Students’ mindsets on research integrity—a cross-cultural comparison

The European Code of Conduct contextualises the following fundamental principles of research integrity (The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity 2017, p. 4):

Learning RI refers to internalizing the abovementioned principles. Students acquire knowledge about how to cite sources correctly, which code of conduct and standards to adhere to, how to work in collaborative research teams, etc. In learning RI, they apply academic integrity and commit to the principles of honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and courage in academic settings (International Centre for Academic Integrity 2021).

RI/RCR courses are not standard in Europe’s HEIs curriculums. Nevertheless, related courses, such as scientific work, research procedures, or research ethics, include RI in several ways. Accordingly, whenever this article discusses training, the term refers to a learning setting in which RI is one of the intended learning outcomes in practice.

Trainers often point out the challenges in influencing students to improve their knowledge in RI/RCR. Although RI/RCR training is a key pillar in how researchers conduct their research, little is known about the modus operandi. According to Andorno et. al. (2019), a main challenge in teaching RI/RCR is that students do not see the relevance. Students transitioning to HEI have difficulties connecting to RI/RCR because they do not see themselves as (future) researchers. Students in their initial stage of university education seem to have low motivation to learn RI/RCR (Priess-Buchheit et al. 2021).

Although the importance of RI seems to be widely acknowledged (The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity 2017), research misconduct is handled in various ways across Europe (ENRIO n.d.). Experts suggest a cultural alignment in RI mindsets and practices (Burger and Wolstein 2020; Bonn and Pinxten 2021) and assume that the level of corruption in different countries—according to the corruption perception index (CPI) of Transparency International—corresponds to the respective mindset related to RI. To elaborate appropriate teaching designs for RI training in HEIs, more knowledge is needed about students’ RI mindsets.

In this article, we differentiate between an internal and an external perspective on the importance of RI. The internal perspective refers to methodology, status quo of existing knowledge, and procedures to be followed by current and prospective researchers in their disciplines. From the internal perspective, RI is of essential importance for researchers and research organisations themselves. In contrast, the external perspective refers to research and science as a particular system in society, and the focus lies on the social relevance of RI. The internal perspective can be described with the following statements: (i) RI is the “quality safeguard” of science and technology, the social sciences, and the humanities; (ii) RI protects the reputation and careers of researchers and research organisations; and (iii) RI prevents the waste of money, time, and effort. The external perspective, in turn, refers to the following statements: (i) RI prevents adverse impact on patients and the public; (ii) RI promotes economic advancement; (iii) RI prevents avoidable waste of resources (Science Europe Working Group 2015).

HEIs take both perspectives into account and follow the internal perspective by training (future) researchers to responsibly conduct research, and the external perspective by enlightening students about the value of (their future) academic work for society. Time students spend in HEIs is a time of professionalization, during which they practice both perspectives in forms of standards, norms and responsible conduct. In this line of argumentation, we compare what students tell each other about research integrity with what they tell about their own academic behaviour in HEIs.

Goddiksen et al. (2021), McCabe et al. (2001), and Craig and Evans (2015) suggest a link between students’ cheating behaviour and justifications of cheating. Studies into how students value academic/research integrity (McCabe et al. 1999; Stephens et al. 2021) document a value–action gap referring to a systematically observed difference between the importance of academic and research integrity reported by students and their reported actual behaviour in academia and in research. To understand differences and similarities in students’ mindsets in regard to RI, this article examines how students from different cultures talk about themselves as academicians and what they expect academicians to do.

Value–action gaps are well studied in relation to environmental issues and the promotion of sustainable behaviour. The value–action gap emphasizes the need to overcome the (solely) rational presumption about decision-making. Furthermore, it considers that the decision-making process is influenced by individual, social, and institutional arrangements to bridge the gap between what people think and what people do in situations (Blake 1999; Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002).

Apart from the need for a better understanding of RI and its importance, gaining insights into how to enforce RI makes it possible to introduce tailored interventions in the future. We focus on the broadly discussed pair of terms in the field of business ethics—compliance and integrity. Hereby a consensus has been achieved that compliance and integrity are two sides of the same coin. While compliance refers to external norms and rules (legalist perspective), integrity implies a voluntary self-commitment to principles and moral prescriptions (value-based perspective). Compliance needs value orientation, whereas integrity needs (external) norms (Thielemann, 2005; Schöttl and Ranisch, 2016). In this article, we explore how students would implement RI in terms of the relationship between compliance and integrity. Since RI education research is an emerging field, it is important to understand what the recipients of RCR/RI training associate with the subject.

We consider the following dimensions are key facets to explore RI: understanding, importance, value–action gap, and enforcement approaches. They are fundamental for designing RI learning strategies and for the promotion of RI at HEIs. As a last facet, this article highlights students’ preferences with regard to RI training. Trainers can apply different teaching designs in the field of RI, corresponding to criteria such as (i) elective versus compulsory course of study, (ii) standalone course of study versus integrating RI into existing study courses, and (iii) teaching RI at the secondary education level versus at the tertiary education level. Combinations of these criteria result in various teaching designs that are applied in educational institutions. To date, there is no definitive knowledge on what kind of design leads to best results (Watts et al. 2017b; Katsarov et al. 2021).

The two European countries presented in this explorative study rank on the two extremes of CPI of Transparency International (European Commission, 2020). Trust in governmental structure is high in Germany, and bribes or general corruption only rarely occur (European Commission, 2020). Bulgaria is a postsocialist country characterised by high levels of corruption and low trust levels in public and semi-public institutions (Rothstein 2004; Horne 2017). There is a history of distrust in institutions in Bulgaria; the former communist regime was particularly repressive of human rights and individual freedom (Mishler and Rose, 1997). Not only is Bulgaria’s corruption level the highest in Europe, but a large part of the Bulgarian population also sees corruption as a permanent part of their culture. Furthermore, levels of interpersonal trust are also relatively low in Bulgaria (Rose-Ackerman, 2001, p. 438).

To compare the RI culture in Bulgaria and in Germany, we studied the country reports published by the European Network of Research Integrity Offices (ENRIO) and the national information of the European Network of Research Ethics Committees (EUREC). The ENRIO report on Germany describes the “national research ombudsman […] and the network of the local ombudspersons in research institutions” as the national institutional structure for research integrity. In Germany there is “no (legal) obligation to seek the national research ombudsman in cases of suspected research misconduct” (ENRIO n.d.). These ombudspersons are accompanied by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and other nonuniversity research institutions such as Fraunhofer, Helmholtz Association, Leibniz Association, and Max Planck Society, which actively contribute to and promote a research integrity culture. Germany “has a total of 53 research ethics committees. These committees are established in conformity with state law, the Federal Republic has no competence for that establishment” (EUREC n.d.).

No country report referring to stewards of integrity in Bulgaria exists (European Science Foundation 2019; ENRIO n.d.); therefore, no conclusions can be drawn regarding a network of RI stewards in Bulgaria. The European Network of Research Ethics Committees describes Bulgaria’s RI context only in relation to biomedical research: “Bulgarian Health Act (Article 203) covering all biomedical research projects states that biomedical research should be conducted after receiving a positive opinion from the ethics committee established in the health care facility, scientific organization or in other institution where biomedical research is going to be conducted.” (National Information Bulgaria, EUREC n.d.). “According to the Bulgarian Drug Law (Article 103), Ethics Committee for Multi-Centre Trials is established under the Minister of Health.” (EUREC n.d.).

As described above, students’ cultural contexts, e.g., stewardship for integrity and transparency, differ widely between Bulgaria and Germany. However, the two countries align mostly on how their educational system determines RI/RCR in their curriculums. The website Path2Integrity (path2integrity.eu) contains examples of curricula in which both countries include components of RCR training. None of these examples has RCR/RI as standalone courses at the secondary school level. Whereas some German examples include standalone courses for bachelor-level students, in Bulgaria RI topics are integrated into other courses at this level of study. In both countries, examples of standalone courses are listed for master and doctoral degree level.

We assume that there should be an interconnection between a country’s level of corruption/transparency and the understanding and importance of RI in that country. By comparing two countries with substantial CPI differences, we aim to explore probable contrasts in the students’ mindsets in the field of RI. In summary, the need to promote RI at HEIs is a transcultural mission across Europe. However, trainers must adapt RI training to students’ mindsets and practices. We conducted a qualitative study to explore Bulgarian and German students’ views on RI, and we focused on the intercultural and transcultural aspects of our RI facets: understanding, importance, value–action gap, enforcement approaches, and training.

The first facet relates to the understanding of RI. All students considered using sound and trustworthy sources and avoiding plagiarism as a substantial part of RI. The B-Group described the RI concept using expressions such as “using honest and factual methods to carry out research”, “giving credit to your sources’’, and “presenting the facts the way that they are without being biased”. While the B-Group focused solely on these concepts of RI, the G-Group expanded the concept by including RI-actors’ values, such as being respectful, being accountable etc. Furthermore, some students from Germany described RI as being based on “trustworthiness”, and others emphasized “moral” behaviour and “sticking to the norms”. While German students recognised ethical behaviour as being an essential part of RI, a more narrow understanding was predominant in the B-Group—their focus was how to conduct responsible research and which methods and procedures shall be applied. According to the G-Group, professional ethics is an inherent part of any researcher; developing ethical competencies is, therefore, crucial. The terms and explanations used by German students with and without RI training differ here—while students with training experience demonstrated a clear understanding, students without any training experience provided diffuse and uncertain responses (“I think RI refers to something like unity in research but I am not certain. […], or it means that research is objective, but this is just a guess”).

The second facet refers to the importance of RI, as perceived by the interviewed students. Within this domain, we distinguished between the abovementioned internal and external perspective. Both groups underlined the immense importance of RI as a factor for sustaining social peace, especially in a global and complex world, where transparency and (scientifically) justified guidelines are needed. The interviewees supported the importance of RI with statements such as “spreading wrong information […] could indirectly cause harm” (B-Group), “in any case, we need to catch up with RI” (G-Group). All students underlined the utmost social importance of RI. For them, research integrity is related to phenomena like “climate change”, “CO₂ pollution”, or “COVID-19”. “If the environment doesn’t exist the way that it should, we wouldn’t exist the way that we should. We are still part of the environment’’ (B-Group). “By key and long-term decisions (like ecology and public expenditure), RI is very important” (G-Group). All interview participants recognized the increasing importance of RI in the context of contemporary global phenomena. This suggests that the external perspective has gained influence, even dramatically, in times of the COVID-19 crisis and sustainability. There is an explicit transcultural agreement when it comes to the societal importance of RI.

Further, we asked the interviewees to prioritise the importance of RI in the following fields of research and everyday life: business, technology, sustainability, law, and medicine. Again, there was a clear consensus between all interviewees in stating that medicine and sustainability are the most essential and vulnerable fields. “When it concerns our lives […] we put it in first place. Anyone who has a self-preservation instinct would do that” (B-Group). “In the case of medicine and security, there is a clear highest level of RI importance’’ (G- Group). Nevertheless, all interviewees agreed that RI is also essential for the other fields discussed. The interviewees underlined the role of social media and further sources of information (facts and fake news) for the increasing role of RI. “I would say that RI is more important nowadays because people are better informed through social media, but also they cannot differentiate very clearly between fake news and real news” (G-Group).

All interviewees recognised the rising importance of RI over time. “In the years to come, RI will become even more important because even more people will have access to more online platforms” (G-Group). This phenomenon is also related to the diversity and variety of sources: “in the past people just believed in one thing, like their god, their religion or whatever it was, and they really believed in that no matter what, under all circumstances. And after that there come so many scientists saying so much different stuff, so they have to prove their integrity. And from now on you will keep on having more and more information which always presents conflicting, different views. And the researchers have to prove their integrity to make people and society believe in what they’re saying” (B-Group).

In summary, all participants agreed that there is a growing importance of RI in all areas of life. The responses show that students focussed on the externally driven perspective of RI, and they almost completely neglected the internal perspective. Nevertheless, we take into account that some of the students’ statements referring to the external perspective may implicitly carry methodological aspects or standards that are part of the internal perspective.

The third domain explores the value–action gap in terms of the interviewees’ declared values and reported behaviour. Taking exams often requires students to follow specific protocols of a research procedure and thus prepares them for doing research. Therefore, we presume that students’ reports about cheating on exams can indicate a low level of the individual’s research integrity. Moreover, exams and research are both performed in the context of academia, and both have clear and very similar codes of conducts. Also, there are similarities in terms of breaches of their codes such as plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification.

To gather data on students’ behaviour during exams, we asked the following question: “Have you ever cheated on an exam?” All Bulgarian participants (100%) openly admitted (by raising their hands) to have cheated on exams. This admission is a remarkable finding when compared with the fact that 100% of the participants from Bulgaria had previously declared RI to be essential. Hence, there is a distinct value–action gap in the B-Group’s mindset. This finding is in line with Andorno et al. (2019), according to whom students have difficulties to see themselves as (responsible) researchers. None of the interviewees mentioned reflecting on the contradiction between their reported behaviour in academia (cheating on exams) and the systemic role of HEIs in providing students with competencies in standardized research methods and procedures. This points to a missing link between their actions and the attributed importance of the external perspective of RI.

Participants of the G-Group who had not previously participated in RI training reported their misconduct, but only as sporadic actions during school years; at the university level, they denied having committed such actions. “At school, I cheated a few times because the setting gave me the opportunity to do so, and the consequences were not so bad” (G-Group). The German students who had participated in a RI training, denied any misconduct at both school and university. They pointed to sanctions and consequences as reasons why they avoided misconduct: “I believe it is linked to the consequences; at school, these are not so bad” (G-Group). Respondents from the RI trained G-Group even mentioned the risk of unwillingly engaging in plagiarism (“I think it could happen by accident…”), hence the need for RI training. The observed value–action gap of the G-group is definitively smaller than the one of the B-group.

All interviewees from Germany and Bulgaria agreed that cheating is much worse for a medical student than for a business student “because one day our health will depend on him” or her (B-Group). Hence, when it comes to survival and human life, there is a clear transcultural consensus. One student from Germany claimed that unethical conduct can also be dangerous in business and pointed out that incompetent people in business can lead to thousands of people losing their jobs.

The fourth observed facet refers to RI enforcement. In terms of the discussion compliance/integrity, there were apparent differences in the German and Bulgarian participants’ views. The B-Group voted expressively for the compliance approach: “In a perfect world I can see research integrity being supported by laws and regulations”. This corresponds to multiple statements throughout the interview, indicating that Bulgarians do not trust institutions and they believe that people with power would manipulate facts they share with the public to achieve their own interests: “whoever has the real information has the power over society”, “[facts] can all be manipulated or not manipulated”, “sometimes [scientists] get crushed by powerful people and people who don’t want anyone else to know that information”, “research integrity isn’t solely based also on the actual research but on the person who actually has the power to control what we know,” “how do you decide who to trust” (B-Group). The group from Germany divided into two balanced preferences: pro-integrity and pro-compliance. Students with training experience preferred the promotion of a pro-integrity strategy: “I think spreading of information and clarification is most important […] so that the role of RI can be internalised” (G-Group).

The fifth observed facet refers to RI training. All participants from Bulgaria and Germany agreed that RI training is essential for students. When asked whether this training should start at school or at the university, the B-Group had two perspectives: half of them believed training should be included in schools’ curriculums, “because when in school we’re still forming our opinions”. The other half claimed that training should start at university level, “because people should have formed their own opinion of life” before studying RI. These perspectives reflect the discussion as to whether value-based education shall accompany RI training, whereby value-based education refers to the normative aspects of researchers’ behaviour, in addition to the proper application of respective research methods (e.g., proper conduction of a laboratory experiment).

There were distinct intercultural differences within this domain with regards to the design of a RI course. Half of the participants from Bulgaria said that RI training should be a compulsory course; the other half supported an elective course. All students from Germany supported the idea that RI courses should be designed as compulsory courses because RI is of utmost social importance and should “therefore reach all students” (G-Group). Students without training experience from Germany supported the integration of RI into other university courses because “the more specific the content of a particular discipline, the more specific the content of RI learning units”. Students with training experience seemed to prefer a mixture of integrative and standalone teaching formats, while “the separate course shall refer to general RI, and in the follow-up integrative course-specific RI content shall be taught” (G-Group). Students from Bulgaria believed that RI should be taught as a standalone course because “we really need time for that subject” (B-Group).

All interviewees from Germany underlined the importance of the applied approach in teaching RI. “Research affects our everyday life! So, we need to learn RI in a practical manner” (G-Group). They emphasized that intercultural exchange is crucial for studying RI. Students with training experience pointed out that an intercultural session is a learning advantage. Surprisingly, only half of the B-Group and even less of the G-Group (ca. 30%) confirmed that they would apply for a RI course.