A missing piece in high school science education: Research ethics in the classroom

High school students need more comprehensive scientific inquiry learning instruction through research ethics education. Yet, this topic is often overlooked in the science curriculum. To collect basic data to guide research ethics education for high school students, this study documents the kinds of research misconduct students commit, the contexts in which they do so, and the factors that influence such misconduct. Data were collected via questionnaires from 223 gifted high school students at science academies in Korea. The results showed that high school students engaged in the most research misconduct in experiment-based classes rather than in mentorship programmes and science fair competitions. The largest number of data fabrication and falsification instances were seen in experiment-based classes. A regression analysis on the effect of influencing factors on each research misconduct type showed that falsification and plagiarism can be reduced by increasing education and regulation and lowering desire and neglect, whereas duplicate publications can be reduced by decreasing desire and neglect levels.