In the Classroom
Student-Centered Use of Case Studies Incorporating Oral and Writing Skills To Explore Scientific Ethical Misconduct Ingrid Montes,* Adriana Padilla, Atenaida Maldonado, and Solymar Negretti Department of Chemistry, University of Puerto Rico–Río Piedras, Río Piedras, PR 00931-3346; *
[email protected] For many years ethical misconduct has been a long endured and difficult to address issue in the scientific community. Professional ethics are not to be confused with morality because each profession has an agreement with society (1). Scientists, in particular, can facilitate and shape progress and essential changes in society. Scientific ethical misconduct and its cover-up are often not only disturbing and time consuming, it is also a barrier to progress (2). As the 21st century continues to unfold, scientists carry the burden of past judgment while looking for the solutions for tomorrow. Teaching Ethics in Science Courses Roald Hoffmann, the 1981 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, uses his latest play Should’ve as a means to present the ethical dimensions of science. Responding to a question of whether a code of conduct was necessary he replied (3): Yes, I believe that an ethical code of research is necessary, for all scientists. Scientists are not born with ethics, nor is science ethically neutral. I think courses in ethics, or better still, discussion groups, based on case studies, should be part of education of all scientists, and also that discussion should be continued throughout life, even for experienced scientists.
As Hoffman states, ethics are not innate, and therefore scientists, like any other professionals, cannot be expected to react to situations of misconduct if they are unsure as to what it really constitutes, especially in situations where misconduct is hard to identify and address (3). When should scientific ethics be taught, and how? Values, morality, and basic rules of conduct are taught at an early age in contemporary society. As professionals we should articulate as well as model the rules to be followed from an early time. Undergraduate-level educators are equipping future professionals, and therefore, are partly responsible for students’ perceptions of scientific misconduct as well as their understanding of the definition and consequences of scientific misconduct and how to deal with it properly. Universities cannot rely on course content as the sole formative professional development because, traditionally, ethics has not been part of the curriculum (4). The Revised ACS Guidelines for Undergraduate Chemistry Programs indicate the importance of students conducting themselves ethically, and being aware of
Subjects
List 1. Ethics Topics and Corresponding Case Studies
Conflict of interest The allocation of credit Publication and openness Misconduct in science Error and negligence in science
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A Conflict of Interest Credit Where Credit Is Due Sharing of Research Materials Fabrication in a Grant Application Publication Practices
the role of chemistry in contemporary societal and global issues (5). These new guidelines emphasize that the curriculum should aid students in developing the ability to apply their knowledge and skills to new situations and to transfer knowledge between contexts. This confers responsibility to educators in equipping students with the proper conduct guidelines (6–8). Responding to the need for discussions of ethical misconduct and other inquiries regarding professional growth and formation of our students through the chemistry undergraduate curriculum at the University of Puerto Rico–Río Piedras, the organic chemistry course for chemistry majors has been designed as a combination of different strategies to enrich the teaching–learning process beyond course content. One of these strategies includes an ethics discussion board. A special class project was developed through the use of case studies. These have been proven as effective tools to teach ethics because students can relate with situations presented in them (9–12). The main goal of the project was to have students research and study current ethical issues within the scientific community and to then understand and discuss these issues. Other noncognitive skills, also called for by the new proposed ACS Guidelines for Undergraduate Chemistry Programs, were incorporated into the project; these include oral and written communication skills as well as document research and citation as dictated by the ACS Style Guide chapter on citing references (13). Methodology Students enrolled in the organic chemistry course for chemistry majors during the 2006–2007 academic year were asked to participate in defining, analyzing, and discussing a case of ethical misconduct as a “special assignment in ethical misconduct in science”, in the fall semester. The five cases shown in List 1 representing different ethics subject areas were chosen from the book On Being a Scientist (14). These cases can be grouped under a single term, FFP (“falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism”), known as misconduct. Each case was assigned to two groups. Each group consisted of three subgroups or teams of 4–6 students; one subgroup to prepare a defense for the accused, one to serve as prosecutor, and the third to serve as a jury. The jury was to render a verdict on the case based on the arguments presented by the defense and prosecution. Every group had to prepare an essay related to their role in the case. (See the online supplement.) While an introduction to the subject of ethical misconduct was given at the beginning of the course, no specific class was dedicated solely to project instructions and case discussion. Only specific doubts were resolved during class; they were mostly posted and answered either on Blackboard or via email. In addition to using the online version of On Being a Scientist to view the case and book discussions of the case, students were also provided with online links on information about ethical misconduct and on how to use ACS style for reference citation.
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In the Classroom
A forum was created called Scientific Debates and Discussions Forum on the Blackboard discussion board located in the Blackboard-based Web site for the course. Message threads were opened in this forum, corresponding to each group and subgroup, so students could post their essays as a reply to these message threads. The defense and prosecuting subgroups posted their report approximately four weeks before jury subgroups. The arrangement of the message threads in Blackboard, as well as instructions given to the students, is presented in the online supplement. Essays were evaluated using a rubric based on creativity, content, organization, coherence, orthography, and bibliographical search and use of ACS citation style. Each essay was thoroughly read and codes were derived by levels of cognition according to Bloom’s taxonomy (15) to evaluate student responses and quantify them according to project goals. These codes were: define (misconduct and ethics in scientific behavior), apply and classify (apply scientific misconduct terms to a situation and classify that situation as misconduct), analyze (a situation in terms of why it is or is not ethical misconduct), and judge (a situation in terms of what should be done about it). The amount of hits for all essays was obtained using Ethnograph v5.01 to code the essays. Some examples are shown in Table 1. Students requested to present their work as an open forum. Two groups were chosen for two different cases to be presented. The forum was made to be a dramatization of a trial of these cases; one hour was given for each case. A lawyer who has a Ph.D. in chemistry was chosen to be the “judge” because of his experience in the area of research as well as his experience in judicial procedures. He organized students and guided them through the dramatization of their cases. The forum started
off with the defense and prosecution presenting their cases and then interrogating “witnesses” (student actors). The “judge” then invited public comments for expressing opinions on the case and an interaction between the student actors, the public, and the judge ensued. To close each case, the “judge” reflected on public opinion and gave his own opinion, after which the jury rendered its original verdict, which was compared to the public’s opinion on the case. After completing this special assignment, students were asked to complete a survey in Blackboard to get their opinion on aspects of the project as well as for further improvement. The survey had two parts. The first part consisted of six, multiplechoice questions asking students to rate five general aspects of the project (soft skills: creativity and critical analysis; bibliographical search; oral and writing skills; group work; and organizing ideas) according to how they considered those aspects helped them in their professional development and rating them as “did not help”, “helped”, or “helped a lot”. The second part of the survey had three, open-ended questions asking students what they liked most about the project, what they would like to change about the project, and what suggestions they had to improve the project. (Open-ended questions were polled and classified in groups of answers most often given by students.) Discussion Out of 130 students taking the course, 117 students participated in the project, which represents a 90% participation rate in the ethics discussion board. These Blackboard-based forums proved to be a key tool in our research, as defense and prosecuting subgroups were able to share their reports with jury
Table 1. Bloom’s Taxonomy Applied to Scientific Ethics and Students’ Case Study Findings Codes from Bloom’s Taxonomy Used for Studying Scientific Ethicsa
Example Student Statements from the Case Studies’ Written Workb
Define misconduct and ethics in scientific behavior: This code was used every time students defined the concepts of misconduct or ethics in terms that apply to scientific behavior.
Conflicts of interest are those circumstances in which the integrity of an investigation can be questioned because of the existence of secondary interests by the scientist, be it economic or personal. (Subject 1, Defense 1)
Apply scientific misconduct terms to a situation and classify it: This code was used every time students identified a situation as scientific misconduct and categorized it as falsification, plagiarism, fabrication, or another form of misconduct.
Dr. Freeman committed a very grave injustice by not crediting Ben in the article that he published about his investigation, this because Ben was the one who developed the technique on which his research depended. (Subject 2, Prosecution 2)
Situation analysis and synthesis: This code was used every time students analyzed a situation of scientific misconduct and argued the causes and consequences of such behavior.
This article stipulates that only with just cause can a secret be revealed, and, not having asked his superiors and sponsors for the approval to divulge said information, considering that had there been a just cause he would have followed the adequate procedure for this situation, it is proven, beyond reasonable doubt, that Mr. John Hoffman Gutiérrez is guilty. (Subject 1, Prosecution 2)
Judgment: This code was applied every time students presented a critical opinion based on a situation evaluation of scientific misconduct.
The jury recognizes that the constant repetition of an error does not turn it into something good, and it does not even make it less bad. Regarding the university’s decision to expel Don from its graduate program this jury found that said behavior was not abusive and that the university was within its right to expel Don. (This is based on the premise that the university Don attended had the same rules as the University of Puerto Rico). (Subject 4, Jury 2)
aFor
cognitive levels in Bloom’s taxonomy, see ref 15. from students’ texts were translated into English from Spanish by Adriana Padilla. This study was performed following federal and institutional (University of Puerto Rico–Río Piedras Campus) regulations for the protection of human subjects. bExtracts
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In the Classroom
Fraction of Students (%)
30
40
Hits (%)
30
40
20
30
10
17
0
26
20
17
12
situation analysis– synthesis
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0
Group work
apply– classify
17
10
13
define
Aspect Most Liked
28
judgment
Deciphering ethical situations and making critical judgments
Open forum discussion
Learning about the repercussions of ethical misconduct
Scientific community evaluation of ethical misconduct & legal aspects
Broadening knowledge of ethics & ethical judgments
Working dynamics
Figure 3. Aspects of the project students liked most.
Figure 1. Percentage of hits for each code for all essays.
Level of Help for Given Objective: Did not help
Helped
Helped a lot
76
Number of Students
69 60
60
60
60
47 39
40 29
28
27
20
16
1
4
3
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12 2
2
0
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Fraction of Students (%)
80
26
Suggestions 20
11 9
10
4
4
3
2
0
Develop creativity and critical analysis
Improve oral communication and written skills through group discussions and writing essays
Acquire experience in bibliographical search and citation
Develop the ability to organize ideas
Emphasize the importance of group work
Reflect on the subject of ethics
Nothing
Explain every case before the project
Include more realistic cases with more evidence
Give a Make conference on instructions how to defend or more clear accuse before the project More case Punctuation diversity and more debatable cases
Figure 2. Evaluating the project’s professional development aspect.
Figure 4. Aspects about the project students would like to change.
subgroups easily and in an organized fashion. Through these forums students were also able to observe other cases and other students’ discussions of cases other than their own. Based on corrections to the essays, the greatest difficulty students had in the completion of the soft skills described by the rubric was properly citing sources according to ACS guidelines. Creativity—also measured using the rubric—was greatly displayed among the essays through students’ ability to present their cases in original, ingenious, and dynamic ways. The two cases chosen for the open forum were those with a high grade on the essay based on the rubric, and a high display of creativity and ingenuity in argumentation throughout the essay. Students participated to a great degree, which—along with outside public interest—encouraged vigorous debate, as different opinions on the cases were discussed. As observed in Figure 1, the code situation analysis and synthesis, which was applied every time students analyzed a situation of scientific misconduct and argued the causes and consequences of such behavior, obtained the highest percentage
of hits for all essays. The second highest percentage was for the code judgment, which was applied every time students presented a critical opinion based on a situation evaluation of scientific misconduct. These codes, as described by Bloom’s taxonomy, rank as high levels of cognition (15). The other codes, which were basic levels of cognitive reasoning, were seen through the essays, albeit in lower occurrence, as students dedicated most of the essay to the higher levels of analyzing the case of ethical misconduct and to constructing their arguments about it. Through this project we can foster student analysis and critical thinking of ethical misconduct. The survey was completed by 90 out of 117 students who participated in the project. Multiple-choice questions revealed that students considered the project to have been very helpful in developing creativity, group work, organizing ideas, and oral and writing skills (Figure 2). Students found the project to be helpful in the acquisition of bibliographical search and citation skills, which was seen through the grading of the project to be somewhat difficult for students. The poll of answers given
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In the Classroom
to questions as to what students liked most about the project (Figure 3) revealed that most students enjoyed group work, as well as the presentation of the cases in an open forum. As shown in Figure 4, most students said they would not like the project to change. Others wanted real-life cases of ethical misconduct because they could have more material for presenting the case. Student suggestions for the future once again reveal that the students petitioned for real-life cases as well as for all the groups to be able to present their cases in the open forum, which coincides with the open forum being one of the aspects students most liked about the project. Next our research will focus on producing either a survey or a forum or both on what are considered to be the most recurrent themes in ethical misconduct—accuracy in reporting data completely and correctly, objective data interpretation, and credit allocation—so students can choose cases on those themes that they find more interesting or debatable to be presented.
Literature Cited
1. 2. 3. 4.
5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Conclusion This project successfully introduced the subject of scientific ethics and its discussion into the chemistry curriculum, giving students a more complete experience of professional development. This project offers an alternative to educators who want to take on the challenge of discussing ethics with students. Soft skills related to team work, as well as oral and writing skills, were effectively addressed while successfully introducing students to a higher cognitive level through critical analysis of case studies based on ethical misconduct. Difficulties observed in the students’ essays are linked to their inexperience in undertaking these tasks. Acknowledgments This work was supported by the University of Puerto Rico– Río Piedras Campus and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. We are also grateful to Cathy Middlecamp of the University of Wisconsin– Madison for her critique and suggestions. In addition, we thank Pío R. Rechani, Luis A. Serrano, and Elizabeth Valentín, from the University of Puerto Rico–Río Piedras, and the students in the organic chemistry class of 2006–2007 for their unconditional support and enthusiasm during the elaboration of this research project.
10. 11. 12. 13. 14.
15.
Kovac, J. J. Chem. Educ. 1996, 73, 926–928. Goodstein, D. Academe 2002, 88 (1). Cardellini, L. Chemistry International 2007, 29 (3), 4–6. Cordeiro, N. A.; Vega, M. R.; Granda, V. M. El currículo del químico en apoyo a una ética de la profesión, Revista Pedagógica Universitaria, Universidad Privada de San Pedro. http://revistas. mes.edu.cu/Pedagogia-Universitaria/articulos/2003/5/189403508. pdf/view (accessed May 2009). ACS Guidelines for Undergraduate Chemistry Programs. http://portal.acs.org:80/portal/fileFetch/C/WPCP_008491/pdf/ WPCP_008491.pdf (accessed May 2009). Shachter, A. M. J. Chem. Educ. 2003, 80, 507–512. Sweeting, L. M. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 369–372. Charlesworth, P.; Charlesworth, D. D.; Vician, C. J. Chem. Educ. 2006, 83, 1368–1375. Pimple, K. D. Using Case Studies in Teaching Research Ethics http://poynter.indiana.edu/tre/kdp-cases.pdf (accessed May 2009). Bruton, S. V. J. Chem. Educ. 2003, 80, 503–506. Niece, B. K. J. Chem. Educ. 2005, 82, 1521–1522. Kovac, J.; Sherwood, D. W. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 1399– 1403. ACS Style Guide, 3rd ed; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2006. http://pubs.acs.org/page/books/styleguide/index. html (accessed May 2009). Information for each case can be found in an online, 2nd ed. version of On Being A Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research. http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4917&page=25 (accessed May 2009). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Bloom, B. S., Ed.; Longmans, Green: New York, 1956.
Supporting JCE Online Material
http://www.jce.divched.org/Journal/Issues/2009/Aug/abs936.html Abstract and keywords Full text (PDF) with links to cited URLs and JCE articles Supplement Details and resources for using the scientific ethics case studies project
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