Chore or desire? Students’ response to online lessons in scientific integrity

ABSTRACT

One of the main responsibilities of universities for their students, researchers, and society is to teach scientific integrity. Over the years, many universities—including RWTH Aachen University—have developed modules to impart the rules of good scientific practice. The current case study outlines the “Scientific Integrity” online course of RWTH Aachen University that has been offered to all master’s students starting in October 2020; it explains to what extent the topic of scientific integrity meets genuine interest among students. Based on the online questionnaires that students were asked to fill out before starting the course (Q1) and after completing the course (Q2), it was verified that the implemented course achieved a satisfactory, but expandable acceptance. 57% of study participants initially (Q1) strongly affirmed to be interested in the topic; said percentage increased to 65.3% at the end of the course (Q2). While at the time of Q1 most students admitted that they would not take the course if it were voluntary, the majority of study participants came to the opposite conclusion after the course (Q2). The results suggest that the assessment of the relevance of the course may be dependent on familiarity with its contents.

KEYWORDS:

• Research ethics in university contexts
• good scientific practice
• compulsory courses
• research integrity
• responsible conduct of research
• students’ evaluation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2022.2145956

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.