In Defense of the Questionable: Defining the Basis of Research Scientists’ Engagement in Questionable Research Practices

Abstract

National Institutes of Health principal investigators reported their perceptions of the ethical defensibility, prevalence in their field, and their personal willingness to engage in questionable research practices (QRPs). Using ethical defensibility ratings, an exploratory factor analysis yielded a two-factor solution: behaviors considered unambiguously ethically indefensible and behaviors whose ethical defensibility was more ambiguous. In addition, increasing perceptions that QRPs affect science predicted reduced acceptability of QRPs, whereas increasing beliefs that QRPs are normative or necessary for career success predicted increased acceptability of QRPs. Perceptions that QRPs are risky were unrelated to QRP acceptability but predicted reduced extramural funding (i.e., researchers' lifetime extramural grants and total funding secured). These results identify risk (i.e., beliefs that QRPs are normative to stay competitive in one's field) and protective factors (i.e., beliefs that QRPs have a significant negative impact on society) related to QRP endorsement that could inform educational interventions for training research scientists.

Testing an active intervention to deter researchers’ use of questionable research practices

“…Each scale was an aggregation of the 15 items, with higher scores indicating greater endorsement of QRPs. The items demonstrated acceptable reliability, suggesting that participants were responding to each item similarly as in previously validated studies (Cronbach’s α s > 0.80) [45].…”

“…Previous research has additionally indicated that overall experience in one’s field is especially predictive of engagement in QRPs. That is, early-career researchers appear more prone to QRP endorsement when not focused on consistency between their research identities and research ideals [45]. Perhaps early-career researchers are aggressive in a way that gives them a greater propensity for marginally ethics behavior.…”

“…Participants indicated the extent to which they endorsed 15 QRPs. Specifically, they were given an array of previously validated QRPs identified as representing ethically ambiguous practices [45], and participants were tasked with indicating the extent to which each QRP was ethically defensible and their willingness to engage in each. They indicated their assessment of the ethical defensibility of each QRP using a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = completely indefensible ; 7 = completely defensible ) and the extent to which they would be willing to engage in the described behavior (1 = completely unwilling to engage in this behavior ; 7 = completely willing to engage in this behavior ).…”

On the Willingness to Report and the Consequences of Reporting Research Misconduct: The Role of Power Relations

“…This literature has also developed an inventory of 'novel' forms of academic misbehaviour (Callaway 2015;Sacco et al 2018;Biagioli et al 2019;Bouter et al 2016), including estimations of how often some of these forms occur (e.g. Hopp and Hoover 2017;Fanelli 2009).…”

Writing Empirical Articles: Transparency, Reproducibility, Clarity, and Memorability

“…However, psychological scientists have recently confronted their questionable research practices (John, Loewenstein, & Prelec, 2012), many of which arise during the writing (or revising) process (Sacco, Bruton, & Brown, 2018). Questionable research practices include…”