Plemmons Dena K, Brody Suzanne A, Kalichman Michael W
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
Sci Eng Ethics. 2006 Jul;12(3):571-82. doi: 10.1007/s11948-006-0055-2.
Responsible conduct of research (RCR) courses are widely taught, but little is known about the purposes or effectiveness of such courses. As one way to assess the purposes of these courses, students were surveyed about their perspectives after recent completion of one of eleven different research ethics courses at ten different institutions. Participants (undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and faculty, staff and researchers) enrolled in RCR courses in spring and fall of 2003 received a voluntary, anonymous survey from their instructors at the completion of the course. Responses were received from 268 participants. Seventy-seven percent of open-ended responses listed specific kinds of information learned; only a few respondents talked about changes in skills or attitudes. The perception that courses did more to provide information than to foster skills or attitudes was verified in quantitative responses (P<0.0001). Over 75% of the respondents specifically noted that courses were useful in preparing them to recognize, avoid, and respond to research misconduct. The two principal findings of this multi-institutional study are that respondents reported: (1) a wide variety of positive outcomes for research ethics courses, but that (2) the impact on knowledge was greater than that for changes in skills or attitudes.
负责任的研究行为（RCR）课程被广泛教授，但对于此类课程的目的或效果却知之甚少。作为评估这些课程目的的一种方式，在十所不同机构修完十一种不同研究伦理课程之一后，对学生们的看法进行了调查。2003年春季和秋季参加RCR课程的参与者（本科生和研究生、博士后研究员以及教职员工、研究人员）在课程结束时收到了来自他们导师的一份自愿、匿名调查问卷。共收到268名参与者的回复。77%的开放式回复列出了所学的具体信息种类；只有少数受访者谈到了技能或态度的变化。在定量回复中证实了这样一种看法，即课程在提供信息方面比在培养技能或态度方面做得更多（P<0.0001）。超过75%的受访者特别指出，课程有助于他们认识、避免和应对研究不当行为。这项多机构研究的两个主要发现是，受访者报告称：（1）研究伦理课程有各种各样的积极成果，但（2）对知识的影响大于对技能或态度变化的影响。
