NSF Award
2316101
Training the next generation of college students early and effectively in research ethics is a crucial component of their education. This project will develop, implement, and test a college-level course in ethical decision-making for emerging science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals to better prepare them for the pressures they may encounter in the workplace. This project expands on traditional approaches to teaching ethical decision-making by focusing on psychological and social factors that impact human behavior. The project will create learning experiences for students to practice their ethical decision-making skills. The training provided through this project aims to prevent threats to research integrity and encourage future STEM professionals to behave ethically.<br/><br/>This project focuses on psychological processes known collectively as metacognition. Metacognition includes processes such as mindful reflection, self-monitoring, and recursive thinking. Though discussion of metacognition appears in the ethics education field, the project has a unique approach in that it examines conditions of emotionality, uncertainty, stress, and the influence of social factors such as institutional and cultural norms that can impact a researcher's metacognitive ethical reasoning. The research team will develop and test a course curriculum that integrates advanced reasoning and reflection about social cognition and heuristic-based decision making under stress. Features of the research team’s approach include incorporating experiential simulations constructed to mimic typical pressures in educational and research settings, and having students learn how to overcome ethical challenges they may confront. The impact of the project’s curriculum will be assessed at the beginning and at the end of the course, and six-months after course completion. The research team will develop a train-the-trainer component and share it with educators interested in adopting this model for STEM ethics education.<br/><br/>This project is jointly funded through the ER2 program by the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and the Directorate for STEM Education.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
