Institutional Transformation: VERITIES - Virtue-Based Education for Responsibility and Integrity To Increase Excellence in STEM

该奖项支持一个研究项目，以改变科学家被训练思考科学实践的道德层面的方式。该项目被称为VERITIES，是以责任和诚信为基础的美德教育的缩写，以提高STEM（科学，技术，工程和数学）的卓越性。它基于PI的科学美德理论账户，该账户得到了先前对科学伦理文化的全国性研究的支持，该研究的数据来自1100多名科学家;早期的项目确定了一套连贯的价值观，包括注意力，客观性，毅力，怀疑论，诚实和谦逊的证据，所有这些都集中在诚实和好奇心的核心美德上。VERITIES建立在美国国家科学基金会科学技术中心BEACON七年来经过测试的实施基础上;它扩大了密歇根州立大学机构转型项目的试点方法。它的主要目标是测试在顶级（R1）公立研究型大学可以做些什么，从而作为国家变革努力的试验台。该项目将在负责的研究行为（RCR）专业会议上举办培训培训员讲习班，开始广泛推广该方法。VERITIES团队的研究得到了该奖项的支持，他们将开始通过使用全校范围的调查收集伦理文化和实践的基线数据。然后，团队成员将根据调查揭示的STEM部门的不同情况调整研究生科学价值观培训，他们还将培训不同的教师，以作为支持道德文化变革的典范。然后，他们将评估这些干预措施的有效性与研究生队列的准对照研究和教师的重点访谈。在这些活动中，该团队将利用PI的科学美德理论帐户以及RCR培训的新方法，该方法使用模块帮助熟悉者探索每种美德如何将科学身份与卓越的实践联系起来。这些单元是利用由“可持续发展对话倡议”开创的指导对话框架开发的。他们在RCR培训中使用这些模块将有助于促进关于学科美德的对话的增加，并提高对科学实践规范层面的敏感性，该项目将其视为成功的RCR培训的关键指标。这样的增加将有助于更深入地理解一般科学和科学内部的科学美德的本质，从而更深入地考虑如何在科学实践中表达这些美德。这些变化将更广泛地导致一个更周到的和新的承诺，以卓越和诚信的STEM文化。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

This award supports a research project to transform the way that scientists are trained to think about the ethical dimensions of scientific practice. The project is called VERITIES, short for Virtue-based Education for Responsibility and Integrity to Increase Excellence in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). It is based in the PI's scientific virtue-theoretic account, which is backed by a prior national study of science's ethical culture with data from over 1100 scientists; the earlier project identified a coherent set of values that included attentiveness, objectivity, perseverance, skepticism, meticulousness, and humility to evidence, all centered on core virtues of honesty and curiosity. VERITIES builds on a tested implementation over a seven-year period at BEACON, an NSF Science and Technology Center; it scales up the piloted approach to an institutional transformation project at Michigan State University. Its primary goals are to test what can be done at a top level (R1) public research university, and thereby serve as a test bed for a national transformative effort. The project will culminate in train-the-trainers workshops at professional conferences for Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) to begin to seed the approach broadly.The VERITIES team, whose research is being supported by this award, will begin by collecting baseline data of ethical culture and practices using a university-wide survey. The team members will then adapt graduate student scientific-values training for varying circumstances of STEM departments revealed by the survey, and they will also train diverse faculty to serve as committed exemplars to support change in ethical culture. They will then assess the efficacy of these interventions with a quasi-controlled study of graduate student cohorts and with focused interviews of faculty members. In these engagements, the team will utilize the PI's scientific virtue-theoretic account together with a new approach to RCR training that uses modules that help conversants explore how each virtue ties scientific identity to excellence of practice. The modules were developed using a guided dialogue framework pioneered by the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative. Their use of these modules in RCR training will serve to promote an increase in conversations about disciplinary virtues and increased sensitivity to normative dimensions of scientific practice, which the project regards as key indicators of successful RCR training. Such increases will serve to bring about a deeper understanding of the nature of the scientific virtues in general and within the science, leading to more thoughtful consideration of how they ought to be expressed in scientific practice. These changes will lead more generally to a more thoughtful and renewed commitment to a culture of excellence and integrity in STEM.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.