Case Study Review
Click on the highlighted words to see explanations of the ethical issues portrayed.
A graduate student is being paid to work on a research project that is funded by a private corporation. The student is using the data that he is collecting for his dissertation. The faculty member directing the research project is also the student’s advisor. This is the faculty member’s first research project funded by this corporation. Getting the initial funding was difficult and highly competitive. However, if the research project is completed on time and the results look promising, the company has indicated that it will be willing to fund future projects. As the faculty member will be applying for tenure within the next two years, and levels of external funding for research activities are a factor in the tenure decisionIn the research environment a conflict of interest exists when a researcher’s personal interests, such as career, reputation, or finances, inherently conflict with his/her professional obligations to the honest, objective, and responsible design, conduct, or reporting of research activities. In this situation, considerations of future funding based on timely and promising results combined with levels of external funding as a factor in tenure decisions could be seen as a conflict of interest in that the personal interest (career) might have the capacity to bias the researcher’s professional obligation to the honest, objective, and responsible design, conduct, or reporting of research activities.
, she is very eager to finish this project on time.
At a weekly meeting, the faculty advisor and student review the data that the student has collected to-date. They estimate that the student has about two more months of data collection for his dissertation. After the meeting when reviewing the progress of the research project, the faculty member anticipates that there is at least six more months of data collection needed for the project. She realizesThe faculty member should have anticipated the disconnect between the work specified under the grant and the student’s graduate research, and planned accordingly.
that once the graduate student gathers enough data for his dissertation, he won’t be working on the project as much, if at all, and she does not have time to train another student or technician.
At the next weekly meeting, the faculty member tells the student that she has reviewed the data collected by the student to-date and his dissertation proposal, and has concluded that the student will not be able to collect enough data in the two next months for his dissertation. More precisely, she estimates that the student will have to continue working for at least another four months, or maybe even until the end of the research study.In making this decision, the faculty member allows her personal interest to influence her professional judgement. Upon realizing that the graduate student will leave the project once he gathers enough data for his dissertation, leaving the faculty member unable to meet her project deadline, negatively impacting the possibility of future funding and her chances for getting tenure, the faculty member decides to extend t
he amount of data that the graduate student needs to collect and misleads him as to the reason. The course of action taken by the faculty member - extending the student’s research to benefit her own research and her career rather than for purposes related to the graduate student’s research - makes her action unethical.
The student is very disappointedThe faculty member should have communicated to the student at the beginning of his research the requirements for the grant and the student’s role in meeting them. The faculty member might have worked to have the objectives of the research grant and the student’s dissertation work more closely associated.
as he thought that the data he had collected to-date seemed very promising.