Anonymous data and educational research

When undertaking educational research you often want to know how an intervention has affected a cohort, and ideally to be able to drill down into the data to see the impact on individuals. In order to match pre-and post- activity surveys, some kind of identifier is required. You could ask the students to put their [...]

Research involving adults lacking capacity

Adherence to the ethical and legal guidelines can be problematic in any research. These difficulties are potentially compounded if the research involves adults who are lacking capacity to consent to their participation. The National Research Ethics Service (NRES) have recently published an online toolkit to help researchers, members of research ethics committees, and institutional research [...]

Book review: Rethinking Informed Consent

I mentioned in a previous post that I was currently reading Neil Manson and Onora O’Neill’s book Rethinking Informed Consent in Bioethics (Cambridge University Press, 2007). Not only did I finish it, but I summarised the content for a recent meeting of our Medical Sociology group – see slides, below. As I hinted in the [...]

When the sum is better than the parts: combining the power of comparative genomics and experiments on model organisms

I have been doing some reading for a while now on the ethics of research involving model organisms, particularly the potential for studies on lower species to offer insights into human disease (and thereby contribute to the 3Rs). Some of my musings on the topic can be found here. Aware of this interest, a colleague [...]

How widespread is scientific misconduct?

From time to time examples of scientific fraud come to light and raise questions about the integrity of scientific endeavour. The most well-known example of recent years must surely be South Korean stem cell biologist Hwang Woo-Suk, whose ground-breaking discoveries in the field of therapeutic cloning were exposed as bogus (In addition to his science [...]

Making the best of “Bad Science” (Review)

If you have not yet read Ben Goldacre’s book Bad Science, then I thoroughly recommend that you do. As readers of his regular Guardian column or his website will already know, Goldacre has embarked on a campaign to root out example of pseudoscience and shoddy science whereever they may be found. All the usual villians [...]

Promoting the ethical conduct of science

Back in 2004, Sir David King (at the time, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser) initiated a discussion about generating a Code of Conduct for Scientists. The consultation process led, in 2006, to the publication of Rigour, respect and responsibility: a universal ethical code for scientists. None of the contents was particularly surprising or radical but [...]

Learning and Teaching in the Sciences (conference report, part 1)

The annual Learning and Teaching in the Sciences event at the University of Leicester was held on May 23rd 2007.  Three invited speakers brought very different insights into the effective communication of science. This entry focuses specifically on the first of the presentations.  Other talks, by Melanie Cooper (Clemson University, USA) and Alan Cann (University [...]