Smith-Doerr Laurel
Department of Sociology, Boston University, MA 02215, USA.
J Empir Res Hum Res Ethics. 2009 Jun;4(2):49-57. doi: 10.1525/jer.2009.4.2.49.
RECENTLY ESTABLISHED POLICIES FOR ethical conduct of researchers have resulted in efforts to implement those policies through educational practices. While these policies and training efforts have good intentions, how do researchers respond? Little research has been conducted to understand how researchers react to ethics policies, and to ethics education requirements as a particularly salient part of the policies. This research explores variations in the responses of life scientists to policies originating in the U.K., E.U. and U.S., between 2000 and 2003. Semi-structured interviews with 30 life scientists in the U.K., Italy and the U.S. provide the basis for the findings. Across the interviews, scientists consistently reported dislike of the ways the ethics policies and ethics programs are implemented, but with variation by country. U.K. life scientists regarded the policies tied to Research Council (RC) funding with a skeptical attitude, expecting that policies would change with RC leadership. Italian life scientists often noted the lack of funding (and policies) at the national level, and appeared frustrated by what they viewed as overly complex policy requirements at the European level, where successful grantees employed outside consultants to complete the ethics sections of their applications. U.S. life scientists expressed distaste for the implementation of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) policy in web-based ethics training modules. This research suggests that introducing new shallow routines that are separate from daily research and educational practices in science may be worse than no ethics training at all, if it turns off young researchers to the discussion of ethical issues. Observing variation in scientists' discourse on ethics policies allows us to see how education following ethics policies might be more effective, and indicates that ethics policy formation more informed by empirical research is a desirable goal.
近期制定的研究人员道德行为政策促使人们努力通过教育实践来实施这些政策。尽管这些政策和培训举措初衷良好，但研究人员作何反应呢？针对研究人员如何回应道德政策以及作为政策特别突出部分的道德教育要求，所开展的研究甚少。本研究探讨了2000年至2003年间生命科学家对源自英国、欧盟和美国的政策的反应差异。对英国、意大利和美国的30位生命科学家进行的半结构化访谈为研究结果提供了依据。在所有访谈中，科学家们一致表示不喜欢道德政策和道德项目的实施方式，但存在国别差异。英国生命科学家对与研究理事会（RC）资金挂钩的政策持怀疑态度，预计政策会随着研究理事会领导层的变动而改变。意大利生命科学家经常指出国家层面缺乏资金（和政策），并且似乎对他们认为在欧洲层面过于复杂的政策要求感到沮丧，在欧洲层面，成功获得资助者会聘请外部顾问来完成其申请中的道德部分。美国生命科学家对美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）政策在基于网络的道德培训模块中的实施表示不满。这项研究表明，如果新的浅层程序与科学日常研究和教育实践相分离，并且使年轻研究人员对道德问题讨论失去兴趣，那么引入这些程序可能比根本没有道德培训更糟糕。观察科学家们关于道德政策的论述差异，能让我们了解遵循道德政策的教育如何可能更有效，并且表明以实证研究为依据制定更完善的道德政策是一个理想目标。
