly concerned about the prevalence of questionable research practices (QRPs) in published scientific research. Referred to as detrimental research practices [1], QRPs are common, often problematic, research behaviors that are typically ethically more ambiguous than data fabrication or falsification but adversely impact the scientific literature (for a more rigorous definition, see [2]). A prominent narrative, frequently encountered in both scientific publications and in the popular press, is that science is in crisis, beset by widespread problems of bias and lack of reproducibility and replication, problems that are at least partly attributable to the prevalence of QRPs. In a 2016 survey of 1500 scientists, 52% of respondents agreed with this conclusion [15]
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