When Swazey asked students to compare the role that a department should take in preparing students
to recognize and deal with ethical issues in their field to the role actually taken by the department, her
results were equally disturbing. Eighty-two percent of students felt the department should take an
“Active” or “Very active” role in this process, while only 22% felt that an active or very active role was
actually taken.10
The perceptions of faculty were not much different from those of the students. Ninety-nine percent
of 2,000 faculty members surveyed felt that “academics should exercise collective responsibility for the
professional conduct of their graduate students”; only 27% of these faculty felt that they followed
through with this responsibility.11
These data provide evidence to indicate that individual mentoring is a less than adequate teaching
method for ethics. If the majority of students do not receive mentoring that leaves them with a clear
understanding of their responsibilities as scientists, then cases of unintentional misconduct and
questionable practice are inevitable.
The role and importance of ethics education have begun to be recognized by the NIH. Guidelines for
NIH research training grants now require a minimal number of hours of ethics education.12 Ethics need
not be taught within a single graduate course, but it is beginning to be recognized that education in the
basic conventions of the field and in the basic approaches to ethical decision making can no longer be left
to one-on-one mentoring alone. As the ever-dwindling availability of research funds fuels the fire of
competition, there will be increased pressure on scientists to bend or break rules. Research laboratories,
particularly large groups where some students rarely see their faculty advisors, cannot be assumed to
teach research ethics, or even to train students in all research conventions.