While education in ethics and the responsible conduct of research is widely acknowledged as an essential component of graduate education, particularly in the STEM disciplines, little consensus exists on how best to accomplish this goal. Recent years have witnessed a turn toward the use of games in this context. Drawing from two NSF-funded grants, this paper takes a critical look at the use of games in ethics and RCR education. It does so by: setting (...) the development of research and engineering ethics games in wider historical and theoretical contexts, which highlights their promise to solve important pedagogical problems; reporting on some initial results from our own efforts to develop a game; and reflecting on the challenges that arise in using games for ethics education. In our discussion of the challenges, we draw out lessons to improve this nascent approach to ethics education in the STEM disciplines. (shrink)

In this paper, we report the findings from the data we collected from a survey in order to measure how common research ethics education in economics is. We have found out that (1) research ethics is taught in only a very few economics departments around the globe; (2) topics related to research ethics are not taught in courses on economics and ethics; and (3) the number of papers published in specialised peer-reviewed journals (...) on economics education is only a tiny fraction of the number of papers published in these journals. There has been no evidence in economics showing that economics departments have taken strong initiative on teaching research ethics to undergraduate and graduate students. (shrink)

This paper assesses the state of research ethics in low- and middle-income countries and the achievements of the Fogarty International Center's bioethics training program since 2000. The vision of FIC for the next decade of research ethics education is encapsulated in four proposed goals: (1) Ensure sufficient expertise in ethics review by having someone with long-term training on every high-workload REC; (2) Develop LMIC capacity to conduct original research on critical ethical issues by (...) supporting doctoral and postdoctoral training and career paths for research ethicists; (3) Make research training and review at LMIC institutions sustainable by identifying additional funding mechanisms and models; (4) Make institutional research systems more ethical and efficient through context-specific training integrated into all levels of scientific training. (shrink)

Research ethics training during post-graduate education is necessary to improve ethical standards in the design and conduct of biomedical research. We studied quality and quantity of research ethics training in the curricula of post-graduate programs in the medical science in I.R. Iran. We evaluated curricula of 125 post-graduate programs in medical sciences in I.R. Iran. We qualitatively studied the curricula by education level, including the Master and PhD degrees and analyzed the contents and (...) the amount of teaching allocated for ethics training in each curriculum. We found no research ethics training in 72 of the programs. Among the 53 programs that considered research ethics training, only 17 programs had specific courses for research ethics and eight of them had detailed topics on their courses. The research ethics training was optional in 25% and mandatory in 76% of the programs. Post-graduate studies that were approved in the more recent years had more attention to the research ethics training. Research ethics training was neglected in most of the medical post-graduate programs. We suggest including sufficient amount of mandatory research ethics training in Master and PhD programs in I.R. Iran. Further research about quality of research ethics training and implementation of curricula in the biomedical institutions is warranted. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSome people might argue that there are already too many different documents, guidelines, and regulations in bioethics. Some overlap with one another, some are advisory and lack legal force, others are legally binding in countries, and still others are directed at narrow topics within bioethics, such as HIV/AIDS and human genetics. As the latest document to enter the fray, the UNESCO Declaration has the widest scope of any previous document. It embraces not only research involving human beings, but addresses (...) broader concerns in medicine and healthcare. The UNESCO draft declaration has some minor weaknesses, but on the whole, the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. One weakness is that some items in the draft are stated in a way that is too restrictive, thereby appearing to rule out legitimate activities. A strength of the Declaration is that it is relatively brief, yet at the same time contains sufficient detail to make it something more than a rehearsal of mere pieties. As the most recent of the numerous bioethics and human rights documents, the UNESCO draft draws on many of the earlier documents and also includes some of the most recent thinking about ethical norms and obligations. Perhaps its greatest strength lies not in details of the principles or their implementation, but rather in its stature as an international declaration issued by a United Nations organization. (shrink)

In response to the increasing need for research ethics expertise in low and middle income countries (LMICs), the NIH's Fogarty International Research Ethics Education and Curriculum Development Program has provided grants for the development of training programs in international research ethics for LMIC professionals since 2000. This collection of papers draws upon the combined expertise of Fogarty grantees, trainees, and other experts to assess the state of research ethics in LMICs, and (...) the lessons learned over 12 years of international research ethics education; to assess future needs; and to chart a way forward to meet those needs. In this introductory paper we briefly sketch the evolution of research ethics as applied to LMIC research, the underpinning and evolution of the Fogarty bioethics program, and summarize key conclusions from the other papers in the collection. (shrink)

NIH's fogarty international Center has provided grants for the development of training programs in international research ethics for low- and middle-income (LMIC) professionals since 2000. Drawing on 12 years of research ethics training experience, a group of Fogarty grantees, trainees, and other ethics experts sought to map the current capacity and need for research ethics in LMICs, analyze the lessons learned about teaching bioethics, and chart a way forward for research ethics (...) training in a rapidly changing health research landscape. This collection of papers is the result. (shrink)

Ethics has an established place within the medical curriculum. However notable differences exist in the programme characteristics of different schools of medicine. This paper addresses the main differences in the curricula of medical schools in South East Europe regarding education in medical ethics and bioethics, with a special emphasis on research ethics, and proposes a model curriculum which incorporates significant topics in all three fields. Teaching curricula of Medical Schools in Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, (...) Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro were acquired and a total of 14 were analyzed. Teaching hours for medical ethics and/or bioethics and year of study in which the course is taught were also analyzed. The average number of teaching hours in medical ethics and bioethics is 27.1 h per year. The highest national average number of teaching hours was in Croatia, and the lowest was in Serbia. In the countries of the European Union the mean number of hours given to ethics teaching throughout the complete curriculum was 44. In South East Europe, the maximum number of teaching hours is 60, while the minimum number is 10 teaching hours. Research ethics topics also show a considerable variance within the regional medical schools. Approaches to teaching research ethics vary, even within the same country. The proposed model for education in this area is based on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Bioethics Core Curriculum. The model curriculum consists of topics in medical ethics, bioethics and research ethics, as a single course, over 30 teaching hours. (shrink)

With growing opportunities for medical doctors to work either in academia and industry, research ethics education for health sciences research, meaning research which includes humans and animals and/or their tissues and cells with the goal to understand underlying mechanisms of disease occurrence and disease treatment, is of paramount importance, especially in regions, such as Serbia, where comprehensive research ethics curricula for physician researchers are lacking. This article addresses the spectrum of research (...) class='Hi'>ethics topics that were identified through analysis of the existing research ethics curricula in medical schools, international organizations, Serbian legislative codes and the PubMed database applying the key search terms: ethics, research, biomedical, education, curriculum, program, course and their combinations. Selected topics were classified in eight syllabi based on their similarity: #1 Responsible conduct of research, #2 Justice in human subjects research, #3 Research on human subjects, #4 Vulnerable population groups, #5 Conflict of interest, #6 Research on animals, #7 Research on genes, cells and embryos, and #8 Organization of research ethics. Justifications for each syllabus are discussed based on empirical evidence and local context. Higher education authorities could use this framework to strengthen, adjust or refine research ethics education for physician researchers in Serbia. (shrink)

Despite the potential value of graduate-level research ethics training, most Middle East countries, including Jordan, do not routinely offer formal research ethics training. In students enrolled in Jordanian master’s level graduate program in pharmacy, the current study assessed: 1- differences in pre- and post-enrollment exposure to research ethics core themes, 2- whether this exposure was through a formal course or in an informal setting, and 3- student attitudes towards research ethics education (...) and the need for integrating a dedicated research ethics course into pharmacy graduate programs. A 12-item on-line survey was developed by the authors and disseminated to a convenience sample of current and former master-level pharmacy students in Jordan. A total of 61 eligible respondents completed the survey. A minority of respondents (38%) acknowledged receiving research ethics training prior to enrollment into a postgraduate pharmacy program with nearly half (16%) describing this training as informal. In comparison, a larger percentage of the total respondents (56%) had received research ethics training during their postgraduate program enrollment, with nearly half of those (25%) indicating that this training was informal. A majority of respondents reported a strong need for integrating a formal research ethics course into postgraduate pharmacy curriculum (90%) to support their research training and thesis writing (89%). Overall, the study revealed a notable lack of research ethics education for graduate-level pharmacy students in Jordan. (shrink)

The attention being paid to ethics education in accounting has been increasing, especially after the corporate accounting scandals at the turn of the century. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the existing research in the field of ethics education in accounting. To synthesize past research, a bibliometric analysis that references 134 primary studies is performed and three bibliometric methods are applied. First, we visualize the historical evolution of ethics education in accounting (...) research through historiography. Second, we use bibliographic coupling to identify clusters of ethics education in accounting research before, during, and after major corporate scandals. Third, we perform a co-word analysis to connect the identified patterns into a map of a contextual space. The results reveal, in each decade, not only an increasing academic focus on this field of research, but also an increasing number of different research clusters. While the clusters Factors affecting moral judgement, Perception of ethics, and Lack of ethics topics in the last research period develop further from the respective clusters in the previous periods, Accounting beyond technical skills, Integration of ethics in accounting education, Use of developed ethics frameworks, and Professional values on the contrary develop anew in the last decade, as a consequence of a growing demand for teaching ethics. Overall, the paper presents the development patterns of ethics education in accounting research and sets up a research agenda that encourages future research. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Using a five-point Likert scale survey and a follow-up open-ended questionnaire, this study examined Chinese participants’ perceptions of their ethical responsibilities as educational researchers as well as their ethical awareness as human subjects. The participants were 418 faculty and graduate students from two specific Chinese schools, where the first two educational research ethics committees were recently established in Chinese higher education. Results indicate that participants demonstrate basic understanding of their ethical responsibilities as educational researchers and develop (...) their general sense of ethical awareness as human subjects. Further, there are significant gender, faculty versus graduate student status, and research experience effects on their perceptions of general ethical issues in educational research. Important implications for research ethics education in China are discussed. (shrink)

Research ethics education has taken many forms since federal funding agencies issued regulatory guidance directing those supported by these agencies to complete required training. In the absence of a standard training approach among institutions such as universities, the design and content of courses, workshops, and seminars varies widely. Here we describe a southwestern United States research university program that employed six teaching strategies to assist students in deep learning of ethical principles and behavior. Our purpose was (...) to determine how these strategies impact understanding and empowerment among an interdisciplinary group of graduate students. Results suggested that deep learning design can result in learning that requires students not only to remember and understand key ethics concepts but also to analyze and apply them in a broader ethical domain. Key findings inform design and delivery of future research ethics courses for instructional designers and instructors in higher education. (shrink)

Introduction The Brazilian national curriculum guidelines for undergraduate medicine courses inspired and influenced the groundwork for knowledge acquisition, skills development and the perception of ethical values in the context of professional conduct. Objective The evaluation of ethics education in research involving human beings in undergraduate medicine curriculum in Brazil, both in courses with active learning processes and in those with traditional lecture learning methodologies. Methods Curricula and teaching projects of 175 Brazilian medical schools were analyzed using a (...) retrospective historical and descriptive exploratory cohort study. Thirty one medical schools were excluded from the study because of incomplete information or a refusal to participate. Active research for information from institutional sites and documents was guided by terms based on 69 DeCS/MeSH descriptors. Curriculum information was correlated with educational models of learning such as active learning methodologies, tutorial discussions with integrated curriculum into core modules, and traditional lecture learning methodologies for large classes organized by disciplines and reviewed by occurrence frequency of ethical themes and average hourly load per semester. Results Ninety-five medical schools used traditional learning methodologies. The ten most frequent ethical themes were: 1 – ethics in research (26); 2 – ethical procedures and advanced technology (46); 3 – ethic-professional conduct (413). Over 80% of schools using active learning methodologies had between 50 and 100 hours of scheduled curriculum time devoted to ethical themes whereas more than 60% of traditional learning methodology schools devoted less than 50 hours in curriculum time to ethical themes. Conclusion The data indicates that medical schools that employ more active learning methodologies provide more attention and time to ethical themes than schools with traditional discipline-based methodologies. Given the importance of ethical issues in contemporary medical education, these findings are significant for curriculum change and modification plans in the future of Brazilian medical education. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to encourage and highlight discussion on how to improve the teaching of research ethics in institutions of higher education in Malaysia. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 21 academics in a research-intensive university in Malaysia, interviewees agreed on the importance of emphasizing the subject of research ethics among students, as well as academics or researchers. This study reveals that participants felt that there is an urgent need to improve the (...) current awareness and knowledge of issues related to misconduct in research among students and academics. The results of this study indicate a need for better teaching on the subject of research ethics in order to prevent misconduct in research. Finally, it concludes with suggestions that there should be a clear definition of research misconduct, to include consequences when engaging in misconduct; a separate research ethics syllabus for pure and social sciences should be conducted; research ethics should be implemented as a core subject, and there should be an early intervention and continuous learning of research ethics, with an emphasis on ethics training. (shrink)

Health research ethics training programmes are being developed and implemented globally, often with a goal of increasing local capacity to assure ethical conduct in health-related research. Yet what it means for there to be sufficient HRE capacity is not well-defined, and there is currently no consensus on outcomes that HRE training programmes should collectively intend to achieve. Without defining the expected outcomes, meaningful evaluation of individual participants and programmes is challenging. In this article, we briefly describe the (...) evolution of formal education in HRE, articulate the need for a framework to define outcomes for HRE training programmes, and provide guidance for developing HRE competency frameworks that define outcomes suited to their contexts. We detail critical questions for developing HRE competency frameworks using a six-step process: define the purposes, intended uses and scope of the framework; describe the context in which practice occurs; gather data using a variety of methods to inform the competency framework; translate the data into competencies that can be used in educational programmes; report on the competency development process and results and evaluate and update the competency framework. We suggest that competency frameworks should be feasible to develop using this process, and such efforts promise to contribute to programmatic advancement. (shrink)

In this article, we interpret sex education from the perspective of feminist care ethics, emphasizing the concept of caring democracy, advanced by Joan Tronto one of the most influential feminist political theorists. According to Tronto, these theories show that a deficit of care and a lack of democracy are mutually conducive. We argue that, as in other areas of life, a lack of care in sexuality and sex education leads to social inequalities that eventually translate into an (...) unequal approach to freedom, equality, and justice, and to a deficit of democracy in the lives of some people. At the same time, we believe that, as a moral theory, care ethics, with its emphasis on the needs of men and women, can be adequately applied to the design of research projects, as well as to sexuality policies and practices. This may contribute to overcoming the stalemate in the debate on sex education and other topics in Slovakia. (shrink)

Principles of research ethics, derived largely from Western philosophical thought, are spreading across the world of higher education. Since 2006 the Japanese Ministry of Education has required universities in Japan to establish codes of ethical conduct and ensure that procedures are in place to punish research misconduct. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 13 academics in a research-intensive university in Japan, this paper considers how research ethics is interpreted in relation to their own (...) practice. Interviewees articulated a range of ethical issues connected with data gathering and interpretation, applying for and using research funds, relationships with peers and research subjects, and the dissemination of results. The paper also explores the effect of personal values and cultural norms on the Japanese interpretation of research ethics identifying the impact in terms of the treatment of graduate research students and decision-making processes. (shrink)

The past one hundred fifty years of debate over the use of animals in research and testing has been characterized mainly byad hominem attacks and on uncritical rejection of the other sides’ arguments. In the classroom, it is important to avoid repeating exercises in public relations and to demand sound scholarship.

This article examines the global and worsening problem of research misconduct as it relates to bio-medico-legal education. While research misconduct has serious legal implications, few adequate legal remedies exist to deal with it. With respect to teaching, research ethics education should be mandatory for biomedical students and physicians. Although teaching alone will not prevent misconduct, it promotes integrity, accountability, and responsibility in research. Policies and law enforcement should send a clear message that researchers (...) should adhere to the highest standards of ethics in research. It is vital that researchers and physicians understand basic aspects of law and the legal system in order to develop understanding of the medico-legal issues not just in the legal context, but with a sound grounding in ethics, social and theoretical contexts so that they can practice good medicine. Routine and holistic research ethics education across the curriculum for medical students and resident physicians, and continuing medical education for practicing doctors, are probably the best ways to accomplish this goal. (shrink)

In clinical research scientific, legal as well as ethical aspects are important. It is well known that clinical investigators at university hospitals have to undertake their PhD-studies alongside their daily work and reconciling work and study can be challenging. The aim of this project was to create a web based course in clinical research bioethics (5 credits) and to examine whether the method is suitable for teaching bioethics. The course comprised of six modules: an initial examination (to assess (...) knowledge in bioethics), information on research legislation, obtaining permissions from authorities, writing an essay on research ethics, preparing one’s own study protocol, and a final exam. All assignments were designed with an idea of supporting students to reflect on their learning with their own research. (shrink)

This paper presents an ethical framework designed to support the development of critical data literacy for research methods courses and data training programmes in higher education. The framework we present draws upon our reviews of literature, course syllabi and existing frameworks on data ethics. For this research we reviewed 250 research methods syllabi from across the disciplines, as well as 80 syllabi from data science programmes to understand how or if data ethics was taught. (...) We also reviewed 12 data ethics frameworks drawn from different sectors. Finally, we reviewed an extensive and diverse body of literature about data practices, research ethics, data ethics and critical data literacy, in order to develop a transversal model that can be adopted across higher education. To promote and support ethical approaches to the collection and use of data, ethics training must go beyond securing informed consent to enable a critical understanding of the techno-centric environment and the intersecting hierarchies of power embedded in technology and data. By fostering ethics as a method, educators can enable research that protects vulnerable groups and empower communities. (shrink)

: Calls for ethics education for members of hospital ethics committees presume that the effects and benefits of such education are well-established. This is not the case. A review of the literature reveals that studies consistently have failed to uncover any significant effect of ethics education on the moral reasoning, moral competency, and/or moral development of medical professionals. The present paper discusses this negative result and describes the author's national study of the value priorities (...) of members of hospital ethics committees. This study discovered correlations between moral decision making and factors like age and type of institution where the committee operates. The results of this study also resemble those of previous studies in finding no correlation between ethics education and moral decision making. The author concludes that there is a need for more research on the effects of nonmoral personal, societal, and institutional factors on the moral reasoning of members of hospital ethics committees. Further, in the absence of any firm empirical basis, calls for ethics education for medical professionals and ethics committee members should be rethought. (shrink)

Background: The formulation and implementation of national ethical regulations to protect research participants is fundamental to ethical conduct of research. Ethics education and capacity are inadequate in developing African countries. This study was designed to develop a module for online training in research ethics based on the Nigerian National Code of Health Research Ethics and assess its ease of use and reliability among biomedical researchers in Nigeria.MethodologyThis was a three-phased evaluation study. Phase (...) one involved development of an online training module based on the Nigerian Code of Health Research Ethics (NCHRE) and uploading it to the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) website while the second phase entailed the evaluation of the module for comprehensibility, readability and ease of use by 45 Nigerian biomedical researchers. The third phase involved modification and re-evaluation of the module by 30 Nigerian biomedical researchers and determination of test-retest reliability of the module using Cronbach’s alpha. Results: The online module was easily accessible and comprehensible to 95% of study participants. There were significant differences in the pretest and posttest scores of study participants during the evaluation of the online module (p = 0.001) with correlation coefficients of 0.9 and 0.8 for the pretest and posttest scores respectively. The module also demonstrated excellent test-retest reliability and internal consistency as shown by Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of 0.92 and 0.84 for the pretest and posttest respectively. Conclusion: The module based on the Nigerian Code was developed, tested and made available online as a valuable tool for training in cultural and societal relevant ethical principles to orient national and international biomedical researchers working in Nigeria. It would complement other general research ethics and Good Clinical Practice modules. Participants suggested that awareness of the online module should be increased through seminars, advertisement on government websites and portals used by Nigerian biomedical researchers, and incorporation of the Code into the undergraduate medical training curriculum. (shrink)

This chapter describes the development of a workshop series focused on helping students develop research lab ethics guidelines. The workshop was developed through a National Science Foundation-funded project that situates ethics education within the research environment. Students in four departments at a private research university were recruited to join a Student Ethics Committee that collaboratively developed context-specific codes-of-ethics-based guidelines for their departments. These bottom-up developed guidelines were revised in an iterative process, including (...) feedback from faculty, other graduate students, and the original Student Ethics Committee. The goal of the workshops was to promote the cultivation of an ethical culture in experimental laboratories by integrating research stakeholders in a bottom-up approach to developing context-specific guidelines and to identify factors that students consider relevant to the ethical conduct of research. After describing the workshop series, this chapter presents a qualitative content analysis of the guidelines. The guidelines developed by the Student Ethics Committees reflect the current culture of experimental labs in these departments and the ethical issues that students think are important. The content of these guidelines and the ethical issues the students focused on contrast in some key ways with what ethical issues faculty who head research groups saw as paramount. The chapter describes the first two iterations of the ethics education workshop module, a qualitative analysis of the first draft of these guidelines, and finally reflects on future work in this area of in situ ethics education. (shrink)

Higher education is seeing renewed calls for strengthening ethics education, yet there remains a dearth of research on the state of ethics education across undergraduate curricula. Research about ethics in higher education tends to be localized and often isolated to fields of graduate study. In contribution to a contemporary, landscape understanding of ethics education, we collected data on the placement and prevalence of ethics instruction within the general (...) class='Hi'>education curricula at 507 major U.S. colleges and universities. Our findings suggest that 1) most schools in our study’s population do not explicitly require ethics as a part of their general education curricula; and 2) a school’s religiosity and research status are positively associated with explicitly requiring ethics instruction for its undergraduate student body. (shrink)

The past one hundred fifty years of debate over the use of animals in research and testing has been characterized mainly byad hominem attacks and on uncritical rejection of the other sides’ arguments. In the classroom, it is important to avoid repeating exercises in public relations and to demand sound scholarship.