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

机构转型：VERITIES - 基于美德的责任和诚信教育，以提高 STEM 的卓越水平

• 批准号: 2024238
• 负责人: Robert Pennock
• 金额: $ 59.99万
• 依托单位: Michigan State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-08-15 至 2025-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2024238&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Institutional; Transformation; VERITIES; Virtue; Based

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.

该奖项支持一个研究项目，该项目旨在改变科学家接受培训以思考科学实践的伦理层面的方式。该项目名为Verities，是基于美德的责任和诚信教育的简称，以提高STEM(科学、技术、工程和数学)的卓越水平。它基于PI的科学美德理论描述，该描述得到了之前一项关于科学伦理文化的全国性研究的支持，该研究使用了来自1100多名科学家的数据；早期的项目确定了一套连贯的价值观，包括专注力、客观性、毅力、怀疑主义、一丝不苟和对证据的谦逊，所有这些都以诚实和好奇心为核心美德。Verities建立在NSF科学和技术中心Beacon为期七年的测试实施基础上；它扩大了密歇根州立大学制度转型项目的试点方法。它的主要目标是测试顶级(R1)公立研究型大学可以做些什么，从而作为国家变革性努力的试验台。该项目将在负责任的研究行为专业会议(RCR)上举办培训者培训研讨会，以开始广泛传播这一方法。Verities团队的研究得到了该奖项的支持，他们将通过在大学范围内进行调查来收集道德文化和实践的基线数据。然后，团队成员将根据调查显示的STEM系的不同情况调整研究生的科学价值观培训，他们还将培训不同的教职员工，作为坚定的榜样，支持道德文化的变化。然后，他们将通过对研究生队列的准对照研究和对教职员工的集中采访来评估这些干预措施的有效性。在这些活动中，该团队将利用PI的科学美德理论描述，以及一种新的RCR培训方法，该方法使用模块来帮助交谈人员探索每一种美德如何将科学身份与卓越的实践联系起来。这些模块是利用工具箱对话倡议开创的指导性对话框架开发的。他们在RCR培训中使用这些单元将有助于促进更多关于纪律美德的对话，并提高对科学实践规范层面的敏感性，该项目将其视为RCR培训成功的关键指标。这样的增长将有助于更深入地了解科学美德的总体性质和科学内部的性质，从而更深入地考虑如何在科学实践中表达这些美德。这些变化将导致在STEM中更加深思熟虑和重新承诺卓越和诚信的文化。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。