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TGS and UNT Researchers Awarded $300,000 NSF Grant to develop Ethics Training for Graduate Students

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $300,000 grant to a group of UNT researchers led by Dr. Joseph Oppong, Associate Dean for Research and Professional Development, to develop ethics training for graduate students. The 3-year grant is a collaborative effort between TGS, Chemistry Department (Angela Wilson), College of Engineering (Kuruvilla John), the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity (CSID) (Britt Holbrook and Adam Briggle), and CLEAR (Patrick Pluscht and his team) to use gaming to teach research ethics to graduate students in Science and Engineering.

The research thesis is simple: while ethics training for researchers is a recognized need and both NSF and NIH mandate ethics training for students participating in funded projects, current research doesn't show a clear relationship between training and actual ethical behavior. In effect, we don't know if ethics training translates into actual ethical behavior or even how to measure such a change. The research approach immerses students in situations that call for ethical decision making. Rather than instructing students in "the right thing to do," then testing whether they know "the right thing to do," this project places students in situations in which they must decide what to do. We hypothesize that such an environment will serve as an effective training ground for developing the practical skills necessary for sound ethical decision making in the conduct of research. Games mimic more accurately the ambiguous, dynamic, and complex situations that scientists and engineers face than any pre-packaged, static, and unidirectional content-delivery module.

The research team is also unique, highlighting the exciting levels of collaboration at UNT. TGS is leading this initiative, a big part of my effort to improve ethics training for our graduate students; CSID is providing the intellectual power for ethics training; CLEAR is providing the gaming development expertise and Chemistry and Engineering are providing the students for testing out the games. Once completed, we will extend this training to all UNT students, and the collaborating institutions -Texas Woman's University, Texas State University, and Northern Illinois University. My hope is to ultimately establish a certificate in RCR, similar to the G*STEP program, using the outcome of this research and our CITI and face to face RCR workshops.