| NSF Org: |
SES Division of Social and Economic Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | September 6, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 20, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1635661 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Wenda K. Bauchspies
wbauchsp@nsf.gov (703)292-5034 SES Division of Social and Economic Sciences SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2016 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2021 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $335,800.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $335,800.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
10 W 35TH ST CHICAGO IL US 60616-3717 (312)567-3035 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
3241 S. Federal Street Hermann H Chicago IL US 60616-3793 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Cultivating Cultures of Ethica |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): | |
| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.075 |
ABSTRACT
Non-technical: This award by the Cultivating Cultures for Ethical STEM program aims at situating responsible research and practice education within the research environment, and involving whole departments. This award is funded by the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences and cofounded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences. The approach will target both the organizational context in that it aims at modifications in the respective departments, and the peer environment in that it makes the discussion of ethical issues a regular part of research practice. The project will be an important component in building a more comprehensive bottom-up program of ethics education that will complement existing education tools addressing responsible conduct of research (RCR). The interactive exercises and discussions proposed in the guideline-development module will help to both reinforce and broaden the knowledge obtained in existing RCR courses and online training modules, as well as helping researchers to both recognize ethical issues and foster ethical practice in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Furthermore, the project will provide ideas of how existing ethics codes can better consider responsible conduct and practice in laboratory environments and will suggest ways to modify current codes of ethics in order to better serve the needs of researchers working in laboratory settings.
Technical: The project will identify factors relevant to ethically responsible undertaking of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and cultivate the building of an ethical research and practice culture in experimental laboratories through the bottom-up development of context specific ethical guidelines. The guidelines will address ethical issues specific to the organization for which they are developed and complement existing, more general codes of ethics and guidelines. In a process that involves research into existing discipline-specific codes and guidelines, exposure to ethical theory, and free discussion and interaction between stakeholders, the laboratory guidelines will be developed by groups of graduate students, discussed with students, faculty and staff, and ideally finally adopted within the respective departments. The process of developing these guidelines will cultivate a high level of ownership in participating students, and help make the guidelines an integral part of lab culture used in the orientation of new lab members. The approach has the potential to bring about lasting change in the ethical culture of experimental laboratories that can be passed on to future students entering the labs. An extensive assessment plan includes evaluation tools that monitor the rate of adoption and adherence levels and the influence on lab culture over time related to the proposed strategy within participating labs and departments. The inclusion of an ethnographic study in the project will bring to light the evolving process of cultural and ethical change. Based on the results obtained, a broadly applicable module that guides institutions in the bottom-up building of codes-of-ethics-based guidelines will be developed, refined and disseminated widely. The final guideline-development module will include a guide for measuring ethical lab culture, assessment of results, and strategies for continuing free discussions of this kind. It will be made available for other institutions including community colleges to use as part of lab orientation, workshops, or other formats.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
?Building a Culture of Responsible Research in STEM? focused on bringing research ethics education out of the classroom and into the research environment. The project asked STEM students engaged in research in a series of workshops to develop discipline and laboratory-specific ethical guidelines to help resolve ethical issues that arise in the course of research. The project?s goal was to positively influence researchers? understanding of ethical research and practice issues, enhance their handling of these issues, and promote an ethical culture in their respective labs and across campus.
During the project, the project team ran six workshop series at the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Texas at San Antonio involving graduate students from various disciplines. The final guidelines developed by the students address various ethical topics ranging from more traditional RCR topics (data management, authorship, human and animal research subjects) to guidance for handling interpersonal relationships between students and between faculty and students. Topics falling in this category included equity, fairness, and inclusion, challenges faced by minority students and international students, and developing a shared understanding of responsibilities and expectations between supervisors and students. Students also discussed how they could play a more prominent role in shaping ethics education and ethical cultures in research environments. One suggestion that appeared several times was to form an ethics committee made up of graduate students and faculty that could collaboratively address ethical challenges a department faces.
Along with developing the workshop series, the project team completed a literature review, a university-wide survey, and a series of 30 interviews with graduate students engaged in research. The results indicate that while all community members tend to view issues classified as research misconduct as the most important activities to avoid, lab members rarely discussed or witnessed these kinds of issues. The study points to a consensus among students and faculty about the critical ethical issues in STEM and the need for more discussion and attention to be paid to issues of communication, collaboration, and interpersonal relationships in the research environment. Data from the student interviews also points to the vital role that research supervisors play in shaping the ethical culture of labs. These studies also help identify critical features of labs that successfully build solid and collaborative relationships among researchers. Our research points to the need for open communication between faculty and students that explores stakeholders? cultural norms, standards, expectations, and responsibilities in the research process. In the current competitive, quick-paced research environment, few opportunities for these kinds of discussion emerge. Interventions such as our workshop series create such space and provide a format for starting thesecrucialt conversations.
The project team has put together an instructor?s guide that includes slides, handouts, and other materials for labs and departments interested in running a version of this workshop series. This approach was also shared during a two-day workshop held in April of 2021 titled ?Building Inclusive Ethical Cultures in STEM: A Virtual, Practice-Based Workshop.? The workshop featured seventeen projects worldwide that sought to share best practices to effectively engage students and faculty working in research labs and lab-based classrooms to build inclusive, ethical cultures. Finally, participants in the workshop have been invited to submit a chapter for a collected volume looking at new and emerging methods for building inclusive, ethical cultures in STEM to be published by Springer. Findings from this project have also been shared in academic journal articles, conferences, and webinars.
Laas, Kelly, Stephanie Taylor, Christine Z. Miller, Eric M. Brey & Elisabeth Hildt (2021). “Views on ethical issues in research labs: A university-wide survey.” Accountability in Research, DOI: 10.1080/08989621.2021.1910503
Laas, Kelly, Christine Miller, Eric Brey, Elisabeth Hildt and Stephanie Taylor. (2021) “Infusing Ethics in Research Groups: A bottom-up, context-specific approach.” Advances in Engineering Education. 8 (3).
Hildt, Elisabeth, Kelly Laas, Christine Miller, Stephanie Taylor and Eric Brey. (2019). “Empowering Graduate Students to Address Ethics in Research Environment.” Cambridge Quarterly of HealthCare Ethics. 28(3): 542-550. DOI: 10.1017/S096318011900046X
Last Modified: 11/04/2021
Modified by: Kelly Laas
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