CUR Annual Meeting 2002 Report
 
"Teaching Research Ethics to Undergraduates" Session II, 6/20/02
David Elmes+, Jeanine Stewart*, & Greg Cooper (Washington and Lee University)
+Moderator; *Recorder
39 attendees

Major Discussion Points and Action Items

In the session on Teaching Research Ethics to Undergraduates, the speakers discussed three distinct models, along with the pros and cons of each:

1. Teaching ethics as part of a course. This approach allows the instructor to reinforce the relationship between ethics and the course content. It offers a convenient way to introduce ethical issues in the context of a particular field of study. It is limited, however, in its necessarily narrow focus - one can cover only those ethical issues that are directly related to the course content, and there is limited time for the coverage of ethics.
2. Mentoring research students regarding the applicable ethical issues. This approach allows the instructor to make ethics relevant and practical. Mentors can encourage research habits that support ethical practice. Again, however, there is limited opportunity to provide students with much background (e.g. the philosophical basis) related to the ethical issues that present themselves. 
3. A full semester-length course on ethics. This approach provides students with a broader view of ethical issues related to a given field of study. It works especially well (in our experience) when team taught - bringing together a professor with expertise in philosophy, and one with expertise in a scientific discipline. The course provides an opportunity to examine ethical issues in the context of both philosophy and science, to give students the tools they need to be able to assess the quality of an ethical debate.

 
During the session, participants touched on some of the ways that their home institutions address the teaching of ethics. 
Of the 39 attendees:

• 6 teach in programs that require some coverage of ethics in the curriculum.
• 14 teach in programs that offer no coverage of research ethics.
• 9 teach in programs that have graduate-level students.
  • Of those 9 with graduate students, 3 described local resistance 
    to incorporating ethics into the graduate-level curriculum.

Many attendees reported that their home institutions had no formal program for the teaching of ethics. 

We discussed whether demonstrating ethical practice in the research environment offers sufficient coverage for our students. It was suggested that a written summary of the major points that one covers while working alongside one's students would provide helpful reminders to the mentors about those topics one would like to address annually. It could also serve as documentation of the program's unique approach to teaching ethics to research students.

Specific challenges in the teaching of ethics include:

1. the question of how to teach the limits of collaboration, and the boundaries of plagiarism. 
2. the need to help students remain mindful of the risks of pursuing certain research (e.g. the findings of a study on the genetic bases for homosexuality will always be interpreted by the reader in that reader's own cultural context; leading potentially to multiple re-interpretations of a given data set)
3. instilling in our students a sense of social responsibility related to their scientific work.

We addressed an additional ethical quandary facing professors in the classroom:
The fair and ethical use of peer evaluations. We discussed the need to provide students with clear guidelines for making their evaluations of their peers. It was suggested that students ought to be required to present a full justification for any evaluation they make (rather than simply submitting a grade with no accompanying feedback).