An influential and important concept WHAT IS RESEARCH The term - PDF document

An influential and important concept WHAT IS RESEARCH • The term ‘research integrity’ has come to be INTEGRITY? widely used in recent years, especially in official documents concerned with the governance of social and psychological enquiry. (See the website of the UK Research Integrity Office and Universities UK Concordat; Select Cmte 2018) Martyn Hammersley • This development is closely associated with the [Personal website: http://martynhammersley.wordpress.com/] rise of ethical regulation, and the sense given to the term often reflects this. CREET • However, the concept of integrity is older. It The Open University July 2018 goes back to Aristotle (Macfarlane 2009). Clarifying research integrity The meaning of ‘research integrity’ • I will treat ‘research integrity’ as an overarching • Generally speaking, it seems to be used to concept, as focused on the central values that refer to such matters as: honesty (for example should guide research, and how they are to be avoidance of plagiarism), declaration of interpreted. conflicts of interest, and commitment to research rigour. • An important distinction must be drawn between epistemic values (such as truth) and • In these terms, it complements ‘research ethical values. ethics’ (see Hammersley and Traianou 2012). • In this talk I will concentrate on epistemic • However, sometimes, research integrity, or values, since, while these are emphasised in researcher integrity, is treated as incorporating most discussions of research integrity, their research ethics. (For a useful discussion and implications are rarely spelt out in detail. references, see Banks 2015). 1

The importance of epistemic A contentious notion integrity • The official literature on research integrity treats what this term means as a matter of • It has come to be argued that we live in a ‘post- agreement, but in many respects it is not. truth’ world (see Leith 2017), where factual claims are made-up or distorted, by • For instance, one of the usually mentioned advertisers, governments and politicians, the requirements is rigour , but what this involves is tabloid press, online ‘news’ sources, etc. disputed between quantitative and qualitative researchers, and indeed amongst advocates • Commentators who find particular evidence not of different varieties of qualitative enquiry. to their liking raise spurious questions about it. • So you need to be aware that my arguments • Given this, it is essential that researchers try here about the implications of research their best to meet the requirements of integrity may be contentious. epistemic integrity. But doing so is not easy. Scandals Scandals are the tip of the iceberg The most extreme breach of epistemic integrity is • While the sort of breaches highlighted in these the invention of data. A number of researchers scandals are extremely important, it is not have been accused of this. For instance: helpful to think of research integrity solely as a matter of choosing between right and wrong. • The British psychologist Cyril Burt (see Tucker 1997) • As in life generally, what is involved is often more complex and difficult: there are • The American anthropologist Carlos Castaneda frequently problems in deciding what it would (see de Mille 1978, 1990) be best to do in particular situations, and there • The Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel may not be any right answer, even though (see Levelt et al 2012) there are definitely wrong ones. • The Dutch anthropologist Mart Bax (see Baud • Official accounts of research integrity often et al 2013). don’t take account of this complexity. 2

Procedural and phrónētic Potentially conflicting commitments conceptions of integrity • The most effective way of pursuing a piece of • A great deal of the official literature on research research may not be ethical. integrity conceptualises it as a matter of • Some interpretations of ethical requirements compliance with ‘good research practice’ – could make much social and educational formulated to a large extent as a set of research nearly, if not actually, impossible. procedures, rules, or principles. • As already noted, there are conflicts within the • However, the older philosophical notion of epistemic field arising from different integrity focuses, instead, on making wise paradigms or approaches. judgments, balancing relevant value principles • There can also be conflicts amongst ethical as situationally appropriate (see Hammersley values. 2017); i.e. one must be a reflective practitioner. Areas where issues of epistemic Research: A demanding task integrity arise • The task of research is to provide findings • Relations with ‘stakeholders’: funding bodies, about a topic that are more likely to be true universities, research team members, thesis than information from other sources. supervisors, gatekeepers in the field, etc. • This requires achieving some threshold of • Selecting research topics and formulating likely validity, and producing evidence that research questions. justifies accepting the findings as true. • Reviewing the literature. • Decisions about how to carry out research • Identifying cases for investigation. effectively have to be made under conditions of considerable uncertainty. • Collecting and producing data. • Research is a communal not an individual task: • Analysing data. aimed at contributing to collective knowledge. • Writing research reports and ‘dissemination’. 3

‘Stakeholders’ Research questions • Whose responsibility is it that the research is pursued effectively? Ultimately, it is the • Are the questions worth addressing: Are they researcher’s. Learning and advice from others important? Do we already know the are essential, but sometimes external demands answers? But note the problem of ‘obvious may need to be resisted. answers’. • The case of doctoral students and supervisors: • Are the questions answerable by research? who has the primary responsibility here? Even if they are, can they be answered given the time and other resources available? This • Relevant issues: the student generally chooses requires making a judgment about what the topic and approach; the supervisor usually threshold of likely validity can be reached. knows more about the research field; the problem of ‘paradigmatic commitments’; the • Also, note that research questions can problem of ‘external’ commitments. change over the course of inquiry. Lazarsfeld’s trick Reviewing the literature • In a review of a famous study carried out • Searching for and reviewing the literature during the Second World War, a sociologist, adequately is an important obligation. Paul Lazarsfeld, noted that many readers were • It reduces the risk that one is trying to likely to dismiss its findings as obvious. answer questions that have already been • He outlined these findings – for example, satisfactorily answered. ‘better educated soldiers showed more psycho- • The literature will also reveal some of the neurotic symptoms than less educated ones’ – complexities surrounding the issues with noting that these findings could be inferred which one is concerned, both theoretical from what is already well-known (such as ‘the and methodological. mental instability of the intellectual’). • It is important to respect the literature but • BUT… (see Gage 1991) also to interrogate it. 4

Identifying cases for study Collecting and producing data • A first obligation here is to be clear in defining • What data are required from the case(s) the cases being studied. This is not always easy, because their boundaries may be fuzzy, • What methods are to be used? There is and there may be cases within cases. an obligation to consider the range of available methods. It is also necessary • A second requirement is to think carefully to pay attention to the various ways that about the relationship between cases selected any particular method can be used. and research questions, both open to change. • There can be a tension between • Usually some sort of generalisation is built understanding the data, on the one into research findings, so how do the cases hand, and interrogating and checking it, studied provide for this? How well do they do on the other. But both are required. this? How many cases are needed? Writing research reports Analysis • Creativity versus scholarly caution. • It is necessary to strive for sufficient clarity of argument. For instance, distinguishing between • What can be reasonably inferred from the conclusions and guiding assumptions. data that is relevant to the research questions? • There is a danger of distorting and plagiarising • What method can best produce these sources (whether previous literature or data) inferences? • Sufficient information must be provided about how the research was done, and about • There is a responsibility to recognise and potential threats to validity. counter potential bias. • Sufficient documentation is required of the • For instance, there is a need to resist evidence on which the conclusions were based. sentimentalism, on the one hand, and to avoid an overly sceptical attitude, on the other. • Is the task to present findings or to persuade? 5