Scientific misconduct

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/sciencecareers/2011/02/more-on-culture.html

February 22, 2011

More on Culture and Misconduct

Some months back, Science Careers looked into research exploring the relationship between academic misconduct and social structure. Studies by Andrew Schrank of the University of New Mexico and Cheol-Sung Lee of the University of Chicago had identified structural features of universities in some East Asian countries that they say contribute to higher rates of dishonesty in research.

Now an article in the journal Human Organization amplifies the discussion. "Stereotypes of Asian students as being more prone to plagiarize are frequently found in the literature," write Daniel E. Martin and Asha Rao of California State University-East Bay and co-author LLoyd Sloan, whose affiliation was not mentioned. Their research examined plagiarism among students to find any cultural connection. The results do reveal "significant differences" among students in the likelihood to plagiarize, but these did not relate to students' ethnic backgrounds, they report. Rather, the key factor is acculturation to American standards. The authors therefore see "significant implications for training and managing international students and workers."

Taken for granted: Ain't misbehavin'

By Beryl Lieff Benderly

November 05, 2010

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2010_11_05/caredit.a1000107

According to studies reported in The New York Times in October, for example, half of the scientists queried in one survey in China claimed to know someone who had committed academic misconduct. In another survey, a third of scientists at top Chinese institutions said they had committed misconduct themselves.

The German model

Universities in Northeast Asia are "particularly prone to scientific scandal" because of a specific combination of structural factors, argue Schrank and Lee in their article. One structural factor is the enormous rewards that governments bestow on conspicuously successful senior scientists as incentives "to overtake their advanced industrial counterparts." The "illiberal laboratory cultures inherited from Germany by way of Japan" is another.

Numerous "high profile" cases have emerged in South Korea, Japan, and China, where some people "worry that disclosure is the exception to the rule, especially among the scientific elite," Schrank and Lee state. In the interview, Schrank hastens to acknowledge that American scientists also cheat, but, he adds, "We simply think that the incentive structure and the organizational structure in Northeast Asia are much more conducive to this type of fraud than either the incentive structure or the organizational structure in the United States."

Discouraging misconduct

So how do you lessen the likelihood of fraud? "I think the way to combat this is to recognize that it's not Asian culture, but that it's organizational, and then to think about what types of organizations militate against it," Schrank says. He cites as evidence Taiwan and Singapore, which share an Asian cultural background with China, South Korea, and Japan and "have pursued the same sort of intensive drive to give incentive for blockbuster publications, with monetary rewards," but haven't seen nearly as much scandal.

The reason? They "have broken with the German model. Taiwan is particularly interesting" because it used to follow the highly hierarchical German system, but it changed to the American one. Singapore has consistently followed a British system that is also similar to that of the United States.

The key is institutional structures that value, encourage, and reward skeptical interchange among personnel at all levels. Events such as a regularly scheduled lab meeting can discourage would-be cheaters "precisely because every week they have this confrontation and someone can call them on it." The research systems in more scandal-prone countries "don't have this sort of built-in mechanism for quality control, and as a result there isn't a structured space for that sort of challenge."

Rampant Fraud Threat to China’s Brisk Ascent

By ANDREW JACOBS

Published: October 6, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/world/asia/07fraud.html?_r=1

For $450, seriously ill patients could buy a 10-minute consultation and a prescription — except Mr. Zhang, one of the most popular practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine, was booked through 2012.

¶But when the price of mung beans skyrocketed this spring, Chinese journalists began digging deeper. They learned that contrary to his claims, Mr. Zhang, 47, was not from a long line of doctors (his father was a weaver). Nor did he earn a degree from Beijing Medical University (his only formal education, it turned out, was the brief correspondence course he took after losing his job at a textile mill)

The most recent string of revelations has been bracing. After a plane crash in August killed 42 people in northeast China, officials discovered that 100 pilots who worked for the airline’s parent company had falsified their flying histories. Then there was the padded résumé of Tang Jun, the millionaire former head of Microsoft China and something of a national hero, who falsely claimed to have received a doctorate from the California Institute of Technology.

Pressure on scholars by administrators of state-run universities to earn journal citations — a measure of innovation — has produced a deluge of plagiarized or fabricated research. In December, a British journal that specializes in crystal formations announced that it was withdrawing more than 70 papers by Chinese authors whose research was of questionable originality or rigor.

“Clearly, China’s government needs to take this episode as a cue to reinvigorate standards for teaching research ethics and for the conduct of the research itself,” the editorial said. Last month a collection of scientific journals published by Zhejiang University in Hangzhou reignited the firestorm by publicizing results from a 20-month experiment with software that detects plagiarism. The software, called CrossCheck, rejected nearly a third of all submissions on suspicion that the content was pirated from previously published research. In some cases, more than 80 percent of a paper’s content was deemed unoriginal.

Plagiarism and Fakery

¶Her findings are not surprising if one considers the results of a recent government study in which a third of the 6,000 scientists at six of the nation’s top institutions admitted they had engaged in plagiarism or the outright fabrication of research data. In another study of 32,000 scientists last summer by the China Association for Science and Technology, more than 55 percent said they knew someone guilty of academic fraud.

He cited the case of Chen Jin, a computer scientist who was once celebrated for having invented a sophisticated microprocessor but who, it turned out, had taken a chip made by Motorola, scratched out its name, and claimed it as his own. After Mr. Chen was showered with government largess and accolades, the exposure in 2006 was an embarrassment for the scientific establishment that backed him.

But even though Mr. Chen lost his university post, he was never prosecuted. “When people see the accused still driving their flashy cars, it sends the wrong message,” Mr. Zeng said.

The problem is not confined to the realm of science. In fact many educators say the culture of cheating takes root in high school, where the competition for slots in the country’s best colleges is unrelenting and high marks on standardized tests are the most important criterion for admission. Ghost-written essays and test questions can be bought. So, too, can a “hired gun” test taker who will assume the student’s identity for the grueling two-day college entrance exam.

Then there are the gadgets — wristwatches and pens embedded with tiny cameras — that transmit signals to collaborators on the outside who then relay back the correct answers. Even if such products are illegal, students spent $150 million last year on Internet essays and high-tech subterfuge, a fivefold increase over 2007, according to a Wuhan University study, which identified 800 Web sites offering such illicit services.

Nonchalant Cheating

Ask any Chinese student about academic skullduggery and the response is startlingly nonchalant. Arthur Lu, an engineering student who last spring graduated from Tsinghua University, considered a plum of the country’s college system, said it was common for students to swap test answers or plagiarize essays from one another. “Perhaps it’s a cultural difference but there is nothing bad or embarrassing about it,” said Mr. Lu, who started this semester on a master’s degree at Stanford University. “It’s not that students can’t do the work. They just see it as a way of saving time.”

In recent years, both journalists have taken on Xiao Chuanguo, a urologist who invented a surgical procedure aimed at restoring bladder function in children with spina bifida, a congenital deformation of the spinal column that can lead to incontinence, and when untreated, kidney failure and death.

In a series of investigative articles and blog postings, the two men uncovered discrepancies in Dr. Xiao’s Web site, including claims that he had published 26 articles in English-language journals (they could only find four) and that he had won an achievement award from the American Urological Association (the award was for an essay he wrote).

Despite his confession, Dr. Xiao’s employer, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, appeared unwilling to take any action against him. In the statement they released, administrators said they were shocked by news of his arrest but said they would await the outcome of judicial procedures before severing their ties to him.

Ethnicity, Acculturation, and Plagiarism: A Criterion Study of Unethical Academic Conduct
Daniel E. Martin ^A1, Asha Rao ^A1, Lloyd R. Sloan ^A2

^A1 Department of Management, California State University, East Bay
^A2 Department of Psychology, Howard University

Abstract:

Ethics have received increased attention from the media and academia in recent years. Most reports suggest that one form of unethical conduct—plagiarism—is on the rise in the business schools. Stereotypes of Asian students as being more prone to plagiarize are frequently found in the literature, though not concretely substantiated. This study used a behavioral criterion to examine the relationships among ethnicity, acculturation, and plagiarism in a sample of 158 undergraduate and graduate students. Significant differences in plagiarism behavior were found based on level of student acculturation, but not ethnicity. Considerations and implications for training and managing international students and workers are discussed.