Advancing the Use of Professional Decision-Making Strategies in a Culturally Diverse Research Community

当代科学是一项全球性的事业。随着全球化和研究变得更加复杂和专业化，国际研究合作继续增加。在美国，国际研究人员，特别是来自东亚国家(如中国、台湾、韩国、日本)的研究人员占研究队伍的很大比例。来自不同文化背景的研究人员可能会根据他们的文化背景采取不同的方法来解决问题。决策策略帮助研究人员处理他们在整个职业生涯中面临的复杂和模棱两可的职业和道德问题。然而，几乎没有证据表明，文化熏陶如何影响研究人员在对研究中的伦理问题做出决定时所采取的方法。在美国，培养负责任的研究行为(RCR)的教育方法通常也忽视了这个问题。迫切需要审查决策中的文化差异，并为东西方文化背景的研究人员制定更具文化包容性和更有效的RCR培训。本项目的目标是确定和了解东亚和美国研究人员在决策策略方面的相似和不同之处，并利用这些知识改进和评估注重决策技能的文化包容性RCR培训课程的有效性。来自该项目的数据将培养东亚研究人员对前景的认识。这种意识将有助于提高研究人员之间的沟通、解决问题和解决冲突的技能。该项目旨在实现三个目标：1)通过定性的有声思考访谈，找出东亚和美国研究人员在伦理和专业决策策略方面的异同；2)完善和提供具有文化包容性的RCR培训课程，评估决策策略的学习成果、策略使用的行为指标以及实施意图；3)评估改进RCR培训的参与者是否在他们的日常研究活动中使用决策策略，并测试随着时间的推移，每月学习迁移干预对策略使用的影响。数以百计的美国和东亚教师、博士后研究人员和研究生将完成一项基于Vignette的研究专业决策措施。然后，将对在专业决策措施上得分高分和低分的美国和东亚研究人员进行深入采访，以确保对接近决策的战略有全面的视角。然后，来自访谈的数据将被用于改进、提供和评估RCR培训计划，该计划将被提供给多个学生队列。将从RCR培训计划参与者那里收集纵向数据，以确定改进的RCR培训和学习迁移干预对学习结果和行为的影响。总体而言，更多地意识到文化对研究人员工作场所视角和行为的影响，为研究社区之间的公开对话以及加强研究人员在社会中所扮演的研究、教学和社区角色奠定了基础。这项提议由SBE董事会和国际科学与工程办公室通过ER2计划提供资金。该奖项反映了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。

Contemporary science is a global enterprise. International research collaborations continue to increase with globalization and as research becomes more complex and specialized. In the United States (U.S.), international researchers, especially from East Asian countries (e.g., China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan), make up a large portion of the research workforce. Researchers from different cultures may take different approaches to problems depending on their cultural upbringing. Decision-making strategies help researchers navigate complex and ambiguous professional and ethical problems they face throughout their careers. Yet, there is little evidence of how cultural upbringing shapes the approaches researchers take when making decisions about ethical problems in research. Educational approaches to fostering responsible conduct of research (RCR) in the U.S. have generally overlooked this issue as well. There is an urgent need to examine cultural differences in decision making and develop RCR training that is more culturally inclusive and effective for researchers from Eastern and Western cultural backgrounds. The goal of the present project is to identify and understand the similarities and differences in decision-making strategies among East Asian and U.S. researchers and use this knowledge to refine and evaluate the effectiveness of a culturally inclusive RCR training curriculum focused on decision-making skills. Data from this project will foster awareness of the perspectives of East Asian researchers. This awareness will contribute to improved communication, problem solving, and conflict resolution skills among researchers. This project addresses three objectives: 1) identify similarities and differences in ethical and professional decision-making strategies among East Asian and U.S. researchers using qualitative think-aloud interviews, 2) refine and deliver a culturally inclusive RCR training curriculum and assess the learning outcomes of decision-making strategies, behavioral indicators of strategy use, and implementation intentions, and 3) evaluate whether participants in the refined RCR training apply decision-making strategies in their daily research activities and test the effect of a monthly learning transfer intervention on strategy use over time. A vignette-based measure of professional decision-making in research will be completed by hundreds of U.S. and East Asian faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students. In-depth interviews will then be conducted with U.S. and East Asian researchers with both low and high scores on the professional-decision making measure to ensure a comprehensive range of perspectives about strategies for approaching decision-making. Data from interviews will then be used to refine, deliver, and evaluate a RCR training program that will be delivered to multiple cohorts of students. Longitudinal data will be collected from RCR training program participants to determine the effects of the refined RCR training and a learning transfer intervention on learning outcomes and behavior. Overall, greater awareness of cultural influences on the workplace perspectives and behaviors of researchers lays the groundwork for open dialogue among the research community and strengthening research, teaching, and community roles that researchers play in society.This proposal was funded through the ER2 program by the SBE Directorate and Office of International Science and Engineering.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.