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The dignity of persons : Kantian ethics and utilitarianism

Lucas Sierra Vélez

Student thesis : Doctoral Thesis (PhD)

Kantian ethics
Utilitarianism
Animal ethics
Moral philosophy
Moral standing
Consequentialism

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Ethics & Legal Studies

Wharton’s phd program in ethics and legal studies is unique: the only doctoral program in the world to focus on ethical and legal norms relevant to individual and organizational decision-making within business..

The Ethics & Legal Studies Doctoral Program at Wharton trains students in the fields of ethics and law in business. Students are encouraged to combine this work with investigation of related fields, including Philosophy, Law, Psychology, Management, Finance, and Marketing. Students take a core set of courses in the area of ethics and law in business, together with courses in an additional disciplinary concentration such as management, philosophy/ethical theory, finance, marketing, or accounting. Our program size and flexibility allow students to tailor their program to their individualized research interests and to pursue joint degrees with other departments across Wharton and Penn. Resources for current Ph.D. students can be found at http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/doctoral-inside/ .

Our world-class faculty take seriously the responsibility of training graduate students for the academic profession. Faculty work closely with students to help them develop their own distinctive academic interests. Our curriculum crosses many disciplinary boundaries. Faculty and student intellectual interests include a range of topics such as:

Philosophy & Ethics : • philosophical business ethics • normative political philosophy • rights theory • theory of the firm • philosophy of law • philosophy of punishment & coercion • philosophy of deception and fraud • philosophy of blame and complicity • climate change ethics • effective altruism • integrative social contracts theory • corporate moral agency
Law & Legal Studies : • law and economics • corporate penal theory • constitutional law • bankruptcy • corporate governance • corporate law • financial regulation • administrative law • empirical legal studies • blockchain and law • antitrust law • environmental law and policy • corporate criminal law • corruption • negotiations.
Behavioral Ethics : • neuroscience and business ethics • moral psychology • moral beliefs and identity • moral deliberation • perceptions of corporate identity

Our program prepares graduates for tenure-track careers in university teaching and research at leading business schools and law schools. We have an excellent record of tenure-track placements, including Carnegie Mellon University, Notre Dame University, and George Washington University. Click here to see our placements .

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Core courses.

In addition to the Wharton Doctoral course requirements, the student’s four-course unit core in the Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department consists of two required doctoral seminars, LGST 9200 Ethics in Business and Economics, and LGST 9210 Foundations of Business Law. The remaining two LGST courses may be selected from a list of LGST courses that the faculty coordinator has approved.

Students without basic law courses will be required to take LGST 1010 in their first semester. Students will take LGST courses, other than Ph.D. seminars, under an independent study number, meet with the instructor periodically outside class, and write a paper. These requirements should be satisfied through courses taught by members of the LGST standing faculty, though exceptions will be made in special circumstances. The requirements may be adjusted for students with law degrees.

Ethics and Law in Business Courses

Students must take four LGST courses, including these two core course seminars:

Ethics in Business and Economics (LGST 9200)
Foundations of Business Law (LGST 9210)

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The purpose of the cluster is to ground students in a single academic specialty other than Business Ethics. Clusters include the following:

Students must choose a disciplinary cluster during the first year, in consultation with a faculty advisor. Required courses may not be double-counted. For example, a student choosing Philosophy as the cluster may not use the two required courses in ethical theory as part of the five course cluster requirement.

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S Kjellström 1 ,
S N Ross 2 , 3 ,
B Fridlund 4
1 Institute of Gerontology, School of Health Sciences, Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden
2 Antioch University Midwest, Yellow Springs, Ohio, USA
3 ARINA, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
4 Department of Nursing, School of Health Sciences, Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden
Correspondence to Sofia Kjellström, Institute of Gerontology, School of Health Sciences, Jönköping University, PO Box 1026, SE-551 11 Jönköping, Sweden; sofia.kjellstrom{at}hhj.hj.se

Background Conducting ethically sound research is a fundamental principle of scientific inquiry. Recent research has indicated that ethical concerns are insufficiently dealt with in dissertations.

Purpose To examine which research ethical topics were addressed and how these were presented in terms of complexity of reasoning in Swedish nurses' dissertations.

Methods Analyses of ethical content and complexity of ethical reasoning were performed on 64 Swedish nurses' PhD dissertations dated 2007.

Results A total of seven ethical topics were identified: ethical approval (94% of the dissertations), information and informed consent (86%), confidentiality (67%), ethical aspects of methods (61%), use of ethical principles and regulations (39%), rationale for the study (20%) and fair participant selection (14%). Four of those of topics were most frequently addressed: the majority of dissertations (72%) included 3–5 issues. While many ethical concerns, by their nature, involve systematic concepts or metasystematic principles, ethical reasoning scored predominantly at lesser levels of complexity: abstract (6% of the dissertations), formal (84%) and systematic (10%).

Conclusions Research ethics are inadequately covered in most dissertations by nurses in Sweden. Important ethical concerns are missing, and the complexity of reasoning on ethical principles, motives and implications is insufficient. This is partly due to traditions and norms that discount ethical concerns but is probably also a reflection of the ability of PhD students and supervisors to handle complexity in general. It is suggested that the importance of ethical considerations should be emphasised in graduate and post-graduate studies and that individuals with capacity to deal with systematic and metasystematic concepts are recruited to senior research positions.

Research ethics
human development
dissertation
graduate education
applied and professional ethics
scientific research

https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.2009.034561

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Research has a potential to encroach on people's lives, autonomy and integrity. To prevent or mitigate the potential for such effects, the research community has created ethics codes and regulations, institutionalised ethics review boards and formalised ethics requirements in scientific journals. 1–3 However, how do we know whether the formalisations of research ethics actually result in researchers' ability to operationalise ethics in the ways intended? One way is to analyse how they write about research ethics.

Including a well-written section about research ethics in a dissertation is important for several reasons. Compared to protocols written for research ethics committees, this section allows a comparison of the expected and actual research ethics as reflected in the entire research process. Scientific journals increasingly require that ethical considerations are elucidated, but most journals severely limit space for elaboration. 4 Since studies have questioned the ethical skills of doctoral students, dissertations provide a forum for students to expound on ethics and enable an assessment of acquired proficiencies. One purpose of graduate school is to train doctoral students in skills necessary for future research careers, including more critical thinking and more complex reasoning. The quality and depth of the research ethics section is essential to examine whether a researcher has acquired necessary skills to reflect and report on ethics.

Despite an increasing interest in research ethics, surprisingly little is known about the quality of research ethics in dissertations, particularly in nursing research. Research on written materials focuses primarily on research review boards 5–9 and journals—for example, ethics guidelines 10 and research ethics in articles. 4 Research on Turkish nursing dissertations showed deficiencies in informing participants and protecting privacy. 11 A study on Swedish nurses' dissertations from 1987 to 2007 showed that an increase in occurrence and proportions of reported ethical considerationsand that the texts were short, had few references and covered a narrow range of topics. 12 We found no other studies that address the design of the research ethics section and how different topics were combined.

The study's purpose was to examine which research ethical topics were addressed and how these were presented in terms of complexity of reasoning in Swedish nurses' dissertations approved in 2007. The research questions were: Which research ethics issues are reported? How is the research ethics section organized around different ethical issues? How is the information coordinated in terms of the complexity of reasoning that structures the text? What is the relationship between ethical issues and complexity of reasoning in the text?

Design and methodological approaches

The study used a mixed-methods approach to address the four research questions. 13 We performed a qualitative content analysis and a quantitative analysis of the hierarchical complexity of ethics-related content. The quantification method was the Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System (HCSS) (Commons, et al , unpublished manual), which derives from the Model of Hierarchical Complexity, a mathematics-based, formal general theory applicable to all actions in which information is organised. 14 15 All reasoning involves organising information. The theory and validated scoring method enable reliable measures of discrete stages of reasoning complexity. 16–20 In accord with Swedish law, ethical approval was not obtained for this study, 21 but ethical principles were used and issues were addressed in ongoing reflective processes.

Data collection

The sample consisted of 64 dissertations from Swedish universities in 2007 (Appendix 1). The primary inclusion criteria were that the dissertation was written by a nurse and that it was a PhD dissertation (4 years of full-time studies). Suitable dissertations were identified from the Swedish Society of Nursing's list of self-reported dissertations (n=65) followed by a systematic comparative analysis with the Swedish National Library (n=1). One of the self-reported dissertations discussed no research ethics and one was by an unsuccessful doctoral candidate: they were not included in the sample. Dissertation languages were English (n=48), Swedish (n=15) and Norwegian (n=1). Dissertations were retrieved via full-text online access or as books from the university library.

Data analysis

The dissertations were examined to identify research ethics sections, often under the subheadings “Ethical considerations” or “Ethical approval”. The texts were analysed for the topics addressed and how they were reported. An unstructured matrix of research ethics issues was created and grounded in the data. The coded texts were further analysed for subcategories through an inductive process. Descriptions of meanings of quantitative and qualitative character, that is manifest and latent content analysis, were sought. The analysis was performed by SK with BF—with extensive experience in qualitative methods.

In hierarchical complexity scoring, such content is “seen through” to examine its underlying structure. The method measures the levels of abstraction and how information is coordinated. Each section and subsection of a research ethics discussion was assessed on stage of hierarchical complexity. The overall discussion was scored based on the highest stage of performance the text demonstrated. The correlation of content and its complexity indicated which topics were addressed at different stages of complexity. Scoring was performed independently by SK and SR, then discussed to reach consensus. Both authors scored the English texts, and SK scored the ones in Scandinavian languages and discussed with SR. SR is an expert HCSS stage-and-transition scorer while SK is a qualified HCSS scorer of stages 8 through 11. See table 1 for stage complexity information. 22

View inline

Common range of stages of performance in adult tasks' hierarchical complexity

Research ethics issues in dissertations

Dissertations contained one to seven research ethics topics: approval of research ethics board (94%); information process and informed consent (86%); confidentiality (67%); ethical aspects of methods (61%); use of ethical principles and regulations (39%), rationale for the study (20%) and fair participant selection method (14%; table 2 ). All but three of the dissertations involved direct interaction with study participants; three were register-based studies.

Design of research ethics sections in Swedish nurses' dissertations

Ethics approval

The ethics approval category included descriptions of whether the dissertation has been vetted by an ethics review board. Almost all dissertations included a discussion of ethics approval (n=60), and a majority stated they had been approved by a research ethics review board (n=55). A quality and transparency concern was that several sections included no name of the ethics board and/or registration number (n=13). A minority related the issue of ethics approval to ethical codes, the Helsinki declaration or current national research ethics laws (n=14) by either stating that studies were performed in accordance with ethics regulations (n=8) or by arguing against the need for an ethics approval due to national laws (n=6).

Information and informed consent

We broadened the traditional informed consent category to accommodate information-giving processes discussed but not always expressed in terms of informed consent. Most dissertations discussed information-giving and informed consent (n=56). A third of these explicitly mentioned the concept of informed consent (n=19). A substantial amount of space was typically used to detail the informing phase of research, including the information's form (written and/or verbal) (n=41) and type. The most often-given information was freedom to withdraw from the study (n=33) and a declaration of voluntariness (n=30). Other information included confidentiality (n=22), withdrawals' non-interference with further treatment (n=7), the right to not answer questions (n=4), aim of the study (n=2), risks and benefits (n=2) and feedback of results (n=1). Those responsible for providing information as well as those receiving the information were described. Some informed consent discussions included an ethical rationale for the information process by referring to principles, codes or laws (n=16).

Confidentiality

Items coded in the confidentiality category reported that information was accessible to only authorised persons. Confidentiality procedures were succinctly reported (n=43). Besides describing confidentiality as something that participants were guaranteed and informed about, some researchers identified how confidentiality had been handled: data were safely stored protecting participant's identity (n=12); data were analysed and reported without identifying participants (n=19) and participants in focus group interviews were counselled in ways to promote freedom of expression and confidentiality (n=2).

Ethical aspect of the methods

The category for ethical aspect of the methods included the research ethics issues in collecting data, except for questions regarding informing participants. Ethical aspects of study methods were comprised of descriptions of interviews and questionnaires (n=37). Explanations of why interviews were ethically problematic were done by referring to principles or risks of harm (n=17). The negative aspects stated (n=24) were physical and psychological with an emphasis on emotional. Strategies to impede negative consequences were depicted (n=20): adopt a sensitive attitude, adapt to the physical and mental status of the interviewee, reduce questions, provide time to reflect on the interview and arrange for a contact person. Sometimes, statements about how the participants seemed to enjoy the interview experience were included (n=14). A few sections described problems that appeared during the research interview (n=14)—for example, interviewees who cried or did not answer all questions. The most comprehensive sections covered all these issues, but the most common strategy was to mention the potential laboriousness of the interview yet argue that participants benefited from practical solutions that were provided in the interview situation or by claiming that research participants appreciated the opportunity to tell their stories. The reported ethical problems with questionnaires were primarily the tedium of answering questions and how researchers adjusted the number of requests for completion out of respect and concern for participants' possible fatigue.

Use of ethical principles and regulations

Discussions that included the usage of principles and ethical regulations like laws and research ethics codes were coded to the category of ethical principles and regulations. This category was analytically different from others because it revealed how ethics were applied in the research sections. Explicit report of laws, ethics codes and principles occurred in fewer than half of the dissertations (n=25). Principles were employed but performed in qualitatively different ways (n=17). The simplest form was to state that the study had been performed in accordance with a research ethics declaration, code or rules outlined in a research ethics book. The most elaborate ones integrated the principles and described how they were used as compasses for research procedures (n=8).

Rationale for the study

To provide an ethical rationale for the study means to justify why the study is important in a wider perspective. Thirteen dissertations featured an ethical rationale for the study, and when included, it was framed in terms of risks and benefits. The need for new and valuable knowledge that could potentially improve conditions for other people weighed heavier than the extra demand and little direct gain that the research subjects gained from participating. Some reported that the value of pursuing the research outweighed the disadvantages but entailed the necessity of protecting the autonomy of the research participants.

Fair participant selection

Fair selection of participants signifies reflections on a justified choice of participants. The reason to include vulnerable groups and groups that previously has been excluded from research was sometimes given (n=9). A few sections justified the choice of participants (n=8). The importance of including important and vulnerable groups so their voices would be heard was the main reason reported.

Design of the research ethics section

The topics of the research ethics sections are outlined in table 2 . Most frequent was to report four ethics issues (n=16), followed by three (n=14) or five issues (n= 14). The majority (72%) included 3–5 issues. Four sections stated one topic and only one dissertation section reported seven issues. The most common composition of a section about research ethics discussed five topics: the approval from a research review board, information and informed consent, ethical aspects of the methods, confidentiality and principles.

Complexity of reasoning

The analysed texts demonstrated three stages of performance as measured by hierarchical complexity: abstract (n=4), formal (n=54) and systematic (n=6).

Abstract stage text performances consisted of declarative statements ( table 3 ). Unsupported categorical assertions were made and justified by invoking another assertion. Generalisations were created by quantifying people and events. Often-used quantifications in the sample were “all participants” and “all studies”. Research ethics sections included mainly generalisations about actions that had been performed.

Representative examples of reasoning in research ethics at three stages of complexity

Reasoning at the formal stage of performance used empirical or logical evidence ( table 3 ). Assertions were supported by explicit logic or evidence to justify the assertion—for example, by providing a logical explanation—for example, using such terms as because, in order to, since, if, then, therefore. Descriptions of hypothetical or alternative options in the future were sometimes included. The logic was linear. Such linear logic took the form of if–then constructions or chains of logic. Some used principles as logical reasons for actions.

Systematic stage performances were characterised by the ability to coordinate at least two logical relations into a system ( table 3 ); in other words, they demonstrated reasoning about complex causation and ability to understand a system of logical relationships. For example, one researcher described procedures for finding the “right people” by invoking a multivariate system that required the coordination of multiple variables. Systemic stage performances were characterised by more fluid reasoning than the linear, logical performances.

Comparing content and complexity

Few dissertations demonstrated abstract reasoning and systematic reasoning, four and six, respectively, but showed interesting patterns. The texts with abstract stage reasoning reported either one or two topics. All four mentioned approval; information and methodological issues were raised by only two. Texts with systematic reasoning introduced three to five ethical issues. Half of them discussed principles (as compared to merely citing a principle as the reason for an action), and the other three reported the rationale for the study, indicating that the topic and study could perhaps be viewed in a wider context. Among the majority of texts demonstrating formal reasoning, the topics varied from one to seven, meaning at least formal reasoning was needed to explain all conceivable aspects. Formal reasoning is required to report such tasks as fair selection of participants, rationale for the study and principles, ethics codes and laws.

Our study demonstrates that research ethics are insufficiently reported and inadequately described in many nursing dissertations. Few ethical topics are considered, and they are not discussed in a thorough way. While most note official approval and describe informed consent issues, other issues like the rationale for the study and how the participants were selected are infrequently reported. The level of complexity of reasoning was inadequate in most dissertations. The majority of the dissertations used formal reasoning, although by their nature, the ethical issues introduced in them require more complex reasoning to be satisfactorily addressed.

A methodological strength of our study is its inclusion of a large number of dissertations, which are likely representative of dissertations by Swedish nurses. A major advantage of our method is that the analytical approach permits assessments and comparisons of the coverage of ethical issues and the complexity of reasoning.

A methodological shortcoming is that the analysis was primarily focused on the section denoted “Ethical considerations/approval”, thus some ethics topics and reasoning might have passed undetected if they were treated in other parts of the dissertation. The analysis is thus limited to what the authors define as belonging to ethics sections. Our analysis identified the most complex stage of reasoning as a criterion for analysis because ethical considerations are complex matters. A more extensive analysis could have also analysed the entire low to high range of reasoning demonstrated in each ethics section. An implication of the language analyses is that we do not know which and how the ethical issues were applied in reality. Some issues could have been omitted from the dissertation text even though the issue was dealt with in practice and vice versa. The consistency between writing about ethics and ethical behaviour in the field—for example, in contact with research subjects and patients, should be investigated in future studies.

The first main finding is the incompleteness of the elaboration of topics and details in several dissertations, which is consistent with several studies in the domain of research ethics. A previous study showed a high level of errors in research ethics committee letters; that is, procedural violations, missing information, slip-ups and discrepancies. 8 Earlier research on Swedish nurses' dissertations demonstrate the questionable quality due to short length, few references and a narrow range of topics. 12

In our study, few topics were addressed. Emanuel et al argued for seven requirements to be considered and met in the conduct of ethical research: scientific value, validity, fair subject selection, favourable risk–benefit ratio, independent review, informed consent and respect for potential and enrolled subjects. 23 Applied to our findings, some requirements may be treated in other parts of a dissertation, but several dissertations leave out topics that are necessary for judging their ethical quality.

Informing potential participants and pursuing informed consent was reported in almost 90% of the dissertations' ethics sections. This frequency is higher than that reported in a study of Turkish nurses' dissertations where subjects were not informed about the study (72.7%) and the researchers had not obtained permission from the subjects (73.6%). 11

The second main finding is the insufficient level of complexity of reasoning, with which research ethics are handled. Findings from a discourse analysis of research ethics committee letters showed that there was “the lack of formal reasoning” (p 258) and ethical arguments—for example, informed consent are described as procedural norms rather than an ethics principle possible to dispute. 9 This is consistent with our findings, because a significant number invoked research ethics principles to justify procedures taken, rather than to use principles to support ethical arguments for and against certain procedures. However, our findings also showed that the great majority used at least some formal reasoning, as measured by hierarchical complexity.

Unfortunately, formal reasoning is necessary but not sufficient for adequacy in ethical matters. The analysis showed that formal reasoning and systematic reasoning were needed to elaborate on topics, and the comparison of complexity reasoning and content indicated that higher levels of reasoning involved more elaborated use of ethics principles. Very few used systematic reasoning, and none used metasystematic, which would be preferable because several of the research ethics concepts are metasystematic stage principles. For example, informed consent is a metasystematic stage concept because it coordinates the system of informing a research subject and the system of obtaining consent from the person. 24 This means that metasystematic reasoning is needed for a full understanding and use of these concepts.

What are possible explanations for the low levels of reasoning on research ethics? One possibility is that ethical issues are dealt with at a sufficiently high level of complexity in practice, whereas the text of the dissertation merely reflects a research tradition that discounts the importance of performing and explaining ethical reasoning. Disciplinary norms for terse writing styles are presumably promoted by supervisors and department guidelines. For example, nurses' dissertations in social science use more references to methods, ethics and philosophy of science than dissertation in the medical science tradition. 23 In addition, poor writing may occur because researchers mimic previous dissertations or regard ethical considerations as bureaucratic hurdles rather than moral requirements to protect participants. The supervisor role is an important factor since they sometimes acknowledge a considerable lack of knowledge about research ethics. 25 Another conceivable explanation is that the level of ethical reasoning corresponds rather accurately to the level of complexity the doctoral students and their supervisors use to handle complex issues in general. In other words, they are arguing on ethical issues at their highest complexity level. In that case, the scientists' (PhD students' and supervisors') ability to discuss at more complex levels must be improved for ethical issues to be sufficiently managed in the future. All these possibilities suggest further research is needed to account for our findings, since ethics have long been an important part of nurses' education and occupation.

There are several implications of insufficient ethical reasoning. Integrity of the research subjects and patients are at risk, and patients, if they participate, may be informed without understanding the implications. From the perspective of the readers of the scientific literature, it is impossible to assess how and why the authors dealt with various ethical issues. A crucial implication is the consequences of selection of research questions, methods and participants/sample. Scientists performing at abstract or formal stages are less likely to integrate relevant ethical aspects into their research aims than scientists at higher complexity levels. This is because such integration, by its nature, is multivariate at minimum. They will differ quite dramatically in the way they understand principles as principles, “risks” and “benefits”, rationale of the investigation, etc. Researchers with systemic or metasystematic stage reasoning are able to ask more complex questions, juggle ethics, research questions, and methods and design more complex research projects. 26

Our conclusion is that if the established praxis to include discussion of research ethics in Swedish nurses' dissertations is going to be valuable, and if its purpose is to indicate that the research complied with expected ethics, then the reporting must exhibit a certain quality, comprehensiveness and sufficiently significant treatment of ethics. Our study illustrates that factors that improve the quality include: appropriately thorough consideration of several ethical issues while avoiding minutiae; use of ethical principles in appropriate contexts to justify choices and reasons to support actions taken and use of at least formal and systematic reasoning. In addition, we would like to see more reflection and a critical stance to what has been done in the dissertation work.

In order to accomplish the intent of reporting research ethics, several improvements are needed. The most straightforward solution is to enhance the research ethics teaching in graduate education. Students must learn how to perform ethically sound research from the first steps of planning and performing to writing up the results and their potential and ability to report and reflect on ethical aspects of the research process must be enhanced. A more profound resolution is to emphasise metasystematic thinking in post-graduate studies and recruit senior researcher and post-graduate students who already have developed a systematic or metasystematic way of reasoning. This longer-term solution will also constitute the foundation for further development of complexity in handling ethics issues in the future.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank professor Per Sjölander for valuable comments on the discussion.

Emanuel EJ ,
Wendler D ,
Dixon-Woods M ,
Ashcroft RE
Finlay KA ,
Fernandez CV
Angell EL ,
Jackson CJ ,
Ashcroft RE ,
Dixon-Woods M
O'Reilly M ,
Rowan-Legg A ,
Ulusoy MF ,
Kjellström S ,
Creswell JW
Commons ML ,
Smith JEV ,
Goodheart EA ,
Dawson TL ,
Swedish law
Rodriguez JA ,
Szirony TA ,
Richards FA

Supplementary materials

Web only appendix.

Files in this Data Supplement:

web only appendix

Competing interests None.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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Examining the Ethical Implications of Health Care Technology Described in US and Swedish PhD Dissertations: Protocol for a Scoping Review

Jens m nygren.

1 Halmstad University, Halmstad, Sweden

Hans-Peter de Ruiter

2 Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN, United States

The development of new biomedical technologies is accelerating at an unprecedented speed. These new technologies will undoubtedly bring solutions to long-standing problems and health conditions. However, they will likely also have unintended effects or ethical implications accompanying them. It may be presumed that the research behind new technologies has been evaluated from an ethical perspective; however, the evidence that this has been done is scant.

This study aims to understand whether and in what manner PhD dissertations focused on health technologies describe actual or possible ethical issues resulting from their research.

The purpose of scoping reviews is to map a topic in the literature comprehensively and systematically to identify gaps in the literature or identify key evidence. The search strategy for this protocol will include electronic databases (eg, ProQuest, PubMed, Diva, SwePub, and LIBRIS). Searches will be limited to PhD dissertations published in the United States and Sweden in the last 10 years. The study will be mapped in 5 stages: (1) identifying the research question, (2) identifying relevant studies, (3) study selection, (4) retrieving and charting the data, and (5) collating, summarizing, and reporting the results.

The findings of this study will indicate if and how researchers, PhD students, and their supervisors are considering ethics in their studies, including both research ethics and the ethical implications of their work. The findings can guide researchers in determining gaps and shortcomings in current doctoral education and offer a foundation to adjusting doctoral research education.

Conclusions

In a society where technology and research are advancing at speeds unknown to us before, we need to find new and more efficient ways to consider ethical issues and address them in a timely manner. This study will offer an understanding of how ethics is currently being integrated into US and Swedish PhD dissertations and inform the future direction of ethics education at a doctoral level.

International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)

PRR1-10.2196/14157

Introduction

The importance of understanding the ethical implications of new health technologies is more important now than ever owing to the accelerated speed in which it is developing. Having insight into the possible ethical implications of new health technologies enhances research and development, thereby increasing the likeliness of successful implementation in clinical practice. It may be presumed that the findings presented in dissertations have been evaluated from an ethical perspective; however, evidence that this is the case is scant. This review protocol is developed to evaluate to what extent and how ethical issues are being addressed in PhD dissertations that focus on health technologies. This can give insight into and steer what ethical and moral education would prepare future researchers and academics for recognizing and addressing ethical issues. The proposal builds on a 2-year grant that focused on evaluating and integrating ethics when developing new health technologies [ 1 ].

The development of new technologies is accelerating at an unprecedented speed. It is predicted that in the next century, our earth will experience as much change as we have in the preceding 20,000 years [ 2 ]. These technological changes will also include medical advances such as electronic health, robotics, genomics, bioinformatics, nanotechnology, and numerous others [ 3 , 4 ]. This will undoubtedly bring solutions to long-standing problems and health conditions. However, they will likely also have a shadow side in the form of unintended effects or ethical implications accompanying them [ 5 ]. Owing to the rate at which technology is advancing, bioethics is falling further and further behind in staying current with new evolving issues. This is mainly because examining ethical issues has historically occurred retrospectively, which is a slow process [ 6 , 7 ]. Developers of new health technologies should thus be integrating ethical discernment early on in the development and research phase.

Much has been written, discussed, and taught about the importance of performing health research involving human subjects in an ethical manner and in accordance with strict guidelines [ 8 - 10 ]. In addition, medical and health journals should no longer publish research that has not gone through an ethical review by an independent ethics board [ 11 ]. These ethical review boards limit their review to the ethics of the study itself by reviewing issues such as informed consent, coercion, and risks or benefits to study participants. Research ethics and the role of the ethical review boards limit themselves exclusively to the ethical nature of research studies and do not consider possible ethical and unintended effects resulting from the research findings after the study has been completed. Efforts have been made in teaching and socializing [ 12 ] ethical and moral thinking and behaviors as a part of doctoral education [ 13 - 15 ]; however, the impact of those efforts remains to be determined. A number of studies have focused on the extent that research ethics is discussed in PhD dissertations and found deficiencies in the extent that the ethics pertaining to the study method was addressed [ 16 - 18 ]. The primary focus of this study is to evaluate the extent to which PhD students have addressed the ethical implications of their work, not only limited to the study method.

To be proactive in anticipating and understanding the ethical implications of these new developments, research ethics should be considered from each study's conception. A researcher’s awareness of possible ethical implications will allow him or her to respond proactively and address issues at an early stage, which points toward the importance of developing this awareness and capability to respond already during the postgraduate training of new researchers. To obtain an understanding of this practice, this study will analyze dissertations that pertain to health technology and analyze to what extent ethical implications are discussed and how they are addressed. As PhD students work with advisors/supervisors and dissertation committees, the findings from this study will also give a general insight into how senior academic researchers understand and value the ethical implications of research. Thus, this study does not intend to be a comprehensive overview of specific ethical issues in health technologies nor offer a comprehensive overview of all technologies; instead, it will focus on giving preliminary insights into what extent doctoral students are incorporating ethics in their work. This information is essential to identify if educational changes need to be made in doctoral education to allow for a more proactive approach to identifying the ethical and unintended effects of one’s research.

This study aims to understand in what manner and whether PhD dissertations focused on health technologies describe actual or possible ethical issues resulting from their research. This study will examine US and Swedish PhD dissertations with the future objective of showing the applicability of the protocol in other countries.

Study Design

The method of inquiry for this study will be a scoping review based on a study by Arksey and O’Malley [ 19 ] comprising 5 stages: (1) identifying the research question, (2) identifying relevant studies, (3) study selection, (4) retrieving and charting the data, and (5) collating, summarizing, and reporting the results.

Stage 1: Identifying the Research Question

In the context of scoping reviews, maintaining a broad approach in the first instance improves the possibility to generate a breadth of coverage and allows setting parameters based on the scope and volume of references generated. For this scoping study, the overarching research question is the following:

Are US and Swedish PhD dissertations researching health care technologies addressing possible ethical implications of their research findings, and if so how?

Answering this question will not only require a thorough examination of the extent to which PhD students are considering possible ethical issues during the design phase of their study but also if and how the ethical implications of their research findings are discussed in their dissertation.

For this study, we will use the definition of technology as defined by Jacques Ellul as the underlying ethical framework and theory [ 20 ]. Ellul argues that the basis of all technologies are techniques, systems that make a process more efficient [ 20 ]. Technologies are typically devices or systems that automate 1 or more techniques. On the basis of this view, this proposal considers technology to be broader than mere electronic devices and equipment and also include techniques such as health economics, risk management, health quality assurance, and genomics [ 20 ]. The importance of understanding the impact of techniques and technology, such as the ethical implications, is thus crucial in fully comprehending the full effect of new technologies. A list of technologies ( Textbox 1 ) presented in the World Health Organization (WHO) report, “Human Resources for Medical Devices, the Role of Biomedical Engineers” [ 21 ], will be used to identify current technologies and techniques used worldwide. The WHO listing was selected because of the comprehensive nature and scope of technologies and techniques. The list includes not only devices but also techniques to help manage health care delivery, which is in line with the definition of technology and technique as identified by Ellul [ 20 ]. To confirm the validity of using these terms concerning ethics and health care technologies, we will perform a search among all original peer-reviewed publications written in English and listed in PubMed in the period 2009 to 2019. The search will explore to what extent publications are mentioning ethics accompanying technologies. The following searches will be performed:

Subspecialisms of biomedical engineering.

Research and development

1. Biomechanics

2. Biomaterials

3. Bioinformatics

4. Systems biology

5. Synthetic biology

7. Biological engineering

8. Nanotechnology

9. Genomics

10. Population health or data analytics

11. Computational epidemiology

12. Intellectual property innovation

13. Theranostics

14. Biosignals

Rehabilitation

15. Artificial organs

16. Neural engineering

17. Tissue engineering or regeneration

18. Mechatronics

19. Assistive devices

20. Rehabilitation software

21. Prosthetics

Application and operation: clinical engineering

22. Technology management

23. Health quality assurance

24. Health regulatory assurance

25. Health education and training

26. Ethics committee

27. Clinical trials

28. Disaster preparedness

29. eHealth

30. Telemedicine

31. mHealth

32. Wearable sensors

33. Health economics

34. Health systems engineering

35. Health technology assessment or evaluation

36. Health informatics

37. Service delivery management

38. Field service support

39. Heath and security

40. Heath and privacy

41. Heath and cybersecurity

42. Forensic engineering or investigation

43. Manufacturing QMS

44. Manufacturing GMP

45. Medical imaging

46. Project management

47. Robotics

48. Virtual environments

49. Risk management

50. EMI compliance

51. EMC compliance

52. Technology Innovation strategies

53. Population- and community-based needs assessment

54. Engineering asset management

55. Environmental health

56. Systems science

Term of technology in title or abstract
Term of technology + ethics or unintended effects in text
Term of technology + ethics or unintended effects in title or abstract in text.

Findings will be entered into a matrix describing the number of articles identified by each search combination. A total of 168 searches (56 terms x 3 searches) will be performed during this stage.

Stage 2: Identifying Relevant Studies

To identify dissertations as comprehensively as possible for answering the research question of this study, the search strategy will involve searching broadly via multiple sources. Electronic databases will primarily be used, but other sources will be considered in the context of practicability. The following databases will be prioritized, based on topic and coverage:

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses—contains dissertations and theses from over 1000 North American and European universities (only a limited number of Swedish universities are indexed in ProQuest and the use of ProQuest will be limited to US dissertations).
LIBRIS—the national catalogue for Swedish PhD dissertations covering a substantial part of all the books and periodicals published in Sweden from the 16th century onward.
SwePub—contains references to research publications from approximately 40 Swedish universities and other publication databases. Selection and extent vary among contributing universities and authorities.
DiVA portal—an institutional repository for research publications and student theses written at 47 universities and research institutions in Sweden.

To identify dissertations that refer or mention ethics in relation to technology or techniques defended in the US and Sweden during the last 10 years, each database will be searched for the terms used by WHO in the report, “Human Resources for Medical Devices, the Role of Biomedical Engineers” [ 21 ] ( Textbox 1 ). The following search strategy will be used:

Term of technology
Term of technology + ethics in title or abstract
Term of technology + ethics in text

Stage 3: Selecting Studies

Unlike systematic reviews, inclusion and exclusion criteria in scoping reviews are developed posthoc, once there is familiarity with the literature. However, all dissertations written in a language other than English or Swedish will be excluded. Our focus is on PhD dissertations researching a technique or technology intended to improve or impact the health of individuals or a population. This will include health treatments, diagnostic and testing equipment, health monitoring systems, and quality assurance and health economics systems. Even though we anticipate most dissertations to be from health sciences such as medicine, nursing, and physical therapy, other disciplines will also be included as indicated to assure an accurate and comprehensive overview.

Stage 4: Retrieving and Charting the Data

The process for classifying and synthesizing the data retrieved involves 2 steps: first, to map how the dissertations are distributed according to the search terms, that is, technology and technique terms and ethics, and second, to map in relevance to the research question.

Charting the data retrieved will involve classifying and synthesizing the data identified in the dissertations. The steps for mapping the data will be the following:

Step 1.0—Map the distribution of dissertations among the 56 search terms (from the WHO human resources for medical devices report) for technologies and techniques
Step 2.0—Map publication years, disciplines, and names of universities
Step 2.1—Map dissertations into groups describing different topic areas
Step 2.2—Map the extent of mentioning and elaboration of ethics in the dissertations.

Selected and included dissertations will be manually assessed by using a self-developed Dissertation Ethics Assessment Tool recording; 1) year, 2) discipline, 3) name of University, 4) topic area, 5) discussion of research ethics “Quotations of texts”, 6) discussion of unintended effects of ethical issues of the research findings “Quotations of texts”, 7) suggestions regarding ethics or unintended effects offered “Quotations of texts”, and 8) comments. Data coding and categorization will be performed by 2 researchers independently, and findings will be compared and discussed. When there is a difference in assessment, the researchers will discuss to come to a consensus. If no consensus is achieved, the dissertation will be excluded from the study.

Stage 5: Collating, Summarizing, and Reporting the Results

Processing of the results in a scoping review does not emphasize the level or quality of evidence presented, but instead develops a thematic framework based on the existing literature relating to the research question. This study will focus on the sections found in the dissertations that pertain to (1) research ethics and (2) ethical implications of the research that are described.

This will be qualitatively analyzed by using the Web-based research tool, Covidence. Any sections from dissertations that mention ethics will be entered into Covidence for coding and analysis purposes. After the data are entered, data analysis will be based on the work of Cobin et al [ 22 , 23 ]. First, qualitative data analysis will focus on identifying codes, phrases, or words with an objective to organize the data. Second, a unified coding system will be developed, and codes will be collapsed into categories while continuing to code the data when relevant. Finally, the categories will be abstracted into themes, and narrative descriptions will be written for each theme. The Covidence tool was selected as it allows for several researchers to code and analyze the same dataset simultaneously and is specifically intended for use for this type of research. The authors will follow and adapt Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses reporting guidelines for systematic reviews to accurately report the analysis process and the outcomes from the study [ 24 ].

The findings of this study will indicate how far researchers, PhD students, and their supervisors are considering ethics in their studies, including both research ethics and the ethical implications of their work. The importance of our findings is to help understand what deficits exist in the discussion of ethics in peer-reviewed research publications and in US and Swedish PhD dissertations. The findings can guide researchers in determining gaps and shortcomings in current doctoral education. These findings will offer a foundation for adjusting doctoral research education to meet the needs of a society in which research and technological advancement is accelerating at a rate previously unknown. The awareness of ethical issues will allow ethical implications to be addressed more responsively and to start thinking and addressing ethical implications at the beginning of a research project. Some limitations to the interpretations and applicability of the study are (1) the technologies researched will be based on the WHO classification, this might not be all-inclusive, (2) articles and dissertations that are relevant for this study might be missed, (3) discussion and education regarding ethics might occur during the PhD education without being reflected in the dissertations, and (4) studies might discuss ethics without using the term ethics and hence might not be captured in this study.

In an era where technology and research are advancing at speeds unknown to us before, we need to find new and more efficient ways to consider these issues and address them in a timely manner. This study could offer ways of starting an ethical analysis earlier and making it a part of every researcher’s foundation. Not only will addressing ethical issues during the education of future researchers increase their knowledge, but it will also instill a higher level of accountability for how their research could be used in unethical ways.

This study will give insights into and steer what ethical education might prepare future researchers for joining the community of academics by completing a PhD. This study will contribute to the goal of teaching and embedding ethical thinking and moral discernment as part of PhD education to meet the needs of a world that is changing at an accelerating pace.

Abbreviations

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Profiles of doctoral students’ experience of ethics in supervision: an inter-country comparison

Open access
Published: 24 August 2022
Volume 86 , pages 617–636, ( 2023 )

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Erika Löfström ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0838-9626 1 ,
Jouni Peltonen ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7458-6532 2 ,
Liezel Frick ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4797-3323 3 ,
Katrin Niglas ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0867-9594 4 &
Kirsi Pyhältö ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8766-0559 1 , 3

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The purpose of this study was to examine variation in doctoral students’ experiences of ethics in doctoral supervision and how these experiences are related to research engagement, burnout, satisfaction, and intending to discontinue PhD studies. Data were collected from 860 doctoral students in Finland, Estonia, and South Africa. Four distinct profiles of ethics experience in doctoral supervision were identified, namely students puzzled by the supervision relationship, strugglers in the ethical landscape, seekers of ethical allies, and students with ethically trouble-free experiences. The results show that the profiles were related to research engagement, satisfaction with supervision and studies, and burnout. Not experiencing any major ethical problems in supervision was associated with experiencing higher engagement and satisfaction with supervision and doctoral studies and low levels of exhaustion and cynicism. Similar profiles were identified across the countries, yet with different emphases. Both Estonian and South African PhD students were overrepresented in the profile of students with ethically trouble-free experiences, while the Finnish students were underrepresented in this profile. The Finnish PhD students were overrepresented among the seekers of ethical allies. Profiles provide information that can alert supervisors and administrators about the extent of the risk of burnout or discontinuing of PhD studies based on students’ negative experiences of the ethics in supervision.

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Introduction

Supervision calls for pedagogical considerations of ethics as practiced in the student-supervisor relationship (Halse & Bansel, 2012 ). We have previously shown that Finnish PhD students’ experiences of ethics in supervision predict research engagement, satisfaction with doctoral studies and supervision, burnout, and intentions to discontinue studies (Löfström & Pyhältö, 2020 ). This indicates that sustainable experiences of ethics in the supervision relationship may not only provide a buffer against attrition (Cloete et al., 2015 ) and mental health problems documented in the literature on PhD students (Levecque et al., 2017 ; Reevy & Deason, 2014 ) but could provide a resource allowing doctoral students to flourish (Shin & Jung, 2014 ; Vekkaila et al., 2018 ) . In turn, negative experiences related to ethics in supervision may increase the risk of burnout and dropping out from doctoral studies (Jacobsson & Gillström, 2006 ). However, not much research is available on how doctoral students differ in their experiences of ethics in supervision and how these differences contribute to their research engagement, satisfaction, burnout, and intentions of discontinuing PhD studies. Even less is known about the variation in such experiences across different sociocultural contexts of doctoral education. This study provides insight into how doctoral students differ in their experiences of ethics in supervision and how these differences contribute to their research engagement, satisfaction, burnout, and discontinuing PhD studies and identifies variation in three distinct sociocultural contexts.

Theoretical underpinnings

Ethics in supervision

Ethics in supervision consist of components of normative principles about acceptable and nonacceptable behavior (ethics) and values that are essential in everyday practices, such as honesty and transparency (integrity) (Jordan, 2013 ). Here, we use the term ethics in supervision to encompass both dimensions in doctoral supervision. Supervision includes both expectations regarding moral positions and acting on those positions. Questions of ethics and integrity are simultaneously present in expectations regarding how research ought to be carried out and how the relationship between a supervisor and a doctoral candidate is construed. We operationalized ethics in supervision through a set of principles familiar from codes of conduct for researchers, such as the Singapore Statement (World Conferences on Research Integrity, 2010 ), and the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (ALLEA, 2017 ), and research ethics guidelines, such as the Belmont Report (National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical & Behavioral Research, 1979 ) and the Declaration of Helsinki (World Medical Association WMA, 2013 ), to name a few. These principles include respect for autonomy , beneficence , non-maleficence , justice , and fidelity .

Respect for autonomy is a fundamental ethical principle and refers to the respect for individuals’ right to make decisions concerning themselves (Kitchener, 1985 , 2000 ). In doctoral supervision, this refers to providing sufficient space for the doctoral student to make choices regarding his or her research (Löfström & Pyhältö, 2014 ). The autonomy experienced by doctoral students is shown to be a substantial source of engagement (Vekkaila et al., 2013 ). This does not mean that supervisors should not guide doctoral students in finding proper directions and helping them to make informed choices in the research process. If doctoral students’ freedom of choice or space to explore their own ideas are severely limited, or they feel that different options cannot be raised for discussion, it can infringe on their development in becoming independent researchers (Lee, 2008 ). There is evidence that students’ ethical views develop when supervisors show respect for the students’ own decisions regarding their research (Gray & Jordan, 2012 ). Furthermore, the lack of support that is experienced in the transition into an autonomous and independent researcher may expedite doctoral students’ decisions to discontinue PhD studies (Leijen et al., 2016 ).

Beneficence refers to an intention to do good for others. In supervisory relationships, this entails supporting the doctoral student in developing increased competence and independence and ultimately gaining a doctoral degree. Failure to provide benefits to the doctoral student can be a consequence of insufficient content, pedagogical, and supervisory competence including confusion about role expectations (Jairam & Kahl, 2012 ; Parker-Jenkins, 2018 ).

The principle of non-maleficence is compromised when the doctoral student or his or her rights are harmed in one way or another. In supervisory practices, this may take place as misappropriation or exploitation of a doctoral student’s work or through psychologically confounded relationships, involving a parent/child-like relations or an intimate relationship between a supervisor and a supervisee (Goodyear et al., 1992 ; Löfström & Pyhältö, 2014 ; Parker-Jenkins, 2018 ).

Supervisors use a range of strategies to level out the issues of power asymmetry in their pursuit of supporting doctoral students’ well-being and development (Elliot & Kobayashi, 2018 ). However, asymmetrical power relationships can cause breaches of the principle of justice (Kitchener, 1985 ). Doctoral students may find it difficult to assert themselves in situations in which seniority and expectations of gratitude influence ownership, authorship, or workload (Löfström & Pyhältö, 2014 ; Yarwood-Ross & Haigh, 2014 ).

The principle of fidelity is a vital basis for sustaining any relationship. It includes keeping promises and treating others with respect (Kitchener, 1985 ; 2000 ). In supervision, breaches of fidelity involve failure to keep a supervision promise. The reasons for discontinued supervision may be fully comprehensible, such as a supervisor retiring, moving away, taking parental leave, or falling ill (Löfström & Pyhältö, 2014 ; Wisker & Robinson, 2013 ; Yarwood-Ross & Haigh, 2014 ), but sometimes less so, that is, outright neglect (Johnson et al., 2000 ). In either case, the doctoral student may experience abandonment. Supervisor unavailability is one of the most disruptive aspects for progression in the doctoral journey (McAlpine, 2012 ). Insufficient supervision increases the risk of discontinuing doctoral studies (Pyhältö et al., 2012 ).

These five ethical principles converge on three thematic dimensions: first, the dimension ethical aspects in the research community, including social structures and programmatic aspects (FORM) , encompasses the principles of autonomy, beneficence, and fidelity. Second, the dimension fairness and adherence to common formal and informal rules as a means of ensuring equal treatment of doctoral students (RULE) encompasses justice, non-maleficence, and fidelity. Third, the dimension respect in personal relations (CARE) encompasses autonomy and beneficence. Positive experiences of these dimensions contribute to engagement and satisfaction while negative experiences contribute to burnout and intentions to drop out (Löfström & Pyhältö, 2020 ).

Combining these dimensions of ethics in supervision raises a question about the interrelation between the constructs (for approaches related to burnout and engagement, see Shirom, 2011 ; Larsen & McGraw, 2011 ; Shraga & Shirom, 2009 ). If these dimensions are independent, one may score high on one and low on the other dimensions. For instance, a PhD student might simultaneously experience high levels of fairness and equal treatment of doctoral students (RULE) and lack of respect in personal relations (CARE). Alternatively, they may be dependent, and a high score on one dimension would correlate with a high score on the other. Applying a person-centered approach to PhD students’ experiences of ethics in supervision allows us to explore the question in more detail.

Study engagement and study burnout

Study engagement has been suggested as being a hallmark of optimal doctoral experience, characterized by sense of vigor , dedication , and absorption (Vekkaila et al., 2018 ; see seminal work on work engagement by Bakker & Demerouti, 2008 ; González-Romá et al., 2006 ; Schaufeli et al., 2002 ). Such doctoral experiences encompass immersion in research, a feeling of time passing quickly, strong psychological involvement in research combined with a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, positive challenge, and high levels of energy resulting in positive outcomes in post-PhD researcher careers (Shin & Jung, 2014 ; Vekkaila et al., 2018 ) . Doctoral students who receive sufficient supervisory and research community support are more likely to experience higher levels of engagement than their less fortunate peers (Pyhältö et al., 2016 ).

Problems in the supervisory relationship and lack of faculty support appear to be related to increased risk of burnout (Peluso et al., 2011 ). PhD burnout resulting from extensive and prolonged stress has two main symptoms, namely exhaustion characterized by a lack of emotional energy and feeling drained and tired of doctoral studies and cynicism comprising feeling that one’s research has lost its meaning and distancing oneself from the work and members of the research community (Maslach & Leiter, 2008 ). Research environment attributes, such as sufficient supervisory and research community support, sense of belonging, and good work-environment fit, have been found to be associated with reduced burnout risk and increased levels of engagement among doctoral students (Hunter & Devine, 2016 ). Burnout entails negative consequences including reduced research productivity, reduced engagement, reduced interest in research, study prolongation, and increased risk of discontinuing doctoral studies (Ali & Kohun, 2007 ; Pyhältö et al., 2018 ; Rigg et al., 2013 ).

Little is known about individual differences in doctoral students’ experiences of the ethics in supervision, and how these differences are related to supervision arrangements and student well-being or a lack thereof. The theoretical underpinnings and results from earlier studies in Finland (e.g., Löfström & Pyhältö, 2020 ) inspired us to hypothesize that the underlying structures concerning the experiences of ethics in supervision may be the same across different cultural contexts as similar problems have been described elsewhere (see Muthanna & Alduais, 2021 ). Therefore, we set out to identify profiles of doctoral students’ experiences of ethics in supervision and their association with engagement, burnout, and intentions to drop out in the historically diverse but culturally and regionally relatively similar contexts of Finland and Estonia, in comparison to the culturally and regionally rather different context of South Africa.

These countries have in common high levels of attrition and distress and exhaustion in addition to prolonged studies, insufficient supervision, and poor integration of doctoral students into the research community (ASSAf, 2010 ; Herman, 2011 ; Leijen et al., 2016 ; Stubb et al., 2011 ; Vassil & Solvak, 2012 ). There is evidence that 35–45% of Finnish doctoral students have considered discontinue studies (Pyhältö et al., 2016 ). In South Africa, the attrition rate amongst doctoral students is 22% nationally in the first year with less than half of candidates graduating within 7 years (Cloete et al., 2015 ). In Estonia, the reported attrition in the phase prior to planning our study was 34% (Vassil & Solvak, 2012 ). Outcomes such as exhaustion and attrition have been shown to be related to negative experiences of ethics in supervision (Löfström & Pyhältö, 2020 ). These shared problems in doctoral education and differences in the settings make it relevant to study the chosen countries from the perspective of ethics in supervision and compare the results in order to understand universal and context-specific aspects of doctoral students’ experiences of the ethics in supervision. Following the above, we posed the research questions:

How do Finnish, South African, and Estonian PhD students experience the ethics in supervision, engagement, burnout, and satisfaction with supervision and doctoral studies?

What kind of profiles do experiences of the ethics in supervision, engagement, burnout, and satisfaction with supervision and doctoral studies constitute among Finnish, South African, and Estonian PhD students?

Is there a relationship between the experiences of ethics in supervision profiles and supervisory arrangements (frequency of supervision, number of supervisors, and individual or group supervision)?

As profiles of doctoral students’ experiences of the ethics in supervision have not been identified before using a broad set of key variables of importance in the doctoral experience, we were interested in the profiles as such in the comparative context set out for our study.

In Finland, doctoral studies are research-intensive rather than course-centered, and research generally begins immediately (Pyhältö et al., 2012 ). In Estonia, the recent reform of doctoral studies introduced a substantial amount of course work to the curriculum and regardless of the emphasis put on research, the first year of a doctoral program is often devoted to course work, leaving less time for research activities. In South Africa, doctoral studies are research oriented. Although professional doctorates are now included in the South African Higher Education Qualifications Sub-framework (Council on Higher Education, 2014 ), doctoral programs continue predominantly to be by research only, with no credit-bearing coursework.

Tuition fees

In Finland, doctoral education is publicly funded, and there are no tuition fees for students. However, there is no automatic funding for studying at the doctoral level. Students apply for competitive funding from a number of foundations that support research or find employment at the university on various projects, or outside the university (Pyhältö et al., 2011 ). In addition, in Estonia, doctoral education is publicly funded (Lepp et al., 2016 ). Since 2012, every student who is granted a doctoral study place receives a grant for 4 years. Recently, several Estonian universities have introduced a policy by which they grant doctoral students an income comparable to the average salary, but the Estonian data were collected in 2016, before this policy came into existence, and the grant was substantially smaller. Consequently, there has been a tradition of finding additional employment in or outside the university. In South Africa, the doctoral education system is funded by a combination of government subsidies and student fees (Cloete et al., 2015 ). Many students are already employed when enrolling for a doctorate or are soon usurped into academic positions. However, in humanities, arts, and social sciences, many students receive little or no financial support, while funded full time doctoral study is more common in STEM.

Supervision arrangements

In Finland, doctoral students are expected to have two named supervisors. One of these is generally a full professor. It is common that doctoral students take part in research seminars organized by a supervisor (Pyhältö et al., 2012 ). In Estonia, doctoral students must have at least one named supervisor at the professorial level, but if the supervisor is less experienced, the doctoral program committee commonly assigns a senior supervisor to support the process. A similar practice of teaming up inexperienced supervisors with more experienced ones is in place in South Africa, although a supervisor does not need to be at a professorial level. Given the current lack of suitably qualified supervisory capacity in a variety of fields, inexperienced supervisors are often allocated to students, and single student-supervisor dyadic arrangements are still common (Cloete et al., 2015 ).

Types of doctoral dissertation

In both Finland and Estonia, a doctoral dissertation can be written either as a monograph or as an article compilation, with the latter being more prevalent in many fields. The articles are usually co-authored with the supervisors and sometimes with other senior researchers (Lepp et al., 2016 ; Pyhältö et al., 2012 ). In South Africa, doctoral dissertations follow a variety of formats, including both monographs and publication-based theses, or various permutations of these formats (Odendaal & Frick, 2017 ).

Participants

The data were collected at four universities in 2016 and 2017 as independent surveys. The universities included two in Finland, one in Estonia and one in South Africa. All four have an international profile and play important national and regional roles. All are research universities, but they are at different stages of building up their research profiles. The response rate in each country was 25–26%. The data set consisted of 860 doctoral students with a mean age of 37.59 (Table 1 ). The largest subset, namely the Finnish data, are representative of age and disciplines, with women slightly overrepresented among the respondents.

Participation in the study was voluntary and based on informed consent. No incentives were offered. No personal identifiers were collected. In Finland and Estonia, an ethics review is not required for anonymous survey research involving healthy volunteer adults (Finnish National Board on Research Integrity, 2019 ; Estonian Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, 2017 ). In South Africa, an ethics review was conducted according to the ethical code of conduct of the university.

We utilized the Ethical Issues in Supervision Scale (Löfström & Pyhältö, 2020 ), which contains 15 Likert-type items reflecting breaches of five ethical principles, namely respect of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, and fidelity. The items address exploitation, misappropriation, lack of collective culture, lack of well-being, supervision competence, narrowness of perspective, imposition of supervisor’s views and values, inadequate supervision, abandonment, inequality, and unfair authorship.

Items from the Doctoral Experience Survey (Pyhältö et al., 2011 , 2016 ) were included to measure burnout (exhaustion and cynicism, drawing on Maslach et al., 2001 ) and engagement (originally adapted from Schaufeli et al., 2002 ) (Pyhältö et al., 2018 ). These items utilized Likert-type response scales (1 = fully disagree, 7 = fully agree).

Additional background items with various response scales from the Doctoral Experience Survey included: number of primary supervisors (one supervisor/two supervisors/no supervisor/other individual or entity); intention to drop out (yes/no); supervision model (whether the student received supervision mainly individually/in a group/or both); frequency of supervision (daily/weekly/once a month/once in 2 months/once in 6 months/less frequently); satisfaction with (a) doctoral studies and (b) supervision (1 = very dissatisfied, 7 = very satisfied); considering changing supervisor (yes/no); actual change of supervisor (yes/no).

After an initial screening of data, exploratory factor analyses (EFA) were performed to investigate the factor structure of the three scales: ethical issues in supervision, exhaustion, and engagement. We carried out a series of EFAs with maximum likelihood extraction and both orthogonal and oblique rotations. We based the decision about the number of factors to retain on both the eigenvalues of the factors and the theoretical salience of the rotated factors (see Table 2 for scales used for EFA and their factor scores). The factor structure is similar to the three-factor structure in Löfström and Pyhältö ( 2020 ), in which the five theoretically informed ethical principles converged into three thematic dimensions. The analyses of the burnout scale and the engagement scale supported a two-factor and a one-factor solution, respectively (see Table 2 ).

Doctoral student profiles of ethical experiences in supervision were identified through K-means cluster analysis performed on the three Ethical Issues in Supervision subscale scores ( FORM, RULE and CARE ). We performed several analyses with one to five clusters and selected a four-cluster solution, which was the best model both content-wise and in terms of parsimony. For inter-country comparisons, we used one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and suitable post hoc tests. Due to the differences in our subsample sizes, we used Gabriel’s test when we assumed that variances of three groups were homogenous and Tamhane’s T2 when this assumption was not supported by the data. We also used chi-square tests to detect any differences there might be in the student composition based on gender, format of doctoral dissertation, and supervisory arrangements as well as the differences between the countries in proportions in the profiles of ethical experiences.

The ethical experience profiles were analyzed in relation to experiences of engagement and burnout, satisfaction with supervision and doctoral studies, and intentions to drop out through ANOVA, again along with Gabriel’s and Tamhane’s T2 multiple comparison tests and chi-square test. We determined the magnitude of the effect sizes (Cohen’s d ) referring to Cohen ( 1988 ): small ( d = 0.2), medium ( d = 0.5), and large ( d = 0.8) effect size.

There were differences between countries concerning the doctoral students’ experiences in all three dimensions of ethics in supervision, engagement, burnout, satisfaction to supervision, and satisfaction to doctoral studies (see Table 3 ).

Because the cell sizes are unequal, but the homogeneity of variance assumption was supported by the data, we used Gabriel’s post hoc test here for pairwise comparisons when we assumed that the variances of the groups included in the comparison were equal which was supported by the data. According to Gabriel’s test, Finland differed from Estonia ( p < 0.01, d = 0.30) and South Africa ( p < 0.001, d = 0.30) on the dimension ethical issues in the research community; including social structures and programmatic aspects (FORM ) in that the students exhibited lower scores, that is, a less positive experience. On the dimension fairness and adherence to common formal and informal rules as a means of ensuring equal treatment of doctoral students (RULE) , the South African experience differed slightly from that in Finland ( p > 0.05, d = 0.21) with higher scores, that is more positive experiences, while the Estonian score was in the middle indicating no statistically significant differences when compared to the results from the other two countries. On the dimension respect in personal relations (CARE) , Estonian doctoral students scored slightly lower, that is, more positive experiences, when compared to Finnish ( p < 0.05, d = 0.30) and South African ( p < 0.05, d = 0.29) PhD students.

South African doctoral students reported higher scores in engagement than their Finnish ( p < 0.001, d = 0.29) and Estonian ( p < 0.05, d = 0.31) colleagues. While the doctoral students from the three countries differed neither on cynicism nor drop out intentions, there was a difference between Finland and South Africa in exhaustion. South African students reported more exhaustion than their Finnish colleagues did ( p < 0.05, d = 0.46). However, Finnish doctoral students were less satisfied with supervision than South African students were ( p < 0.001, d = 0.23) and showed a lower satisfaction level in doctoral studies than both South African ( p < 0.001, d = 0.43) and Estonian students ( p < 0.01, d = 0.32).

In a joint cluster analysis, we identified four doctoral students’ profiles according to their experiences of ethics in supervision (Fig. 1 ).

Ethics in supervision profiles

Profile 1: Students puzzled by the supervision relationship (referred to as the puzzled ) ( n = 160, 18.6%) had relatively high values on the FORM and RULE subscale scores, thus expressing an absence of ethical problems in terms of supervision arrangements, availability of supervisory support, and experiences of just and fair treatment. Nevertheless, they experienced challenges with the supervisory relationship, such as issues with the adequacy of the supervisory support and facilitation of independence.

Profile 2: Strugglers in the ethical landscape (referred to as strugglers ) ( n = 96, 11.2%) expressed experiences of exploitation, misappropriation, lack of collective culture, lack of well-being, low supervisor competence, narrowness of perspective, imposition of supervisor’s views and values, inadequate supervision, abandonment, inequality, and unfair authorship. This profile stands out as having consistently the most negative experiences on all dimensions of the ethical landscape of supervision. We wish to remind the reader that low values, that is, an absence of problems, for the CARE variable indicate positive experiences.

Profile 3: Seekers of Ethical Allies (referred to as seekers ) ( n = 192, 22.3%) had relatively high average scores on RULE but struggled somewhat with FORM. They expressed the view that there was a general absence of ethical problems in terms of supervision arrangements, availability of supervisory support, and experiences of just and fair treatment, but their experience with the ethical landscape was not entirely positive. Ethical problems are likely to be located at the structural and organizational levels and in the relationships within the research community. They feel taken care of in terms of the adequacy of the supervisory support, experiencing that their supervisors do care about their well-being and development. The profile suggests that supervisors are sufficiently experienced to be allies in any ethical confrontations with other parties.

Profile 4: Students with ethically trouble-free experience (referred to as the trouble-free ) ( n = 412, 47.9%) had the highest scores on both FORM and RULE subscale scores and a low average score on the CARE subscale score, indicating an absence of ethical problems in terms of supervision arrangements, availability of supervisory support, and experiences of just and fair treatment. They feel taken care of in terms of the adequacy of the supervisory support, and their experience is that supervisors do care about their well-being and development.

The results of ANOVA tests revealed significant differences between the four profiles in engagement, exhaustion, cynicism, satisfaction with supervision, and satisfaction with doctoral studies (Table 4 ).

As a point of departure, we assumed that students in the four profiles diverge in their experiences of satisfaction with supervision and doctoral studies, engagement and burnout, and intentions to discontinue PhD studies. We performed ANOVAs with Gabriel’s or Tamhane’s T2 post hoc test. Pairwise comparisons with Tamhane’s T2 indicated that differences in engagement appeared between profiles. The puzzled and the strugglers ( p < 0.05, d = 0.35); the puzzled and the trouble-free ( p < 0.001, d = 0.57); the strugglers and the trouble-free ( p < 0.001, d = 0.87); and the seekers and the trouble-free ( p < 0.001, d = 0.60) differed from each other in engagement. Overall, the trouble-free were more engaged than the other profiles, but also the Puzzled deviated in a positive way. The effect size was large in the difference between the strugglers and the trouble-free .

As for exhaustion, Gabriels’s test indicated that differences appeared between the puzzled and the strugglers ( p < 0.001, d = 0.51); puzzled and the trouble-free ( p < 0.001, d = 0.61); strugglers and the seekers (p > 0.001, d = 0.73); strugglers and the trouble-free ( p < 0.001, d = 1.05); and the seekers and the trouble-free ( p < 0.001, d = 0.34). The strugglers exhibited the highest levels of exhaustion, and the trouble-free the lowest, with the puzzled and the seekers placing in between with relatively similar levels of cynicism. The effect size was large in the difference between the strugglers and the trouble-free .

We used Tamhane’s T2 to examine the differences between the groups on cynicism and found statistically significant differences between the puzzled and the strugglers ( p < 0.05, d = 0.41); the puzzled and the trouble-free ( p < 0.001, d = 0.88); the strugglers and the seekers ( p < 0.01, d = 0.45); the strugglers and the trouble-free ( p 0.001, d = 1.18); and the seekers and the trouble-free ( p < 0.001, d = 0.77). The strugglers exhibited the highest levels of cynicism, and the trouble-free the lowest, with the puzzled and the seekers placing in between with relatively similar levels of cynicism. The effect size was large in the difference between the puzzled and the trouble-free .

Tamhane’s T2 indicated that in satisfaction with supervision all the profiles differed significantly from each other. The trouble-free were more satisfied than the puzzled ( p < 0.001, d = 0.97), the strugglers ( p < 0.001, d = 2.70) and the seekers ( p < 0.001, d = 1.46). The puzzled were more satisfied with supervision than the strugglers ( p < 0.001, d = 1.72) and the seekers ( p < 0.001, d = 0.65). The seekers were more satisfied with supervision than the strugglers were ( p < 0.001, d = 0.84). The effect sizes were large in the difference between the trouble-free and the puzzled and the seekers and between the puzzled and the strugglers .

Gabriel’s test suggested that the trouble-free were more satisfied with their doctoral studies than the puzzled ( p < 0.001, d = 0.65), the strugglers ( p < 0.001, d = 1.62), and the seekers ( p < 0.001, d = 0.89). The puzzled were more satisfied than the strugglers were ( p < 0.001, d = 1.01), and the seekers were more satisfied than the strugglers were ( p < 0.001, d = 0.71). The effect sizes were large in the difference between the trouble-free and the strugglers and the seekers and between the puzzled and the strugglers .

For comparisons on intentions to drop out and more detailed aspects of supervision, chi-square test was used (see Table 5 ). More often, the strugglers harbored ideas of dropping out and had considered a change of supervisor more often than the other profiles. The seekers , however, had the highest rate of actually changing supervisor. Gender and model of supervision were not statistically significantly related to profile membership.

The representation of students from the three countries varied in the four profiles. The chi-square test we used to examine the differences between countries showed ( χ 2 [6, N = 860] = 24.094, p < 0.001) that Estonian doctoral students were underrepresented among the puzzled (observed count = 7/expected count 16) and slightly overrepresented among the trouble-free (52/41) . Finnish students were under-represented in the trouble-free profile (214/249), while at the same time overrepresented in seekers (132/114) . South African students were underrepresented among the seekers (42/59) and overrepresented among the trouble-free (146/126) .

The results show four profiles of doctoral students’ experience of ethics in supervision. To our knowledge, this is the first study identifying profiles that combine experiences of supervision and ethics among PhD students in a cross-national design. The results indicate that the ethics in supervision profiles are distinct, yet related dimensions of the ethics in supervision experiences. Despite contextual differences in emphases, the same structure holds for the full data set, further strengthening the validity of the identified profiles beyond a single context, and at the same time suggests that despite cultural differences the underpinning structure of experiences of supervision in ethics are the same across the contexts. Had this not been the case, we presume it had been revealed in the results as we compared culturally and regionally relatively similar contexts (Finland and Estonia), and culturally and regionally rather different contexts (Finland/Estonia and South Africa). The profiles can help institutions to analyze the ethical landscape of doctoral education and to identify challenges. The profiles can provide information about the extent of the risk zone of burnout or dropout based on negative experiences of the ethics in supervision.

The ethics in supervision materialized through the doctoral students’ experiences of Ethical issues in the research community, including social structures and programmatic aspects (FORM ), Fairness and adherence to common formal and informal rules as a means of ensuring equal treatment of doctoral students (RULE) , and Respect in personal relations (CARE). The Finnish students’ experiences emerged in general as less positive than the experiences of their Estonian and South-African peers. Qualitative analyses of Finnish doctoral students’ experiences of the ethics in supervision indicate a high level of sensitivity about ethical aspects (Löfström & Pyhältö, 2014 , 2017 ), which may help explain why their answers were more critical. However, since we do not have comparison data from Estonia and South Africa, we can only speculate.

The profiles were the students puzzled by the supervision relationship; Strugglers in the ethical landscape ; seekers of ethical allies ; and the students with ethically trouble-free experiences . When the students did not experience major ethical problems in any of the ethical dimensions as in the case on the Trouble-free , this was related positively with engagement, low levels of exhaustion and cynicism, and high levels of satisfaction with supervision and doctoral studies. By contrast, the strugglers expressed challenges in all of the ethical dimensions. This was related negatively to engagement, high exhaustion and cynicism levels, low levels of satisfaction with doctoral studies and supervision, harboring thoughts of discontinuing studies, and considerations to change supervisors. This finding is in line with research showing that students who experience receiving insufficient supervisory support exhibit more burnout and are less satisfied with supervision and more likely to harbor thoughts about dropping out than their peers who experience receiving sufficient support (Peltonen et al., 2017 ).

While the puzzled showed indications of ethical challenges, they were in some regards “better off” than the seekers. Even if supervision failed to contribute to the doctoral students’ experiences of being fully respected in the supervision relation and supported in autonomy, the puzzled were more satisfied with the supervision than the seekers . Sound institutional structures and processes are important; particularly so in situations in which supervisors change, and the supervision relationship must be renegotiated (Wisker & Robinson, 2013 ) – something which was more common among the seekers than in the other profiles.

The consistent experiences of the two extremes and their relation to the outcome variables establish the importance of paying attention to doctoral students’ experiences ethics in supervision. It is important to keep in mind that the trouble-free represented the largest profile, suggesting that supervision generally takes place in a sound ethical landscape.

Differences emerged among the three countries. In Finland, the seekers and, in South Africa and in Estonia, the trouble-free were overrepresented. Research on Finnish doctoral students’ experiences of their main resources and challenges during their doctoral studies relate to supervision (resources), structures and programmatic features (challenges), and the apprenticeship nature of doctoral studies in Finland (Author et al., 2012), which may help explain why this profile is overrepresented. The emphasis is on seeking alliance with the supervisors while experiencing challenges with social structures and programmatic aspects. The relationship and importance of alliance with the supervisor is pronounced, perhaps at the expense of association with and involvement in doctoral programs. South African students have been reported as having high levels of burnout (ASSAf, 2010 ; Herman, 2011 ), and high levels of exhaustion were corroborated by our study. The conditions of the South African students are more demanding than for Finnish and Estonian students, in terms of tuition fees and economic matters. Yet, the South African students were highly engaged and satisfied with the supervision and their doctoral studies. For these students, there appears to be a balance between the perceived demands and the available resources (see Bakker & Demerouti, 2008 ), and a sense of fairness and care to mitigate against negative experiences of ethics in supervision. The Estonian students, in turn, exhibited relatively high levels of satisfaction, which may be a clue to understanding their overrepresentation in the trouble-free profile. Satisfaction has been shown to be related to positive experiences of ethics in supervision and indicative of a fit between the individuals and their learning-environment fit (Löfström & Pyhältö, 2020 ).

We acknowledge that there are limitations in the study. The response rate was 25–26%. It is possible that students who have experiences at the extremes of the dimensions we researched were more prone to respond than their peers whose experiences were neutral.

We propose future research to investigate what movements take place in and out of profiles and whether movement patterns differ across countries. A longitudinal approach would provide insight into the dynamics at the intersection of doctoral student experience, supervisory practice, and ethics. While our study was focused on an inter-country comparison, we recognize the possibility of intra-country differences and therefore encourage research with a larger number of institutions, first within a country and, second, across countries.

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Löfström, E., Peltonen, J., Frick, L. et al. Profiles of doctoral students’ experience of ethics in supervision: an inter-country comparison. High Educ 86 , 617–636 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00917-6

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Scientific ethics is defined as commitment to the ideals of science: integrity, openness and critical inquiry. Every member of the scientific community, from the student beginning their Bachelor’s thesis to the world famous academic, follows the same rules and guidelines of ethical scientific practice.

The ethics of science is not new, and it is not based on vague, obscure principles. The demands of scientific ethics are these common values: truth, credibility and integrity. As in human society, so in the ethics of science, it is forbidden to steal, lie or cheat.

Ethical ideals have very little meaning unless they are cherished and promoted. Their implementation must be safeguarded, and any infraction must be investigated. In Finland, the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK) has drawn up a guide for research ethics called Responsible conduct of research and procedures for handling allegations of misconduct in Finland (2012). This guide was created in collaboration with the scientific community, including feedback and comments from several universities.

Research ethics is not primarily about avoiding ethical infractions. Rather, research ethics promotes commitment to procedures and practices that enable a high level of reliability and quality in research.

The Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity has divided morally significant violations of the responsible conduct of research into two groups: disregard for the responsible conduct of research and research misconduct. Both violations decrease the reliability of results and may invalidate the research itself. However, violations may vary as regards their degree of severity. The researcher who disregards or is negligent of the principles of responsible research conduct may not have understood that their shortcomings are not only damaging to the quality of their work but are also morally questionable practices. In contrast, research misconduct is an intentional choice, and not accidental or due to negligence.

Violations of research ethics in all disciplines

Plagiarism, misappropriation of research ideas, - materials, or results
Falsification i.e. modifying or distorting research results
Concealing significant results, especially risks
Appropriation of the research to one or only some researchers when others have made significant contributions
Unequal treatment of members of a research group, e.g., in dividing tasks or hiring
Sexual harassment and racism
Morally questionable research subjects, such as eugenics.

Literature review

Plagiarism or improper citation of sources
Disregard of proper citation practices
Quotations taken out of context, misrepresentation of the source text
Falsified sources

Research interviews

Asking leading questions, manipulation or other forms of mistreatment of the interview subjects
Misleading the interview subjects about the purpose of the interview
Distorting the interview responses
Violating the anonymity or confidentiality of the interview subjects
Using or publishing the interviews, recordings or images without the express permission of the parties involved

Medical and biological research

Mistreatment of lab animals
Painful experiments
Unnecessary experiments

Technological and scientific research

Negligent or unprotected tests; experiments carried out without simulations or training, which pose a threat to those conducting the experiment or to outsiders. (Unacceptable risk: dangerous to all)
Experiments which pose a risk to the researcher’s health and safety (e.g., exposure to toxins or radiation, test flights) (High risk: dangerous for researchers or experiment participants).
Unnecessary creation of dangerous products, substance compounds or devices
Releasing inadequately tested products, such as pharmaceutical drugs, to the market
Potentially dangerous or risky applications of research results (e.g., nuclear power, weapons technology)

Useful links

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Last Updated: May 17, 2024 3:01 PM
URL: https://uva.libguides.com/responsible-thesis

Ethics: A Guide for Doctoral Students

This guide highlights the university's policy and processes on ethics for doctoral researchers..

The University has introduced a new Research Ethics Governance and Digital System – from 3 April 2023 and, in the first phase, will be open to all staff and doctoral students. This Doctoral College page has been updated to reflect the doctoral specific aspects relating to the new university guidance. It is crucial that you reference the University ethics guidance and processes

Your responsibilities

As a doctoral researcher at the University, you must ensure that your research is conducted according to appropriate ethical, legal and professional frameworks, obligations and standards.

All doctoral students must have full ethical approval before any data collection begins. All research projects must be assessed through the Ethics@Bath system.

Information on the Ethics@Bath system, and how research projects are assessed as well as how to get full ethical approval, can be found at Research integrity and ethics and on the Ethics at Bath SharePoint site .

Failure to comply with the University's research governance may prevent you from progressing with your programme of research.

It is your, and your supervisor’s, responsibility to ensure that all processes, and any subsequent applications requiring committee-level review are completed in good time.

It is also your responsibility to instigate discussions with your supervisor to re-evaluate ethical issues should the nature of your research change, or should your own circumstances change, during the course of your doctorate and, if necessary, submit the relevant research ethics amendment.

As well as considering the ethical implications of your research on others, it is also important to reflect on how the nature of your research may adversely affect you – known as Vicarious Trauma (VT) (and associated conditions). Indirect exposure to this trauma can produce a wide variety of symptoms of distress. Read more about Vicarious Trauma and how to prepare for and mitigate the risk.

Each department has a Departmental Research Ethics Officer who may be able to provide local advice.

Ethics consideration at the start of your studies

(For those on programmes commencing with a taught stage, ethics consideration may be delayed until the commencement of the research stage, or when data may be collected during the taught stage – whichever is soonest.)

During the Candidature stage you are required to provide evidence of how you have commenced considering ethics and of any appropriate actions that have been identified. You are also expected to have started a form on the ethics@bath system.

Information on how to consider ethics and the actions that might be required are available on the University's research integrity and ethics page .

You must cite on your Candidature form which websites* you have consulted and whether you and your supervisor think that full ethical approval may be required. Failure to provide sufficient evidence may result in delays to approving Candidature. [*website might include relevant external public, professional or funding bodies’ webpages.]

Ethics consideration during your studies

Completion of the Ethics@Bath system and, where necessary, obtaining appropriate formal ethical committee approval, must both be completed, and evidence provided, by either of the following deadlines (whichever is soonest):

Before any data collection or research occurs.

Confirmation, for PhD students (where applicable).

The end of the first year of your research stage for the DBA in Higher Education Management, Doctorate in Health (DHealth), Doctorate in Policy Research & Practice (DPRP) and the Doctorate in Education (EdD).

For the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (DClinPsy) see your Programme Handbook on Moodle .

Certain funders, such as Research Councils, may have additional expectations regarding ethical approval and so it is essential that you check with them or with your relevant University contacts.

Confirmation

If ethical approval has only been gained for part of the project at this stage, the supervisor must state on the confirmation form the reasons for this and the date by which it will be obtained.

If you have any questions, please contact us.

Research ethics

You may be able to learn about the ethical approach used in the main journal article (if this is discussed), but more often than not, it is better to focus on your own dissertation when it comes to setting out the approach towards research ethics you will take. At the undergraduate or master's level, the extent to which you will have to consider research ethics in your dissertation and the role that such ethics will play in shaping your research strategy will depend on a number of factors: (a) your dissertation and university ethics guidelines; (b) your chosen research method, the way that the research method is used, and the specific measures that are selected; and (c) your chosen sampling strategy, including the type of sampling technique used, your sample size, and the use of gatekeepers when selecting your sample.

CONSIDERATION ONE: Your dissertation and university ethics guidelines
CONSIDERATION TWO: The nature of the research method and measures you select
CONSIDERATION THREE: The sampling strategy that you select

CONSIDERATION #1 Your dissertation and university ethics guidelines

Whilst ethical requirements in research can vary across countries, there are a number of basic principles of research ethics that you will be expected to follow. Broadly speaking, your dissertation research should not only aim to do good (i.e., beneficence ), but also avoid doing any harm (i.e., non-malfeasance ). The five main ethical principles you should abide by, in most cases , include: (a) minimising the risk of harm; (b) obtaining informed consent; (c) protecting anonymity and confidentiality; (d) avoiding deceptive practices; and (e) providing the right to withdraw. In the article, Principles of research ethics in the Research Ethics section of the Fundamentals part of Lærd Dissertation, we explain these five basic principles in more detail. It is worth reading this article before reading on.

Following these basic principles is not only important for ethical reasons , but also practical ones, since a failure to meet such basic principles may lead to your research being (a) criticised, potentially leading to a lower mark, and/or (b) rejected by your supervisor or Ethics Committee , costing you valuable time. We mention your supervisor and the university Ethics Committee because the extent of the ethical requirements that you have to take into account will differ considerably from dissertation to dissertation. As a starting point, your dissertation guidelines should indicate whether you are required to complete an Ethics Proposal and/or Ethics Consent Form , even at the undergraduate or master's level, and if so, whether this should first be passed by your supervisor to see if ethical approval from the university Ethics Committee will be necessary. Even if such an Ethics Proposal is not required, it is still advisable to discuss the ethical implications of your dissertation with your supervisor; something that we discuss in STAGE SEVEN: Assessment point . At the very least, you will have to consider the role that research ethics will play in shaping your research strategy .

CONSIDERATION #2 The nature of the research method and measures you select

Research ethics is not a one size fits all approach. The research strategy that you choose to guide your dissertation often determines the approach that you should take towards research ethics. When we talk about an approach to research ethics, we are referring to ethical choices that you may make that are specific to your dissertation. For example, many students will be able to obtain informed consent from participants to take part in their research. However, there may be reasons that you cannot obtain informed consent from participants to take part, perhaps because the research design guiding your dissertation and the research method you use make this difficult or impossible (e.g., an experimental research design and the use of covert structured observation to study people in a nightclub or an Internet chat room).

When you consider the five practical ethical principles you read about earlier, it may appear obvious that your dissertation should include these. However, there are many instances where it is not possible or desirable to obtain informed consent from research participants. Similarly, there may be instances where you seek permission from participants not to protect their anonymity. More often than not, such choices should reflect the research strategy that you adopt to guide your dissertation. The potential ethical issues raised by different research methods not only differ from one type of research method to the next (e.g., surveys versus structured observation), but also the way in which a research method is used (e.g., overt versus covert observation) and your choice of measures (e.g., the specific questions that you ask in a survey). In each of our articles on different research methods, you can read up on the potential issues that your choice of research method will have for your dissertation (see the Research Methods section of the Fundamentals part of Lærd Dissertation and click on the relevant research method; there is a section on research ethics in each article).

Open access
Published: 15 April 2021

Academic integrity at doctoral level: the influence of the imposter phenomenon and cultural differences on academic writing

Jennifer Cutri ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5328-5332 1 ,
Amar Freya ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2147-6959 1 ,
Yeni Karlina ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6989-2516 1 ,
Sweta Vijaykumar Patel ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9363-9262 1 ,
Mehdi Moharami ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6435-8501 1 ,
Shaoru Zeng ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8884-0968 1 ,
Elham Manzari ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2323-5614 1 &
Lynette Pretorius ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8998-7686 1

International Journal for Educational Integrity volume 17 , Article number: 8 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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This conceptual review seeks to reframe the view of academic integrity as something to be enforced to an academic skill that needs to be developed. The authors highlight how practices within academia create an environment where feelings of inadequacy thrive, leading to behaviours of unintentional academic misconduct. Importantly, this review includes practical suggestions to help educators and higher education institutions support doctoral students’ academic integrity skills. In particular, the authors highlight the importance of explicit academic integrity instruction, support for the development of academic literacy skills, and changes in supervisory practices that encourage student and supervisor reflexivity. Therefore, this review argues that, through the use of these practical strategies, academia can become a space where a culture of academic integrity can flourish.

Introduction

In the contemporary higher education environment, issues of academic integrity and credibility are turning matters of learning into matters of surveillance and enforcement. Increasingly, higher education institutions are relying on text-matching software (such as Turnitin) and the monitoring or scrutiny of students (e.g., through practices such as online proctoring) as a proxy to measure their level of academic integrity (Dawson 2021 ). Indeed, failure to adhere to these often contextually and socially constructed rules of academic integrity is termed academic misconduct or dishonesty and can lead to severe consequences for students. As Dawson ( 2021 ) notes, this approach is adversarial, focussing on detection rather than encouraging academic integrity. This adversarial approach is also reflected in recent changes to Australian federal legislation (see the Prohibiting Academic Cheating Services Act 2020 ), with provision of an academic cheating service now attracting criminal or civil penalties. There is also increasing concern about the “ threats to academic integrity [ …] due to the wide-spread growth of commercial essay services and attempts by criminal actors to entice students into deceptive or fraudulent activity” (Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) 2021 para. 2 emphasis added). Despite this often adversarial language, however, TEQSA also acknowledges that there is a need to promote academic integrity practices by, for example, working with experts to create an Academic Integrity Toolkit (TEQSA 2021 ).

Interestingly, the higher education environment now appears to lead educators to a dichotomous choice to either be “pro-integrity” or “anti-cheating” (Dawson 2021 p. 3). In this conceptual review, we seek to challenge this perception. We focus on how doctoral education programs can foster academic integrity skills development to create an environment where policies and surveillance strategies are incorporated into pedagogical practice. East ( 2009 ) highlights the importance of viewing academic integrity development as a holistic and aligned approach that supports the development of an honest community within the university. Furthermore, Clarence ( 2020 ) argues that doctoral education is underpinned by the axiological belief that graduates should be confident scholars who value integrity in research, authenticity, and ethics. Therefore, it is our argument that it is the responsibility of educators to explicitly teach these skills as part of doctoral education programs in order to encourage a culture of academic integrity among both staff and students (see, for example, Nayak et al. 2015 ; Richards et al. 2016 ). The long-term benefits of such a culture of academic integrity will include greater awareness of academic integrity for both staff and students, the involvement of students in creating and managing their own academic integrity, a reduction in academic integrity breaches, and improved institutional reputations (Richards et al. 2016 ).

Contextualising our review within the Australian higher education setting, our view of academia is representative of an all-encompassing global space which welcomes the skills, knowledge, values, and practices of all scholars regardless of their background. In this review, we highlight how practices within academia create an environment where feelings of inadequacy thrive, leading to behaviours of unintentional academic misconduct. In particular, we explore the impact of the imposter phenomenon and cultural differences on academic integrity practices in doctoral education. We conclude this review by providing practical suggestions to help educators and institutions support doctoral student writing in order to avoid forms of unintentional academic misconduct. Therefore, in this review we argue that, through the use of these practical strategies, academia can become a space where a culture of academic integrity can flourish.

Key concepts in academic integrity

As Bretag ( 2016 ) stresses, definitions of integrity terms matter, as researchers have previously fallen into the trap of synonymously linking concepts together. The notion of academic integrity is multifaceted and complex, so defining the concept is an ongoing and contestable debate amongst researchers (Bretag 2016 ). In general, academic integrity is considered the moral code of academia that involves “a commitment to five fundamental values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility” (International Center for Academic Integrity 2014 p. 16). Therefore, we consider academic integrity as a researcher’s investment in, and commitment to, the values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility in the culture of academia. In this review, we adopt the following interpretation of academic integrity (Exemplary Academic Integrity Project 2013 section 15 para. 2):

Academic integrity means acting with the values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility in learning, teaching and research. It is important for students, teachers, researchers and all staff to act in an honest way, be responsible for their actions, and show fairness in every part of their work. Staff should be role models to students. Academic integrity is important for an individual’s and a school’s reputation.

An important component of academic integrity for doctoral students is integrity in the research process. We consider ethical research practice to involve conducting research in a fair, respectful and honest manner, and reporting findings responsibly and honestly.

In contrast, academic misconduct (also termed academic dishonesty) involves behaviours that are contrary to academic integrity, most notably plagiarism, collusion, cheating, and research misconduct. In this review, plagiarism refers to presenting someone else’s published work as your own without appropriate attribution. Drawing on the work of Fatemi and Saito ( 2020 ), we stress that plagiarism can be either intentional or unintentional. We consider intentional plagiarism as purposely using other people’s work and promoting it as your own. In contrast , we define unintentional plagiarism as not acknowledging another researchers’ ideas by, for example, forgetting to insert a reference, not inserting the reference for every sentence from a source, or placing the reference in the wrong place within the text (Fatemi and Saito 2020 ). In this review, collusion is defined as unauthorised collaboration with someone else on assessed tasks while cheating is defined as seeking an unfair advantage in an assessed task, including resubmission of work from another unit. Notably, academic settings have seen a rise in what has been termed contract cheating , where assignments are completed by outside actors in a fee-for-service type arrangement (Bretag et al. 2019 ; Bretag et al. 2020 ; Clarke and Lancaster 2006 ; Dawson 2021 ; Newton 2018 ). Finally, we consider research misconduct to be misrepresenting the study design or methodology, falsifying or fabricating data, and/or breaching ethical research requirements. Academic institutions often have a range of responses, policies, and procedures to identify academic misconduct; these range from official warnings to loss of marks on an assignment or expulsion from the institution for the most severe cases.

Academic integrity and the imposter phenomenon

It is important to note that, for this review, the authors have agreed upon the term imposter phenomenon , although the expression imposter syndrome is often used synonymously in the literature. The term imposter syndrome was initially coined by Clance and Imes ( 1978 ) to describe individuals who felt like frauds and perceived themselves as unworthy of their achievements, despite objective evidence to the contrary. To avoid stigmatisation of these feelings as a pathological syndrome, the term imposter phenomenon is more commonly used in modern thinking. Imposter phenomenon can therefore be defined as “the persistent collection of thoughts, feelings and behaviours that result from the perception of having misrepresented yourself despite objective evidence to the contrary” (Kearns 2015 p. 25).

This notion of feeling like a fraud is frequently experienced by doctoral students. Indeed, half (50.6%) of the PhD students in the study by Van de Velde et al. ( 2019 ) reported experiencing the imposter phenomenon. Similarly, Wilson and Cutri ( 2019 ) revealed how novice academics experienced constant disbelief in their success. This is because the imposter phenomenon is linked to an identity crisis which is commonly experienced by novice academics (Wilson and Cutri 2019 ). For instance, Lau’s ( 2019 ) autoethnographic reflection as a medical doctoral student highlighted how self-imposed pressures during his PhD journey led to feelings of inadequacy. This was due to a prevailing perception of what “the perfect PhD student” was and the feeling that he was not meeting this perceived standard, leading to self-sabotaging behaviours (Lau 2019 p. 52). Thus, from a doctoral student perspective, Lau ( 2019 p. 50) defines the imposter phenomenon as:

feelings of inadequacy experienced by those within academia that indicate a fear of being exposed as a fraud. These feelings are not ascribed to external measures of competence or success (e.g., publishing papers or winning prizes), but internal feelings of not being good enough for their chosen role (e.g., being a PhD student or academic staff member).

Lau ( 2019 ) warns that, if these feelings are left unchecked, it could lead to low self-confidence and high anxiety.

The imposter phenomenon is increasingly recognised as a significant issue by higher education institutions, but this is often considered a mental health concern affecting productivity and success (see, for example, University of Cambridge 2021 ; University of Waterloo 2021 ). It is important to note, though, that the feelings of fraudulence and negative self-confidence can be attributed to the socio-political and cultural environment of academia in which doctoral students are immersed. As Hutchins ( 2015 ) notes, the imposter phenomenon thrives in environments where there are expectations of perfectionism, highly competitive work cultures, and stressful environments. Academia is a high-stakes, competitive environment where a person’s success is measured by the quantity and quality of their research output, commonly referred to as an environment of publish or perish . Indeed, Moosa ( 2018 ) notes that academics must obey the rules of the publish or perish environment if they are to progress through their career. With an emphasis on scholarly dissemination, doctoral students are thrown into a new context of public critique through the peer review and publication process. While this is an opportunity for academics to showcase their research, Parkman ( 2016 ) notes that such public scrutiny invokes the common imposter phenomenon fear of being found out as a fraud. This is because doctoral candidates are constantly exposed to the final product, while the process of writing has been devalued (Wilson and Cutri 2019 ). The doctoral journey, however, should be about the process , as candidates are developing their skills and building their academic identities as future researchers in their fields.

When academic institutions focus on polished products, doctoral students who are currently engaged in the writing process feel a sense they are not good enough (Wilson and Cutri 2019 ). This is because the writing process and expectations at doctoral level are complex and challenging, requiring students to develop specific academic skill sets that are different from their previous studies (see Level 10 of the Australian Qualifications Framework for a list of the expected skills of doctoral graduates in Australia, Australian Qualifications Framework Council 2013 ). Facing these new challenges can be overwhelming and students compensate by engaging in sabotaging behaviours (such as procrastination, perfectionism, or avoidance) because they feel they must write like the experts in their field. Cisco ( 2020a ) found that imposter phenomenon feelings became more prevalent with the challenge of these new and more complex academic tasks. This struggle during the reading and writing process can be attributed to a need for further development of the necessary academic literacy skills for a specific discipline. In this review, we consider literacy to refer to the socially constructed use of language within a particular context (Barton and Hamilton 2012 ; Lea 2004 ; Lea and Street 1998 , 2006 ; Street 1984 , 1994 ). Consequently, it is important to note that literacy is continuously constructed and includes elements of both power and privilege (Lea 2004 ; Lea and Street 1998 , 2006 ). The term academic literacy skills , therefore, reflect a broad range of practices that are involved in the practice of communicating scholarly research (for example, learning the differences in academic writing for literature reviews, methodology, data analysis, and discussion of findings sections to answer the all-important so what question). These more advanced academic literacy skills are relatively new aspects for doctoral students, as the production of new knowledge is what makes a PhD candidature unique.

When doctoral students commence their studies, they transfer their prior understandings regarding appropriate academic conduct. Students enter doctoral training programs through a variety of pathways. For example, some students enter a PhD after completing an Honours degree, while others first complete a Masters or other graduate research degree. Increasingly, doctoral programs are also seeing students who return to study after several years away from university. Hence, students who enter doctoral studies, regardless of their prior educational experience, bring their discourses of academic understanding and what they perceive as appropriate with them.

It is likely that doctoral students have, at some point in their studies, encountered the concept of academic integrity at some level. While students may have encountered the concept of academic integrity in the past, this previous knowledge does not necessarily translate into an understanding of how to demonstrate academic integrity in their work at a doctoral level. There are also institutional and cultural differences that play a significant part in how academic integrity is applied in practice. Understanding how to apply this academic integrity knowledge in academic writing practice should, therefore, be considered a threshold concept – it is a concept which, when understood, leads to a permanent change of perspective (see Meyer and Land 2006 ). Pretorius and Ford ( 2017 ) describe threshold concepts as “gatekeepers to deeper knowledge, understanding and thinking [ …] that allow students to genuinely see new perspectives and think in different ways” (p. 151). Tyndall et al. ( 2019 ) notes that if doctoral students do not move across the threshold to understand how to apply academic integrity in their writing, it can lead to academic misconduct behaviours including mimicry and plagiarism.

Mimicking the sophisticated genre of academic writing seen in published works is often done in an effort to sound academic . The disciplinary discourse in which a person finds themselves contributes to the social construction of identity (Ivanič 1998 ). Furthermore, a person’s identity is inscribed in their writing practices (Ivanič 1998 ) – we write ourselves into our text as we interact with the social context in which we find ourselves. Ivanič ( 1998 ) notes that this discursive identity construction provides a useful lens through which to view academic integrity. Instead of condemning students for academic integrity breaches such as plagiarism, Ivanič ( 1998 ) argues that this type of behaviour can be seen as a function of “students’ struggles to achieve membership of the academic discourse community” (p. 197). For example, Fatemi and Saito ( 2020 ) note that, in the absence of appropriate academic literacy skills, postgraduate students can engage in what Howard ( 1992 ) termed patchwriting (i.e., poor paraphrasing, also termed source-reliant composition) where some words are synonymously replaced while the original sentence structure is maintained. While such an action is deemed as plagiarism, the students’ intentions are usually not to cheat but rather to try and write in what they perceive to be an academic style (Fatemi and Saito 2020 ; Pecorari 2003 ). Consequently, if doctoral students, engage in a form of academic misconduct other than contract cheating, we argue this is a form of unintentional academic dishonesty.

We have developed a model to highlight how the imposter phenomenon influences doctoral students’ academic integrity which we have termed the IPAIR model (the imposter phenomenon and academic integrity relationship model, see Fig. 1 ). We argue that feelings of being discovered as a fraud lead students to mimic academic practices, including textual plagiarism, academic dishonesty, and research misconduct (Fig. 1 ). The first component of this model, textual plagiarism , involves taking credit for another person’s published work without referencing the source, by providing inaccurate citation details, or by engaging in poor paraphrasing such as patchwriting. The second component, academic dishonesty , consist of the other elements of academic misconduct such as reusing previous work, collusion, and contract cheating. The final component of our model, research misconduct , includes misrepresenting the study design or methodology, falsifying or fabricating data, and breaching ethical requirements. It is important to note that the academic integrity breaches in our model are not necessarily intentional. Furthermore, it should be noted that the forms of academic misconduct highlighted in our model would also likely further exacerbate doctoral students’ feelings of inadequacy.

The Imposter Phenomenon and Academic Integrity (IPAIR) Model

Academic integrity and cultural differences

We have argued that there is a relationship between the imposter phenomenon and academic integrity in relation to doctoral student writing. We further contend that cultural differences may impact academic integrity during a doctoral student’s candidature. In Australia, domestic and international students from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds study PhDs (see, for example, Cutri and Pretorius 2019 ; Pretorius and Macaulay 2021 ). In this paper we define a domestic student as someone who is an Australian or New Zealand citizen, or who holds a permanent residency or humanitarian visa. The term international student refers to someone who has a temporary visa to study in Australia. It is important to note that, in using the terms domestic and international , we do not intend to create a dichotomy between these student cohorts. Rather, these two terms can be considered representative of the often-times different sociocultural characteristics and power relationships that influence these students’ experiences (Cutri and Pretorius 2019 ; Pretorius and Macaulay 2021 ). It is also important to note that cultural differences exist between domestic students as well.

Today’s contemporary research context reflects a globalised academic landscape comprising expert, early career, and novice academics. The increase of internationally diverse doctoral scholars can be attributed to the process of globalisation (Cutri and Pretorius 2019 ). For this review, we have chosen to draw upon Holton’s ( 2005 ) definition of globalisation: “the intensified movement of goods, money, technology, information, people, ideas and cultural practice across political and cultural boundaries” (pp. 14–15). Globalisation has impacted higher education through an increased movement of international students which has also resulted in a higher number of international doctoral students enrolling at higher education institutions (Cutri and Pretorius 2019 ; Marginson and van der Wende 2007 ; Nerad 2010 ). In fact, many universities promote the mobility of higher education and offer scholarships for people around the world to continue their studies. This has led to the emergence of various cultural differences in expectations and understandings of academic integrity causing universities to reconsider their academic integrity practices and support structures for students.

Importantly, globalised movements describe not only people migrating from one country to another but also the movement of people’s ideas, beliefs and culture (see, for example, Appadurai 1990 ). Culture offers a lens through which people see and understand the world in which they live (Garcia and Dominguez 1997 ). Hence, culture includes “shared values, beliefs, perceptions ideals, and assumptions about life that guide specific behaviour” (Garcia and Dominguez 1997 p. 627). Hofstede et al. ( 2010 ) state that culture programs people’s behaviour, reaction and understanding and thus call it the “software of the mind” (p. 5). Culture is dynamic, persists over time, and, therefore, guides an individual’s capacity to make meaning of their world and experiences (Garcia and Dominguez 1997 ). Most importantly, Bourdieu ( 1984 ) argues that people can be unaware of their own cultural influences and how it shapes their decisions. Thus, the cultural practices, values and beliefs guiding an individual’s decisions appear natural and intuitive, but are in fact culturally driven. Consequently, culture plays a crucial role in influencing and guiding an individual’s decisions and meaning making capacity.

Cultural difference can be a leading cause for academic dishonesty amongst international postgraduate students as academic integrity has different definitions for different cultures (Velliaris and Breen 2016 ). This highlights that international postgraduate students may have different standards of academic integrity and plagiarism than the domestic students at their host universities. Students bring their pre-existing beliefs into academia while they, at the same time, grapple with newly formed expectations to be experts in their fields (see, for example, Cutri 2019 ). Indeed, as authors of this literature review, we found that we had several different pre-existing beliefs of academic integrity due to our own cultural backgrounds. For example, one of the authors of this literature review notes:

While in Australia, especially in doctoral studies, one of the key functions of an academic is to contribute to knowledge by identifying and filling gaps in existing knowledge. This requires advanced yet complex skills in reading existing literature, questioning the ontological and epistemological existence of knowledge along with arguing or critiquing studies respectfully. As an individual, who has experienced the [education system in my country] that worship textbooks, I find it extremely challenging to critique other studies and fail to recognise the limitations in the findings, methodology or methods employed in the study. Culturally, this practice of reviewing other academics work and addressing the limitations and gaps was not preached, experienced or expected. Therefore, I tend to use a lot of direct quotes from original writing.

As highlighted above, an array of cultural differences exists in understanding academic integrity. These differences in academic expectations can be wide-reaching, including a lack of language proficiency, as well as an unfamiliarity with the myriad of research and writing practices of their host universities (Cisco 2020a ; Fatemi and Saito 2020 ). These differences can negatively affect postgraduate international students’ transition into academia, potentially leading to academic dishonesty (Fatemi and Saito 2020 ). It is, therefore, hardly surprising that Bretag et al. ( 2014 ) found that international students received three times more formal notifications of academic integrity breaches compared with domestic students. International students were also more than twice as likely to report feeling ill-prepared to avoid academic integrity breaches (Bretag et al. 2014 ).

Another factor resulting in a lack of academic integrity from international doctoral students is believed to be the lack of academic support for these students (Fatemi and Saito 2020 ). The transition from their home country’s academic integrity practices to those of their host country can also mean that not all skills brought by international postgraduate students are recognised by the host university. The transfer between one educational system to another combined with a lack of familiarity with the local academic integrity practices can result in unintentional academic dishonesty by international students (Fatemi and Saito 2020 ). Without appropriate support to develop academic skills from their universities, postgraduate international students can develop negative opinions about host countries and feel that their prior academic skills are devalued. It is, therefore, imperative that international postgraduate students adapt to local academic integrity practices with the support of universities. It is equally vital that local universities honour and value the pre-existing skills and beliefs of doctoral students and assist these students with building a new set of academic integrity practices.

Building academic integrity at a doctoral level

In the previous sections, we have highlighted the influence of the impostor phenomenon, a lack of academic literacy skills, and cultural differences on the academic integrity practices of doctoral students. Based on these factors, this section explores the multifaceted measures that could be put in place to better support doctoral students in developing academic integrity in their research and writing practices. In particular, we highlight the importance of explicit academic integrity instruction, support for academic literacy development, and changes in supervisory practices.

Explicit academic integrity instruction

The key to improved academic integrity practices at any level of study is the understanding of appropriate conventions in the discipline. Once PhD students are enrolled in their studies, many Australian universities provide mandatory training components related to academic integrity in research. At our institution, for example, all doctoral students are required to complete three online doctoral induction models that cover an introduction to the University, the Faculty, and research integrity. Across institutions, however, research integrity training is offered in a variety of formats and are focussed on many different areas of research ethics. Furthermore, there appears to be a presumption that, upon completion of these modules, doctoral students will understand their responsibilities and, therefore, not engage in academic misconduct. We argue that this presumption is dangerous and that doctoral students require ongoing scaffolding and skills development throughout their candidature. Furthermore, as highlighted in our model (see Fig. 1 ), research integrity involves a specific skill set. A lack of understanding of this skill set can lead to academic misconduct if students are not adequately supported. Löfström and Pyhältö ( 2017 ) highlight that doctoral students rely on their supervisors and faculty colleagues to help learn ethical guidelines and appropriate codes of conduct. By acknowledging that doctoral students unintentionally engage in academic misconduct due to a lack of awareness, universities can offer supportive structures and educational programs to help foster a deeper understanding of the impact of the imposter phenomenon, academic literacy skills, and ethical research approaches.

Bretag et al. ( 2014 ) highlight that postgraduate research students can be disadvantaged in terms of education, training, and support for academic integrity. This calls for institutions to provide interventions in the form of direct instruction at different stages of a doctoral program. Gullifer and Tyson ( 2014 ) have highlighted the need for universities to take proactive steps by offering formal workshops that highlight the expectations and strategies to maintain academic integrity rather than expecting students to read academic integrity policies. Fatemi and Saito ( 2020 ) have also called for a more standardised approach to teaching academic integrity, including attention to the practical skills associated with citation, paraphrasing, and summarising. The skill of referencing is usually taught at the undergraduate level, so there is often the expectation that postgraduate students have acquired this knowledge in their undergraduate studies and are consequently able to reference correctly. However, a lack of awareness can be attributed to several factors, such as changing disciplinary or cultural conventions. A more nuanced understanding of referencing conventions should, therefore, be explicitly taught, particularly at the start of a doctoral student’s candidature.

Academic integrity software can also be used in a more educative manner to help scaffold students’ understanding. In our Faculty, for example, the text-matching software Turnitin is used to help doctoral students improve their approaches to academic integrity prior to submission of written work to their supervisors, academic publishers, or thesis examiners. This practice version of a Turnitin dropbox emphasises the use of the software as a learning tool, rather than a surveillance strategy, enabling students to discover where they have engaged in poor paraphrasing. While anecdotal, our experience seems to indicate that this approach, in conjunction with educational videos, tutorials, and educator guidance, can scaffold doctoral students’ understanding of academic integrity according to disciplinary conventions. This form of explicit instruction can be provided throughout a student’s doctoral journey, in order to raise an awareness of academic integrity practices as well as lay a solid foundation for the student’s future study and career.

Another consideration is that doctoral students may come from a different cultural academic context where different writing practices are valued. In designing and implementing these interventions, we consequently argue that academic integrity training should not only target the implementation of research integrity codes from above (Sarauw et al. 2019 ). We believe that the training should also be a site for doctoral students to negotiate, question, and affirm institutional codes in order to develop their individual reflexivity and responsibility as junior academics (Sarauw et al. 2019 ). By allowing reflection on professional practice, educators and supervisors will provide a space for doctoral students to discover and apply appropriate integrity practices. It is also important to note that, as Hyytinen and Löfström ( 2017 ) highlight, academic staff may also require pedagogical training on how to effectively teach research integrity and ethics. Targeting these interventions at both institutional and individual levels could help to create an institution which supports, facilitates, and provides a conducive environment for academic integrity where reflexive and responsible researchers can flourish.

Support for academic literacy development

Building confidence in writing ability by modelling the writing process is an important way to scaffold academic integrity for PhD students. Fatemi and Saito ( 2020 ) noted that a lack of self-confidence and lack of knowledge in relation to academic literacy skills were key causes of plagiarism. Cisco ( 2020b ) also reported that literacy interventions that target academic and disciplinary literacy, in addition to reading and writing academic texts, can help doctoral students develop the academic skill set required to thrive in academia. Emerson et al. ( 2005 ) highlighted that a lack of academic integrity in students’ writing is often a consequence of a lack of understanding of the academic writing process. Experienced academic writers, however, realise that academic writing is indeed a process (Wilson and Cutri 2019 ). For instance, manuscripts often undergo multiple revisions and significant editing prior to submission for publication. Peer review then leads to further changes before final publication. Modelling this process for students can be an eye-opening experience, helping students overcome some of the feelings associated with writing anxiety and the imposter phenomenon (see, for example, the experiences of Lam et al. 2019 ).

Consequently, we advocate for the establishment of learning communities such as writing groups. Doctoral writing groups offer a safe and low-risk environment where students can build their academic writing skills in a peer learning environment (Aitchison and Guerin 2014 ; Cahusac de Caux et al. 2017 ). It has been shown that the peer feedback component of these types of writing groups helps students to build their writing confidence, foster greater reflective practice, and encourage them to take ownership of their writing style (Cahusac de Caux et al. 2017 ; Lam et al. 2019 ). Encouraging doctoral students to join, or indeed set up their own, learning communities could, therefore, significantly improve students overall learning experience during their candidature. It is important to note, however, that students often tend to seek peer support from fellow students who come from a similar cultural or linguistic background. Accordingly, it is important to consider how the benefits of writing groups with members from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives can be best showcased to students.

Changes in supervisory practices

We believe that the supervision process should enable students to develop their academic integrity. The role of a research supervisor is crucial in doctoral students’ academic endeavours. Supervision entails an enculturation function in which students are encouraged to be a member of the disciplinary community in academia through role-modelling and apprenticeship (Lee and Murray 2015 ). This can be achieved through exposure to exemplary texts to analyse, encouragement for students to produce their own texts based on these exemplars, and provision of advice and constructive feedback on students’ writing.

In addition, supervision should also enable emancipation where students are encouraged to develop and question themselves and their motivation in writing (Lee and Murray 2015 ). This aspect is particularly important, as a doctoral student’s identity changes during the writing process (Clarence 2020 ; Cotterall 2011 ). Supervisors should, therefore, motivate students to reconceptualise writing not just as a method of completing a thesis, but also as a learning process. As noted by Pretorius ( 2019 p. 5),

the doctoral journey is more than just a three- to four-year timeframe where a student eventually submits a thesis as evidence of the creation of new knowledge. Rather, the doctoral experience incorporates a variety of opportunities for more in-depth personal development, particularly in terms of intrapersonal wellbeing, academic identity and sense of agency, as well as intercultural competence.

To facilitate this more in-depth personal development, writing tasks from supervisors should be more diverse. This is in line with postmodern scholars’ conception of writing as a method of inquiry (Richardson 2000 ; Richardson and St. Pierre 2005 ; St. Pierre 1997 ). Writing can be a method of self-discovery to explore doctoral students’ deepest desires in undertaking their doctoral projects and consequently their motivation in writing. Pretorius and Cutri ( 2019 ) provide a framework for doctoral student reflection based on the “What? So What? Now What” reflective practice model (see also Driscoll 2000 ; Rolfe et al. 2001 ) that can help doctoral students explore their experiences during their doctoral candidature. As guiding prompts to write about their writing process, Fernsten and Reda ( 2011 ) have also provided 35 questions that can help doctoral students become reflexive writers who can critically identify problems with their writing and texts. This shift to a more reflective approach can reduce writing anxiety because, instead of viewing writing as a high-stakes activity, writing is conceptualised as thinking, analysis, and as “a seductive and tangled method of discovery” (Richardson and St. Pierre 2005 p. 1423).

In this conceptual literature review, we have explored the key factors that are associated with academic integrity in doctoral education. We argue throughout this article that academic misconduct within doctoral studies is underpinned by two significant factors: the imposter phenomenon and cultural differences. Facing these challenges can be overwhelming for doctoral students, which we argue can lead to unintentional academic misconduct. We, therefore, emphasise that approaches ensuring academic integrity do not need to be adversarial or geared towards merely surveillance and punishment. Rather, an educative approach can help to create a culture of academic integrity in the doctoral education setting. We provide practical suggestions to help institutions support doctoral student writing in order to avoid unintentional academic misconduct. In particular, we highlight the importance of explicit academic integrity instruction, support for the development of academic literacy skills, and changes in supervisory practices that encourage student and supervisor reflexivity. We argue that, through the use of these practical strategies, academia can become a space where a culture of academic integrity can flourish.

Availability of data and materials

This literature review is based on analyses of published peer-reviewed research using standard word processing, annotation, and referencing software. No additional data were collected or analysed. No custom software or codes were used to conduct analyses.

Abbreviations

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Prasadi Hatanwila for helpful discussions during the development of this manuscript.

Notes on Contributors

Jennifer Cutri

Email: [email protected]

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5328-5332

Twitter: @jenni_cutri

Jennifer Cutri is a current PhD student in the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Australia. She holds qualifications in Primary Education and Literacy Support. She has worked as a teacher and researcher across schools in Australia and Hong Kong. Jennifer teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students. Her interests involve international education and teacher and learner identity development within intercultural contexts.

Email: [email protected]

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2147-6959

Twitter: @DrAmarFreya

Dr. Amar Freya recently completed their PhD in which they examined how the experiences of family violence in the Indian-Australian community are understood and how victim survivors seek formal and informal help from More Knowledgeable Others. Amar is passionate about ending gender-based violence and their interests involve research and policy surrounding gender-based violence, intersectionality, gender performativity and promoting a lived experience framework with a particular focus on honouring victim survivors' stories.

Yeni Karlina

Email: [email protected]

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6989-2516

Twitter: @hey_yeniii

Yeni Karlina is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Australia. She has worked as an English teacher, research assistant, and teacher educator in Indonesia. Her PhD project is on how English teachers’ professional learning experiences in a standardised teacher education program in Indonesia influence their teaching practices and identity development.

Sweta Vijaykumar Patel

Email: [email protected]

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9363-9262

Twitter: @SwetaVijaykumar

Sweta Vijaykumar Patel is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Australia. She is a kindergarten teacher and holds qualifications in Early Childhood Education. Sweta has worked in the field of Early Childhood Education in various capacities in both India and Australia. Currently, Sweta teaches undergraduate students and her research interests involve immigrant educators, as well as culture and pedagogy in diverse early childhood education contexts.

Mehdi Moharami

Email: [email protected]

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6435-8501

Twitter: @MoharamiMehdi

Mehdi Moharami is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Australia. He holds qualifications in English Translation and Teaching English. He researches the social and cultural impacts of learning English on learners’ identity negotiation and his areas of interest include language education, culture, identity, and social practices.

Shaoru Zeng

Email: [email protected]

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8884-0968

Shaoru Zeng is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Australia. She works as a research assistant and a teacher who teaches students from early childhood to secondary school in Australia. She has a qualification in Education and her research interests include the Australian Curriculum, the International Baccalaureate, as well as Asia studies.

Elham Manzari

Email: [email protected]

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2323-5614

Twitter: @elliemanzari

Elham Manzari is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Australia. She holds qualifications in Education and TESOL and has worked as an IB MYP curriculum director. Elham teaches undergraduate students at Monash University and her research interests include digital technologies in teaching and curriculum, digital sociology, and the philosophy of technology.

Dr Lynette Pretorius

Email: [email protected]

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8998-7686

Twitter: @dr_lpretorius

Dr. Lynette Pretorius is the Academic Language and Literacy Advisor for the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Australia. She works with undergraduate, postgraduate, and graduate research students to improve their academic language and literacy skills. She has qualifications in Medicine, Science, Education, as well as Counselling, and her research interests include doctoral education, wellbeing, experiential learning, and reflective practice.

The authors did not receive any specific grants from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors for the preparation or publication of this literature review. Amar Freya received a Monash Graduate Scholarship (Research Training Program) to support their PhD studies. Jennifer Cutri and Sweta Vijaykumar Patel received the Centenary Education Grant from the Graduate Women Victoria Scholarship Program to support their PhD studies. Yeni Karlina, Mehdi Moharami, and Elham Manzari received the Monash Graduate Scholarship and the Monash International Postgraduate Research Scholarship to support their PhD studies.

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Jennifer Cutri, Amar Freya, Yeni Karlina, Sweta Vijaykumar Patel, Mehdi Moharami, Shaoru Zeng, and Elham Manzari contributed to the collection, analysis, and synthesis of literature, as well as manuscript preparation, review, and editing. Dr. Lynette Pretorius conceptualized the research project, contributed to the collection, analysis, and synthesis of literature, administered and supervised the research project, validated the data analyses, developed the visualization used in the manuscript, as well as contributed to manuscript preparation, review, and editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Cutri, J., Freya, A., Karlina, Y. et al. Academic integrity at doctoral level: the influence of the imposter phenomenon and cultural differences on academic writing. Int J Educ Integr 17 , 8 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-021-00074-w

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Research ethics are the moral principles that govern how researchers conduct their studies (Wellcome Trust, 2014). As there are elements of uncertainty and risk involved in any study, every researcher has to consider how they can uphold these ethical principles and conduct the research in a way that protects the interests and welfare of participants and other stakeholders (such as organisations).

You will need to consider the ethical issues that might arise in your proposed study. Consideration of the fundamental ethical principles that underpin all research will help you to identify the key issues and how these could be addressed. As you are probably a practitioner who wants to undertake research within your workplace, consider how your role as an ‘insider’ influences how you will conduct your study. Think about the ethical issues that might arise when you become an insider researcher (for example, relating to trust, confidentiality and anonymity).

What key ethical principles do you think will be important when planning or conducting your research, particularly as an insider? Principles that come to mind might include autonomy, respect, dignity, privacy, informed consent and confidentiality. You may also have identified principles such as competence, integrity, wellbeing, justice and non-discrimination.

Key ethical issues that you will address as an insider researcher include:

Gaining trust
Avoiding coercion when recruiting colleagues or other participants (such as students or service users)
Practical challenges relating to ensuring the confidentiality and anonymity of organisations and staff or other participants.

(Heslop et al, 2018)

A fuller discussion of ethical principles is available from the British Psychological Society’s Code of Human Research Ethics (BPS, 2021).

You can also refer to guidance from the British Educational Research Association and the British Association for Applied Linguistics .

Ethical principles are essential for protecting the interests of research participants, including maximising the benefits and minimising any risks associated with taking part in a study. These principles describe ethical conduct which reflects the integrity of the researcher, promotes the wellbeing of participants and ensures high-quality research is conducted (Health Research Authority, 2022).

Research ethics is therefore not simply about gaining ethical approval for your study to be conducted. Research ethics relates to your moral conduct as a doctoral researcher and will apply throughout your study from design to dissemination (British Psychological Society, 2021). When you apply to undertake a doctorate, you will need to clearly indicate in your proposal that you understand these ethical principles and are committed to upholding them.

Where can I find ethical guidance and resources?

Professional bodies, learned societies, health and social care authorities, academic publications, Research Ethics Committees and research organisations provide a range of ethical guidance and resources. International codes such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights underpin ethical frameworks (United Nations, 1948).

You may be aware of key legislation in your own country or the country where you plan to undertake the research, including laws relating to consent, data protection and decision-making capacity, for example, the Data Protection Act, 2018 (UK). If you want to find out more about becoming an ethical researcher, check out this Open University short course: Becoming an ethical researcher: Introduction and guidance: What is a badged course? - OpenLearn - Open University

You should be able to justify the research decisions you make. Utilising these resources will guide your ethical judgements when writing your proposal and ultimately when designing and conducting your research study. The Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research (British Educational Research Association, 2018) identifies the key responsibilities you will have when you conduct your research, including the range of stakeholders that you will have responsibilities to, as follows:

to your participants (e.g. to appropriately inform them, facilitate their participation and support them)
clients, stakeholders and sponsors
the community of educational or health and social care researchers
for publication and dissemination
your wellbeing and development

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (no date) has emphasised the need to promote equality, diversity and inclusion when undertaking research, particularly to address long-standing social and health inequalities. Research should be informed by the diversity of people’s experiences and insights, so that it will lead to the development of practice that addresses genuine need. A commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion aims to eradicate prejudice and discrimination on the basis of an individual or group of individuals' protected characteristics such as sex (gender), disability, race, sexual orientation, in line with the Equality Act 2010.

The NIHR has produced guidance for enhancing the inclusion of ‘under-served groups’ when designing a research study (2020). Although the guidance refers to clinical research it is relevant to research more broadly.

You should consider how you will promote equality and diversity in your planned study, including through aspects such as your research topic or question, the methodology you will use, the participants you plan to recruit and how you will analyse and interpret your data.

What ethical issues do I need to consider when writing my research proposal?

Camera equipment set up filming a man talking

You might be planning to undertake research in a health, social care, educational or other setting, including observations and interviews. The following prompts should help you to identify key ethical issues that you need to bear in mind when undertaking research in such settings.

1. Imagine you are a potential participant. Think about the questions and concerns that you might have:

How would you feel if a researcher sat in your space and took notes, completed a checklist, or made an audio or film recording?
What harm might a researcher cause by observing or interviewing you and others?
What would you want to know about the researcher and ask them about the study before giving consent?
When imagining you are the participant, how could the researcher make you feel more comfortable to be observed or interviewed?

2. Having considered the perspective of your potential participant, how would you take account of concerns such as privacy, consent, wellbeing and power in your research proposal?

[Adapted from OpenLearn course: Becoming an ethical researcher, Week 2 Activity 3: Becoming an ethical researcher - OpenLearn - Open University ]

The ethical issues to be considered will vary depending on your organisational context/role, the types of participants you plan to recruit (for example, children, adults with mental health problems), the research methods you will use, and the types of data you will collect. You will need to decide how to recruit your participants so you do not inappropriately exclude anyone. Consider what methods may be necessary to facilitate their voice and how you can obtain their consent to taking part or ensure that consent is obtained from someone else as necessary, for example, a parent in the case of a child.

You should also think about how to avoid imposing an unnecessary burden or costs on your participants. For example, by minimising the length of time they will have to commit to the study and by providing travel or other expenses. Identify the measures that you will take to store your participants’ data safely and maintain their confidentiality and anonymity when you report your findings. You could do this by storing interview and video recordings in a secure server and anonymising their names and those of their organisations using pseudonyms.

Professional codes such as the Code of Human Research Ethics (BPS, 2021) provide guidance on undertaking research with children. Being an ‘insider’ researching within your own organisation has advantages. However, you should also consider how this might impact on your research, such as power dynamics, consent, potential bias and any conflict of interest between your professional and researcher roles (Sapiro and Matthews, 2020).

How have other researchers addressed any ethical challenges?

The literature provides researchers’ accounts explaining how they addressed ethical challenges when undertaking studies. For example, Turcotte-Tremblay and McSween-Cadieux (2018) discuss strategies for protecting participants’ confidentiality when disseminating findings locally, such as undertaking fieldwork in multiple sites and providing findings in a generalised form. In addition, professional guidance includes case studies illustrating how ethical issues can be addressed, including when researching online forums (British Sociological Association, no date).

Watch the videos below and consider what insights the postgraduate researcher and supervisor provide regarding issues such as being an ‘insider researcher’, power relations, avoiding intrusion, maintaining participant anonymity and complying with research ethics and professional standards. How might their experiences inform the design and conduct of your own study?

Postgraduate researcher and supervisor talk about ethical considerations

Your thoughtful consideration of the ethical issues that might arise and how you would address these should enable you to propose an ethically informed study and conduct it in a responsible, fair and sensitive manner.

British Educational Research Association (2018) Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research. Available at: https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/ethical-guidelines-for-educational-research-2018 (Accessed: 9 June 2023).

British Psychological Society (2021) Code of Human Research Ethics . Available at: https://cms.bps.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-06/BPS%20Code%20of%20Human%20Research%20Ethics%20%281%29.pdf (Accessed: 9 June 2023).

British Sociological Association (2016) Researching online forums . Available at: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/media/24834/j000208_researching_online_forums_-cs1-_v3.pdf (Accessed: 9 June 2023).

Health Research Authority (2022) UK Policy Framework for Health and Social Care Research . Available at: https://www.hra.nhs.uk/planning-and-improving-research/policies-standards-legislation/uk-policy-framework-health-social-care-research/uk-policy-framework-health-and-social-care-research/#chiefinvestigators (Accessed: 9 June 2023).

Heslop, C., Burns, S., Lobo, R. (2018) ‘Managing qualitative research as insider-research in small rural communities’, Rural and Remote Health , 18: pp. 4576.

Equality Act 2010, c. 15. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/introduction (Accessed: 9 June 2023).

National Institute for Health and Care Research (no date) Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) . Available at: https://arc-kss.nihr.ac.uk/public-and-community-involvement/pcie-guide/how-to-do-pcie/equality-diversity-and-inclusion-edi (Accessed: 9 June 2023).

National Institute for Health and Care Research (2020) Improving inclusion of under-served groups in clinical research: Guidance from INCLUDE project. Available at: https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/improving-inclusion-of-under-served-groups-in-clinical-research-guidance-from-include-project/25435 (Accessed: 9 June 2023).

Sapiro, B. and Matthews, E. (2020) ‘Both Insider and Outsider. On Conducting Social Work Research in Mental Health Settings’, Advances in Social Work , 20(3). Available at: https://doi.org/10.18060/23926

Turcotte-Tremblay, A. and McSween-Cadieux, E. (2018) ‘A reflection on the challenge of protecting confidentiality of participants when disseminating research results locally’, BMC Medical Ethics, 19(supplement 1), no. 45. Available at: https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-018-0279-0

United Nations General Assembly (1948) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights . Resolution A/RES/217/A. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights#:~:text=Drafted%20by%20representatives%20with%20different,all%20peoples%20and%20all%20nations . (Accessed: 9 June 2023).

Wellcome Trust (2014) Ensuring your research is ethical: A guide for Extended Project Qualification students . Available at: https://wellcome.org/sites/default/files/wtp057673_0.pdf (Accessed: 9 June 2023).

Writing your research proposal

A doctoral research degree is the highest academic qualification that a student can achieve. The guidance provided in these articles will help you apply for one of the two main types of research degree offered by The Open University.

Level: 1 Introductory

Defining your research methodology

Your research methodology is the approach you will take to guide your research process and explain why you use particular methods. This article explains more.

Writing your proposal and preparing for your interview

The final article looks at writing your research proposal - from the introduction through to citations and referencing - as well as preparing for your interview.

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Applying to study for a PhD in psychology

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A Defence of Theological Virtue Ethics

WILLOWS, ADAM,MATTHEW (2015) A Defence of Theological Virtue Ethics. Doctoral thesis, Durham University.

In this thesis, I show that the commitments of a theological tradition are a conceptual resource which allows new and more robust responses to criticisms of virtue ethics. Until now, theological virtue ethics has not provided a distinctive response to these criticisms and has had to rely on arguments made by secular virtue ethicists. These arguments do not always address theological concerns and do not take advantage of the unique assets of theological ethics. This thesis resolves this problem by providing a chapter-by-chapter confrontation of criticisms of virtue ethics and offering a specifically theological response to each one. In so doing, it identifies the key theological commitments that enable these responses and constitute a particular strength of theological virtue ethics. I consider criticisms that attack the internal coherence or completeness of virtue ethics as well as those which associate virtue ethics with other problematic philosophical positions. In the former group, I address the claims that virtue ethics is not a complete moral theory, that it cannot explain right action, and that it relies on a flawed concept of character. In the latter, I deal with the arguments that virtue ethics must subscribe to moral particularism, moral relativism or egoism. The final part of the thesis returns to the previous chapters to draw out the concepts that are central to these responses. Theological work on the virtues has made important contributions to ethics but has so far been vulnerable to criticism. This thesis addresses this gap and highlights the advantages that theological commitments have to offer virtue ethics.

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Doctoral Thesis: Evidence-based AI Ethics

32-G882 (Hewlett Room)

William Boag

Abstract: With the rise in prominence of algorithmic-decision making, and numerous high-profile failures, many people have called for the integration of ethics into the development and use of these technologies. In the past five years, the field of “AI Ethics” has risen to prominence to explore questions such as ‘how can ML algorithms be more fair’ and ‘are are tradeoffs when incorporating values such as fairness or privacy into models.’ One common trend, particularly by corporations and governments, has been a top-down, principles-based approach for setting the agenda. However, such efforts are usually too abstract to engage with; everyone agrees models should be fair, but there is often disagreement on what “fair” means. In this work, I propose a bottom-up alternative: Evidence-based AI Ethics. Learning from other influential movements, such as Evidence-based Medicine, we can consider specific projects and examine them for “evidence.” We draw from complementary critical lenses, one based on utilitarian ethics and on from intersectional feminism to analyze five case studies I have worked on, ranging from automatically-generated radiology reports to tech worker organizing.

Date: Thursday, April 28
Time: 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
Location: 32-G882 (Hewlett Room)

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Thesis Supervisor: Professor Peter Szolovits

Research Ethics: Conducting Doctoral Research in One's Own Work Setting

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Frequently asked questions for doctoral students conducting research in their own work settings

These FAQs are designed to help students in doctoral programs consider the ethical issues relevant to conducting doctoral research in one’s own work setting (e.g., in the researcher’s own organization or classroom). These FAQs will be most helpful to students early in the research planning process when they are considering potential research questions and designs.

Please note that there is a separate education research ethics guide that might be more specifically applicable to doctoral students who are educators. There are also research ethics guides that are specific to international and clinical research. Questions may be directed to [email protected] any time.

I would like my research to help inform best practices in my own organization but I am concerned about what is approvable. Would it help if I conduct my study at a different office/branch/school where I do not work?

Yes. While it is possible to have data collection approved in your own daily work setting, it would likely be less complicated, biased, and time-consuming for you to collect data at a sister site that is similar to your own. Collecting data from the colleagues/students/clients with whom you interact on a regular basis is likely to be fraught with the following methodological and ethical challenges:

social desirability of responses due to friendships/loyalty (participants telling you what they think you want to hear; this does not help inform best practices meaningfully)
social desirability of responses due to lack of anonymity (participants opting to not to share negative information because it might make them appear to be a negative person or because they fear the negativity might turn out to hurt them somehow in the future, i.e., if you were to become their supervisor or a key decision-maker in the future)
biased responses due to cognitive priming (people in your workplace are more likely to have heard about the hypotheses/angle of your study in advance, which can bias their responses and threaten the study’s internal validity)
biased responses due to personal agendas (participants’ responses might be biased by their own personal agendas and tainted by their perception of you as either an ally or an opponent on some issue)
perceived coercion to participate (even if an invitee does not feel that participation would be in his/her best interest, that person may feel like s/he cannot decline without disrupting your professional relationship; this is particularly problematic when you are an authority figure in the organization and would go against the Belmont Report principle of respect for persons )
confidentiality breaches (these are more common when boundaries between the study and the organization’s regular functioning are unclear and can result in harmful violations of research confidentiality; this also goes against the Belmont Report principles of respect for persons as well as the principle of beneficence (i.e., “do no harm.”)

If I am a leader/manager within my organization, will this impact data collection?

Yes. If you wield any authority (i.e., responsibilities regarding task assignments, performance reviews, promotions, bonuses, salaries, grades, or other type of evaluation), then you must take extra measures to ensure that your authority does not pressure invitees to participate in your study or pressure them to give certain types of responses that they might believe you are seeking.

You will need to design your study to prevent the following:

that an invitee might be concerned about retaliation or “falling out of favor” due to declining to be part of the study
that a respondent to be concerned about retaliation or “falling out of favor” due to responses she or he provides during data collection

The best solution to neutralizing authority dynamics is to make recruitment, informed consent, and data collection truly anonymous , which means:

recruitment, informed consent, and data collection occurs in such a way that no one, not even you , knows who participated and who didn’t (e.g., you could use an online survey without tracking who responded, have them return completed surveys to a discreet location, and/or obtain implied consent (“click here to consent” or “return of the completed survey will indicate your consent”) rather than a consent signature or emailed consent
there is no way to trace responses back to the determine the identity of the respondents by deductively examining demographics (i.e., triangulating an individual’s identity by looking at the reported gender, age, training, number of years with the organization, or other demographic variables associated with a particular response)

What if I want to interview my subordinates? (or my students? My patients?)

This is a common question. Doctoral researchers may not interview their own subordinates for their doctoral study. Not only would the validity of the data be suspect, but such a research invitation is likely to unethically strain the leader/subordinate relationship due to the fact that the leader will earn a doctoral degree (and a higher salary in many cases) as a result of the research. A subordinate will feel pressured to agree to the interview even if it is not in that person’s own best interest, and that goes against the fundamental research ethics principles of respect for persons . Further, subordinates interviewed by an authority figure are likely to feel conflict between responding honestly and responding in a manner that would enhance the authority figure’s professional perception of them. And even if the subordinate declines participation, the relationship has now been altered in a manner that is potentially harmful to the subordinate professionally and economically. These outcomes would conflict with the ethical principle of beneficence . The principles also apply to other professionals who have a trust/authority relationship with vulnerable individuals who are subordinate to the professional due to their dependence on the professional (i.e., teacher-student relationships, care provider-patient relationships).

For the same reasons, subordinates may not be asked to provide focus group, observational, or survey data (unless the survey data can be collected 100% anonymously). And since a doctoral researcher is required to perform all data collection personally, it is not an option to employ a research assistant to collect data.

What options do I have for studying my own subordinates? (Or my students? My patients?)

Instead of interviews and focus groups, researchers in authority positions are encouraged to either conduct fully anonymous surveys or to perform secondary analysis of operations data that their subordinates generate* such as work output or other information maintained in an organization’s records.

Advantages of secondary analysis include the following:

Since secondary analysis doesn’t involve asking each person to opt into extra tasks that solely serve research purposes, a secondary analysis approach often results in the researcher having a more complete and less biased dataset than an opt-in approach.
Secondary analysis is often a more sustainable model for the organization to use/replicate in the future. In other words, it’s more feasible for an organization to repeat an analysis of operational records in subsequent years than to repeat a time-consuming interview or survey process.
Students usually find that a secondary analysis of records is less time-consuming than using an opt-in approach to collect original data collection for research purposes only.
Secondary analysis makes retrospective analyses possible whereas opt-in collection of original data limits the researcher to prospective analyses.

What kinds of data from my own subordinates may I incorporate into my doctoral research as a secondary analysis?

Researchers may analyze the following types of data from their OWN subordinates:

work products/output
operations data that the organization maintains (e.g., time/resources used for particular tasks, escalations)
staff variables maintained in records (training, years experience)
performance indicators (e.g., monthly sales, clients retained, outcomes)
scores on assessments that are regularly administered by the organization for non-research purposes
any type of data this is collected by the organization primarily for non-research purposes (with research being a secondary purpose)
any other data that is generated as a byproduct of regular organization operations

Note that the appropriate gatekeeper at the organization must release such data to be released specifically for research purposes, via a Data Use Agreement of some sort (using our template or the organization’s own standard template).

What if I want to analyze data from a survey (or other dataset) that my organization utilizes beyond the scope of my doctoral study?

While it would not be ethical for a doctoral student to leverage his/her authority in the organization to coerce employees into providing data in order to achieve the personal goal of completing a doctoral degree, there are many situations in which it is ethically appropriate for a researcher’s doctoral study to consist of a secondary analysis of data that was primarily collected for the organization’s needs (for example continuous improvement, staff development, funding requests, etc.). A secondary data analysis of an organization-wide assessment might be possible if ALL of the following questions can be answered with a “yes.”

Aside from your study, would the data be directly used by the organization in some way that will directly benefit the organization? (for example: as part of continuous improvement, staff development, funding requests, etc.?)
Is the organization comfortable overseeing this type of data collection under its own policies and procedures (including the organization’s own consent form, if applicable)?
Is it possible for you to conduct your study without recording any names or other identifiers of individuals in your research records?
Is the organization’s research gatekeeper (i.e., C.E.O. or designee) comfortable signing a data use agreement releasing the de-identified survey data to you for research purposes?
(If applicable) This question only applies to those studies in which the researcher proposes to adjust some aspect of the organization’s standard data collection practices in order to make the data more amenable to research (for example atypical timing of data collection, use of alternative or additional data collection tools, adding a reflective component, etc.):

Has the organization’s research gatekeeper explicitly approved any adjustments you propose to data collection that would depart from regular practices? Note that this explicit approval must be indicated in the organization’s letter of cooperation.

(If applicable) This final question only applies to those studies examining the outcomes of an intervention (i.e., any system or program implemented to obtain desired outcomes):

Is the organization agreeing to fully sponsor and supervise the target intervention within the scope of its standard operations? Note that this explicit approval must be indicated in the organization’s letter of cooperation.

Tips for avoiding delays and problems in the research approval process

Below are the solutions to the most frequently occurring ethical challenges in doctoral research:

Use anonymous methods if possible.

This is the simplest way to avoid pressuring subordinates, students, or any other vulnerable individuals to participate in your doctoral research.

Qualitative researchers should consider collecting data at a site other than their own organization.

While not impossible, it is particularly difficult to adjust qualitative data collection and analysis to address socially desirable responses, bias, conflict of interest, and undue pressure to participate due to the fact that anonymity is not easily provided with qualitative approaches. However, studying a site unfamiliar (or less familiar) to the researcher is one way of addressing these ethical dynamics.

Pay very close attention to alignment among the research question, planned analyses, and types of data collection proposed.

The IRB can only approve those specific components of data collection that show promise of effectively addressing the research question(s).

Use existing data whenever possible.

This avoids burdening others with risky or time-consuming tasks just for the sake of research. When the collection of new data poses substantial time demands or privacy/safety risks to participants, the research design will be closely examined so that the potential benefits can be weighed against potential risks.

Use existing measures whenever possible.

Unless the dissertation is being conducted specifically to validate a new measure, creating a new instrument is typically beyond the scope of a dissertation.

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Chicago teen earns doctorate at 17 years old from Arizona State

Dorothy Jean Tillman II spoke at her commencement this month at Arizona State University. She successfully defended her dissertation to earn a doctorate in integrated behavioral health last December.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Chicago teen who started college at 10 earns doctorate degree at 17

Dorothy Jean Tillman II smiles in her cap and gown

Dorothy Jean Tillman II’s participation in Arizona State University’s May 6 commencement was the latest step on a higher-education journey the Chicago teen started when she took her first college course at age 10.

In between came associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

When Tillman successfully defended her dissertation in December, she became the youngest person — at age 17 — to earn a doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health at Arizona State, associate professor Leslie Manson told ABC’s “Good Morning America” for a story Monday.

“It’s a wonderful celebration, and we hope ... that Dorothy Jean inspires more students,” Manson said. “But this is still something so rare and unique.”

Tillman, called “Dorothy Jeanius” by family and friends, is the granddaughter of former Chicago Alderwoman Dorothy Tillman.

When most students are just learning to navigate middle school, her mother enrolled Tillman in classes through the College of Lake County in northern Illinois, where she majored in psychology and completed her associate’s degree in 2016, according to her biography.

Tillman earned a bachelor’s in humanities from New York’s Excelsior College in 2018. About two years later, she earned her master’s of science from Unity College in Maine before being accepted in 2021 into Arizona State’s Behavioral Health Management Program.

Most of her classwork was done remotely and online. Tillman did attend her Arizona State commencement in person and addressed the graduating class during the ceremony.

Tillman told The Associated Press on Tuesday that she credits her grandmother and trusting in her mother’s guidance for her educational pursuits and successes.

“Everything that we were doing didn’t seem abnormal to me or out of the ordinary until it started getting all of the attention,” said Tillman, now 18.

There have been sacrifices, though.

“I didn’t have the everyday school things like homecoming dances or spirit weeks or just school pictures and things like that ... that kind of create unity with my peers,” she said.

She has found time to dance and do choreography. Tillman also is founder and chief executive of the Dorothyjeanius STEAM Leadership Institute. The program includes summer camps designed to help young people in the arts and STEM subjects.

She said her plans include public speaking engagements and fundraising for the camp, which Tillman said she hopes to franchise one day.

Tillman is motivated and has innovative ideas, said Manson, adding, “And truly, I think what is inspiring is that she embodies that meaning of being a true leader.”

Jimalita Tillman said she is most impressed with her daughter’s ability to show herself and her successes with grace, but to also understand when to “put her foot down” when choosing between social outings and her education.

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The Associated Press

Mom delivers baby in car hours before defending her Rutgers doctoral thesis

Updated: May. 08, 2024, 3:05 p.m. |
Published: May. 08, 2024, 11:30 a.m.

Tamiah Brevard-Rodriguez delivered her son, Enzo, hours before defending her dissertation at the Rutgers-New Brunswick Graduate School of Education. Nick Romanenko/Rutgers University

Tina Kelley | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Giving birth and defending a doctoral dissertation could easily be considered among the most stressful items on a bucket list. For Tamiah Brevard-Rodriguez, it was all in a day’s work. One day’s work.

She even grabbed a shower in between.

On March 24, Brevard-Rodriguez, director of Aresty Research Center at Rutgers University, was finishing up preparations for her doctoral defense the next day. Eight months pregnant with her second child, she didn’t feel terrific, but she persisted.

She was trying to hone down to 20 minutes her remarks on “The Beauty Performances of Black College Women: A Narrative Inquiry Study Exploring the Realities of Race, Respectability, and Beauty Standards on a Historically White Campus.” The Zoom link had gone out to family, friends, and colleagues for the defense, scheduled for 1 p.m. the next day.

“Operation Dissertation before Baby,” as she called it, was a go.

But at 2:15 a.m. on March 25 her water broke, a month and a day early.

As the contractions came closer and closer, her wife drove her down the Garden State Parkway, trying to get to Hackensack Meridian Mountainside Medical Center in Montclair before Baby Enzo showed up.

But the baby was faster than a speeding Maserati and arrived in the front seat at 5:55 a.m., after just three pushes. He weighed in at 5-pounds 12-ounces, 19 inches long, and in perfect health for a baby four weeks early.

“I did have to detail her car afterward,” the new mom said of her wife.

Brevard-Rodriguez was feeling so good after the birth that she decided against asking to reschedule her thesis defense.

“I had more than enough time to regroup, shower, eat and proceed with the dissertation,” she said. She had a quick nap, too. The doctors and nurses supported her decision and made sure she had access to reliable wifi at the hospital.

She gave her defense with a Rutgers background screen. When she learned she had passed, she dropped the fake background, and people could see Brevard-Rodriguez in her maternity bed, and Enzo in her wife’s arms.

“I said, ‘You guys missed the big news,’ and they just fell out,” said Brevard-Rodriguez, who waited for the reveal because she didn’t want extra sympathy from her dissertation committee.

Melina Mangin, chair of the Educational Theory, Policy & Administration Department at the Graduate School of Education, was astounded.

“Tamiah had delivered a flawless defense with zero indication that she had just given birth,” she said. “She really took the idea of productivity to the next level!”

Finishing her doctorate in education and having her last child were fitting 40th birthday presents to herself, Brevard-Rodriguez said. She turned 40 in November and returns to work in late August.

Stories by Tina Kelley

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A Chicago teen entered college at 10. At 17, she earned a doctorate from Arizona State

Dorothy Jean Tillman II participates in Arizona State University’s commencement, May 6, 2024, in Tempe, Ariz. Tillman, 18, earned her doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health in December at age 17 from the school. Tillman, of Chicago, began taking college courses at age 10. She earned her associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees before she turned 17. (Tillman Family via AP)

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CHICAGO (AP) — Dorothy Jean Tillman II’s participation in Arizona State University’s May 6 commencement was the latest step on a higher-education journey the Chicago teen started when she took her first college course at age 10.

In between came associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

“It’s a wonderful celebration, and we hope ... that Dorothy Jean inspires more students,” Manson said. “But this is still something so rare and unique.”

Tillman, called “Dorothy Jeanius” by family and friends, is the granddaughter of former Chicago Alderwoman Dorothy Tillman.

FILE - Arizona graduate student Murad Dervish sits in Pima County Superior Court, May 8, 2024, in Tuscon, Ariz. Closing arguments are scheduled for Monday, May 20, in the trial of Dervish, who is accused of killing a professor on campus two years ago. (Mamta Popat/Arizona Daily Star via AP, File)

Most of her classwork was done remotely and online. Tillman did attend her Arizona State commencement in person and addressed the graduating class during the ceremony.

Tillman told The Associated Press on Tuesday that she credits her grandmother and trusting in her mother’s guidance for her educational pursuits and successes.

“Everything that we were doing didn’t seem abnormal to me or out of the ordinary until it started getting all of the attention,” said Tillman, now 18.

There have been sacrifices, though.

“I didn’t have the everyday school things like homecoming dances or spirit weeks or just school pictures and things like that ... that kind of create unity with my peers,” she said.

She said her plans include public speaking engagements and fundraising for the camp, which Tillman said she hopes to franchise one day.

Tillman is motivated and has innovative ideas, said Manson, adding, “And truly, I think what is inspiring is that she embodies that meaning of being a true leader.”

Associated Press researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this report.

Teen walks at graduation after completing doctoral degree at 17

Dorothy Jean Tillman II was 10 when she entered college as a freshman.

A teenager from Chicago walked in her graduation ceremony this month after earning her doctoral degree at 17.

Dorothy Jean Tillman II told " Good Morning America " that she was homeschooled in her early years before entering college at age 10.

In 2020, she said she earned a Master of Science degree, and then, one year later, at age 15, was accepted into the Doctorate of Behavioral Health Management program at Arizona State University.

In December 2023, at 17, Tillman successfully defended her dissertation to earn her doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health from ASU's College of Health Solutions.

On May 6, she walked at ASU's spring commencement ceremony.

PHOTO: Dr. Dorothy Jean Tillman II earned her doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health.

Tillman told "GMA" she has always held education in such high regard in part due to her family's background.

"People in my life like my grandmother, who was part of the Civil Rights movement, she of course harped on the importance of education and consistently learning something always," Tillman said. "But the way I always held education so high on my own, aside from being raised that way, was finding different things to be educated about."

She continued, "I feel like that urge to learn something new just never didn't exist for me."

Teen who battled leukemia and homelessness as a child graduates college at 18

Dr. Lesley Manson, a clinical associate professor at ASU, told "GMA" that Tillman is the youngest person in school history to earn a doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health.

Manson said she oversaw Tillman's dissertation for the doctoral program offered through ASU Online.

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During her studies, Tillman wrote a journal article of her dissertation and completed an internship at a university student health center, according to Manson.

"She really led change and worked on different forms of management to really reduce healthcare stigma and improve that student population there to be able to enter and accept student health services," she said of Tillman. "It was wonderful to see her and help her navigate some of those personal and professional interactions and grow through those experiences."

Manson described Tillman as an "inquisitive" and "innovative" student, and emphasized just how rare it is to accomplish what she has so far.

"It's a wonderful celebration ... but this is still something so rare and unique," she said. "She has innovative ideas and motivation, which is wonderful, and truly, I think what is inspiring is that she embodies that meaning of being a true leader."

PHOTO: Dr. Dorothy Jean Tillman II and her professor Dr. Lesley Manson, a clinical associate professor at Arizona State University.

Manson said she hopes Tillman continues to inspire people with her love of learning, saying, "That curiosity is always there, and I think all learners come with that, but it's great to be able to see it in someone so young as well."

Her inspiration and how she gives back to community

Tillman said her own journey wouldn't be possible without the support of her mom, who she said is one of her biggest motivators.

"Seeing my mother consistently work so hard to continuously uphold our family's legacy, and be that person that everyone was able to go to, if they needed anything ... always seeing [her] like [a] 'wonder woman' definitely made me want to grow up [into] an accomplished person," she said.

PHOTO: Dr. Dorothy Jean Tillman II officially walked at her graduation ceremony in May.

An advocate for education, Tillman is also the founder and CEO of a leadership institute that emphasizes the arts and STEM.

"I feel like adding art and putting a focus on it throughout science, technology, engineering and math makes the kids excited to learn all those things," she said. "And it opens them up to all of the possibilities and all the knowledge provided in that area of just STEM."

'Super dad' graduates with master's while working 3 jobs

As for her plans after graduation, Tillman said she is "just like any other teenager, still figuring out what my specific dreams and goals are."

PHOTO: Dr. Dorothy Jean Tillman II was only 10 when she became a freshman at the college of Lake County, majoring in Psychology.

"I'm really just grateful that the world is my oyster, and that I've done so much so young," she said. "And I have time to kind of think that through."

Tillman added that she hopes young people will take away from her story that it's OK to continually figure out what you want to do in life.

"Always remember that everyone has points in their life where they feel like they're figuring it out," she said. "And so figuring things out, not knowing what you want isn't a bad thing. But making the choice not to sit down and try to figure it out is."

Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional quotes from Tillman since its original publish date of May 13, 2024.

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Chicago teen earns doctorate at 17 years old from Arizona State
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A Chicago teen entered college at 10. At 17, she earned a doctorate
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Examining the Ethical Implications of Health Care Technology Described in US and Swedish PhD Dissertations: Protocol for a Scoping Review

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