Developing Ethical Researchers

Developing Ethical Researchers: How Learning Environments and Strategies Support the Ethical Development of Graduate Students Research ethics education, or instruction that promotes acceptable behavior among those who conduct research or other scholarly activity, has gained prominence in higher education over the past two decades since major federal funding agencies began issuing educational mandates in response to mounting concerns about misconduct in research (Kalichman, 2013). Despite recent attempts to clarify the goals of instruction in the responsible conduct of research (RCR) and the best methods to achieve those goals, compliance with requirements of major federal agencies often dictates the form of ethics education rather than pedagogical strategies that engage students and generate ethical commitment. Critics of RCR education based on a compliance strategy claim that such programs often rely too heavily on content delivery through direct instruction instead of more learner-centered approaches. The purpose of this study is to explore the learning environments (the physical location and context in which students learn) and strategies (self-generated approaches to learning about ethics) that graduate students perceive as supporting their ethical development. The central concept of ethical development refers to how students come to recognize multiple, conflicting versions of morality through qualitative changes in the complexity of their thinking. As such, the study draws upon the work of Perry (1998), whose schema of intellectual and ethical development suggests that adult learners move from viewing knowledge in “dualistic” terms of right vs. wrong to stages of “multiplicity” where knowledge is viewed as a matter of opinion and eventually to an acceptance of knowledge as “relativistic,” when they learn to weigh evidence in the creation of a personal worldview. This type of qualitative change in the complexity of learners’ thinking aligns with the notion of deep learning as a crucial educational outcome of ethics education, in which learners develop long-term ethical commitments rather than adopt surface learning approaches focused on meeting minimum compliance requirements (Biggs, 1987). Using an instrumental case study design, the study applies mixed methods to examine graduate student preferences for specific aspects of the classroom learning environment shown to be associated with increasing complexity on the Perry scheme of intellectual and ethical development. A purposive sample is comprised of graduate students who have earned RCR certification at a Carnegie-designated Research 1 university in the southwest United States. Students complete a quantitative instrument known as the Learning Environment Preferences (LEP) to provide demographic data and establish a baseline measure across five different content domains: view of knowledge/learning, role of the instructor, role of the student/peers, classroom atmosphere/activities, and role of evaluation/grading (Moore, 2017). Since the LEP focuses exclusively on earlier stages of dualism and multiplicity, semi-structured interviews are then conducted to qualitatively explore students’ learning preferences in relation to the complexity of the more advanced, relativistic stages of ethical development. Findings from this study will advance understanding of the critical aspects of teaching and learning environments that promote deep learning and qualitative changes in the complexity of student thinking, contributing to the growing body of knowledge about what constitutes engaging, learner-centered research ethics education. References Biggs, J. (1987). Student approaches to learning and studying. Hawthorne, Victoria (Australia): Australian Council for Educational Research. Kalichman, M. (2013). A brief history of RCR education. Accountability in Research, 20, 380-394. Moore, W. S. (2017). The Learning Environment Preferences: An instrument manual. Olympia, Washington: Center for the Study of Intellectual Development. Perry, W. G. Jr. (1998). Forms of intellectual and ethical development in the college years: A scheme. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (Originally published in 1970. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston).