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AEE 578--Scientific Inquiry in Agricultural and Extension Education |
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Ethics and Research |
Introduction:  |
Recently
the Journal
of Agricultural Education (Vol. 46 No. 3,
2005) had the following
notice on Page 1: Notice of Retraction
Plagiarism was discovered in three manuscripts published in the Journal of Agricultural Education. Based upon a review of the materials and M. Wood's acknowledgment of essential citation errors, the Editing Managing Board of the Journal of Agricultural Education has decided to retract the articles. The following articles are hereby retracted: Woods, M. &
Trexler, C. J. (2001). Linking intepretive theory to practice:
Examining an underused research tool in agricultural education. Journal
of Agricultural Education 42(2), 68-78.
Woods, M. & Jones, B. L. (2003). Institutional engagement within a land-grant college of agriculture: Perceptions of faculty, staff and administrators. Journal of Agricultural Education 44(1), 70-83 Woods, M. & Moore, E. A. (2003). Diversity in agricultural education: A review of research. Journal of Agricultural Education 44(3), 12-22. Obviously there was an ethical problem involved in the reporting of this research. There are other ethical issues involved in research in addition to plagiarism. In this lesson we will explore the ethical issues involved in conducting research. These include working with human subjects, fabrication of data and falsification of data. We will also examine the steps one has to follow at North Carolina State University to "get permission" to conduct a research study. There is a body know as the IRB (Institutional Review Board) that all faculty and students need to know about. |
Learning
Objectives:  |
 Describe briefly what
is
meant by "ethical" research.Describe briefly
three
important ethical principles recommended for researchers to follow.State the basic
question
with regard
to ethics that researchers need to ask before beginning a study.State the 3 questions
researchers need to address in order to protect research participants
from harm.Describe the
procedures
researchers must follow in order to ensure confidentially of data
collected in a research investigation. Describe when it
might be
appropriate to deceive participants in a research investigation and researcher's responsibility in such a case. Describe the special
considerations involved when doing research with childrenDefine
what is meant by
IRB (Institutional Review Board) and explain the process for obtaining
IRB approval to conduct research. |
| Instructional Activities:  |
Read
Chapter 4 "Ethics and Research"
in How to Design and Evaluate
Research in
Education (Fraenkel & Wallen). Read Many
Scientists Admit to Misconduct from the Washington Post. Read Peer
Trouble from the Education Guardian. Read Acknowledging
Academic Fraud from the FrontPage Magazine. Read this letter
to a journal. Walk
through the interactive
tutorial on using human subjects. (click on human subjects
after you log in)
Learn about the NCSU Institutional
Review Board (IRB). Learn which research activities
typically are considered exempt from full IRB board review. View the PowerPoint presentation on Research
Ethics.
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Review:
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The
publisher of the textbook has some excellent
information to support the text; you should
check it out: Visit the
text site and complete the multiple
choice questions for Chapter
4 |
Additional
Resources: |
IF you want to see
more (NOT required):
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Assignments:
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Using
a web search engine, find an article, story, news release, etc. about
scientific misconduct and read it (you might want to search for
plagiarism, data falsification, data fabrication, academic fraud,
scientific misconduct, research falsification, etc). Then, go to the Moodle site for
this course and following the
posted instructions, discuss what you found with your
classmates. You will need to scroll down to lesson 4 to find the link
for the forum. |