Newswise — John Pijanowski, associate professor of educational leadership at the University of Arkansas, is leading an initiative, funded by the National Science Foundation, to teach ethics to undergraduate and graduate students in the sciences.
Pijanowski is principal investigator of a project to create an ethics curriculum for biological science. The project is based at the University of Arkansas and includes researchers at the University of Notre Dame and the Wadsworth Center in New York.
Ethical issues will always be a part of science, Pijanowski says, especially with growing external pressures to publish research and obtain grants. Ethical issues can range from improper data collection methods to overlooking mistakes in data to outright falsification of results.
“Scientists are not ethicists and, while many are extremely talented at what they do, ethics is not always their area of expertise,” he says. “They are looking for help in teaching it, and the lessons need to be easily consumable and meaningful.”
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