Prof. Dr. Nilgün Köklü
Ankara University

Abstract

In this research, views of academicians in a state university on unethical behaviours in carrying out research was studied. A questionnaire covering 26 items was prepared and applied to 70 academicians via internet. For each one of the 26 behaviours, the participants were asked: a) whether it is unethical, b) whether it is done by themselves c) whether any colleagues of them have done it. All of the academicians agreed that six attitudes were unethical. These are “fabrication of data, falsification of data, to ignore contrary data, to give wrong information on the methodology of research, plagiarism, to add names of coauthors to a research project who didn’t contribute to the project”. The number of behaivours that were not found ethical by the majority is 14. The behaviour of using ideas that come out in discussions with collegues and to present the same research in more than one meeting have been found relatively ethical compared to the other behaviours. There was no behaviour that was found ethical with a percentage of higher than this percentage. Academicians thought that they display unethical behaivours less than their colleagues. Factors that cause unethical behaviors according to views of academicians are incapacity in scientific knowledge, insufficiency of working area, to prefer easiest way, lack of control, pressure of publishing many essays, psychological problems, inadequateness of ethics committees and insufficient knowledge of research ethics.

Keywords
Scientific misconduct, research ethics of academic researchers, unethical research behavior.

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