AMED, Research and Development Program for
Enhancement of Research Integrity

Research on Effective Utilization of a
Questionnaire Survey to Promote Research
Integrity

Project Overview

In recent years, the situation surrounding research integrity in Japan has been changing dramatically. The government stipulated new guidelines for research misconduct in 2014. The research institutions are now required to implement measures to prevent misconduct and foster integrity in research, including education on research integrity. In this study, we will examine the effectiveness of monitoring the integrity of research activities and monitoring the integrity of research environments; whereas the former can reveal problems in a diverse range of research practices for research integrity, the latter can reveal research-related factors that threaten research integrity. To those ends, we will develop and administer a questionnaire survey about monitoring the integrity of research activities and of research environments.

Overseas, several such questionnaire tools have already been developed for the aforementioned purpose. Representative examples are the Survey of Organizational Research Climate (SOURCE) and the Research Integrity Inventory Survey. Both of these questionnaires are designed for assesssing the integrity of research activities and environments in research institutions. By using these tools to understand the current situation and issues at each organization, it is becoming more common to monitor the integrity of research activities and the research environment in a form that is appropriate for that organization.
However, the survey tools used in other countries do not accurately reflect the Japanese research and education systems and the current status of academia. In addition, fees for using such tools may be an obstacle to their introduction to the field.

In light of this situation, this project is developing a questionnaire survey that is adapted to the context of Japan and can be easily used by Japanese research organizations.

Objectives

The objectives of this project are as follows:

  1. 1

    To develop questionnaire surveys that will enable research and educational organizations and the research community to obtain appropriate information to promote research integrity

  2. 2

    To examine how the results of questionnaires developed can be used in each research and educational organization

  3. 3

    To analyze the current situation and issues related to research integrity in Japan based on the data obtained from the questionnaire survey and to examine how research institutions can utilize the results of such an analysis

By developing a questionnaire that is effective in achieving the aforementioned objectives, this project aims to support research organizations and research communities in accurately monitoring the current situation and issues related to research integrity and to promote effective organizational efforts that contribute to promoting research integrity.

Philosophy

We hope that with the widespread use of the developed questionnaire survey, effective organizational efforts will be encouraged to promote research integrity. Furthermore, the project aims to contribute to stimulating productive discussion on research integrity by providing evidence on the current situation regarding research integrity in Japan.

Project members

and their profiles in relation to research integrity

Masaki Nakamura:
Associate Professor at the Center for Education in Liberal Arts and Science, Osaka University (OU); Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Letters, OU; Associate Professor at the Research Center on Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues, OU; Visiting Researcher at Institute of Research Integrity, Osaka Prefecture University; Member of the Science Council of Japan; Founding member of Global Young Academy. His work in promoting research integrity takes many forms. For example, he is the Director of the Association for the Promotion of Research Integrity (APRIN), a member of the MEXT Council of Experts on the Promotion of Integrity in Research, and an advisor on research integrity of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Additionally, he is a member of the research misconduct investigation committees of several universities and a member of various other committees on research integrity.
He is a co-author of For the Sound Development of Science: The Attitude of a Conscientious Scientist (edited by the Editorial Board of For the Sound Development of Science, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science); Research Misconduct and Distorted Science: Beyond the STAP Cell Incident (edited by Eisuke Enoki; Nihon Hyoronsha); Science and Politics after the Disaster of March 11 in Japan (edited by Masaki Nakamura (Nakanishiya Shuppan); and other publications. Supervised the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Research Ethics e-Learning (eL CoRE) and collaborated in the creation of the APRIN e-Learning Program (eAPRIN).
Asako Miura:
Professor, Graduate School of Human Sciences, OU. She is engaged in relevant research in the field of social psychology from the perspectives of both research and education, with a focus on research methods and the systems surrounding research. She is involved in significant projects dealing with research integrity as a principal investigator, including the KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research Project Demand Characteristics Revisited: Exploring the Process of Generating Social Psychological Data (2018–2021) and Constructing Centers in Japan for Verifying the Reproducibility of Social Psychological Research (2015–2018). She has served on the editorial board of three special issues relating to this topic, including New Forms of Psychological Research in the journal Psychological Review. She is the author of Psychology Basics, Vol. 1: I see! – Psychological Research Methods (Kitaooji Shobo). She is the editor of Psychological Research Methods (Foundation for the Promotion of the Open University of Japan) and others. Moreover, she collaborated in the creation of the APRIN e-Learning Program (eAPRIN).
Toshiya Kobayashi:
Associate Professor at the Center for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Studies, Kyushu University. He is engaged in initiatives to promote research integrity primarily from an educational perspective in the application of science communication for graduate students. He is involved in a research project associated with research integrity funded by KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research titled Research on Research Ethics Education Using Science Communication. He is the author of Science Communication: Linking Universities with Communities (Kyushu University Press).
Jin Higashijima:
Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Global and Transdisciplinary Studies, Chiba University. She had managed the creation of teaching materials for the CITI Japan Program (currently eAPRIN), which is an e-learning program dealing with research integrity and ethics (2013–2015). She is currently researching content and methods for promoting research integrity and ethics education suitable for use within Japan, from the perspective of achieving responsible research and innovation.

Research

We are developing, and planning to conduct the following three questionnaire surveys:

1. Survey of Individual Researchers:
A questionnaire survey to monitor the actual situation and issues relating to research integrity in the research institutions. This questionnaire is for monitoring the current status of research activities at research and educational organizations and to examine whether the current research environment fosters ethical research activities . The questionnaire is designed to be used by research institutions to improve their efforts in fostering research integrity in their organizations.
2. Survey of Academic Societies:
A questionnaire survey to assess the current status and efforts undertaken by academic societies in Japan from the perspective of research integrity.The survey aims to ascertain the status of efforts related to research integrity at individual organizations as well as any current issues and situations regarding research integrity, and will be conducted for all registered academic organizations of the Science Council of Japan.
3. Survey of General Public:
A questionnaire survey to understand the general public’s attitudes toward scientific research (especially research misconduct). The survey aims to examine the relationship between personal attributes, including academic background, and scientific knowledge and literacy, by asking a wide range of questions about how much the general public trusts the results of scientific research and how they perceive questionable research practices.
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