Disciplinary Differences in Faculty Conformity to the Norms of Science: Are Norms Compensatory Integrating Mechanisms for Professional Fragmentation? (original) (raw)
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Research in Higher Education, 1989
Fragmentation in the academic profession derived from differences among academics in different types of colleges and universities suggests a need to identify possible compensatory integrating mechanisms. This study seeks to determine whether faculty conformity to the four norms of science identified by Merton are such integrating mechanisms or whether they are forces of further fragmentation. The 1977 Survey of the American Professorate conducted by Ladd and Lipset was the data source for this study. The results indicate that the norms of universalism and communality serve as a compensatory integrating mechanisms, while the norms of disinterestedness and organized skepticism function as forces of further fragmentation among academics in different types of colleges and universities.
1991
This study examined the extent to which graduate students in sctence and engineering fields subscribe to the norms of research behavior which have been the basis of the freedom, self-direction, and self-regulation which characterize academic research. In particular the study focused on the relationship between academic departments' climates and structures, and the extent to which graduate students subscribe to either norms or counternorms of research. The norms have been defined as universalism (separation of scientific knowledge from personal characteristics), communality (sharing of findings and techniques), disinterestedness (separation of research from personal motives) and organized skepticism (critical, public examination of scientific work). Using a random sample of 2,000 graduate students, 500 each from 4 disciplines (microbiology, chemistry, sociology and civil engineering) from 98 graduate departments, surveys were sent to all by mail and a final response rate of 74 percent was achieved. Analysis demonstrated substantial ambivalence among graduate student about the traditional norms of academic research and also revealed the influence of del'artmental structure and climate on subscription to the norms. Significant differences were found in the normative orientations of the native versus internationai students. Included are six figures and 14 references. (JS)
Institutional Control of Faculty Research: Issues Emerging in the Academic Environment. 2SHE Annual
2016
Changes in the institutional control of faculty behavior are examined, stressing that such control includes not only control by a faculty member's own university, but also, increasingly, regulation and othe- influences exerted by institutions outside the university. The review of the literature focuses on tays in which changes in the external environments of universities have affected professors ' research. These changes are considered from three perspectives: (1) complications associated with different types of external organizations--academic associations, the federal government, private industry, and the organized public; (2) issues related to different disciplinary sectors internal to the university; and (3) aspects of the relationship between external and internal parties based on two types of theories of organization-environment interaction--resource dependence and institutional theories. It is
1989
Changes in the institutional control of faculty behavior are examined, stressing that such control includes not only control by a faculty member's own university, but also, increasingly, regulation and othe-influences exerted by institutions outside the university. The review of the literature focuses on tays in which changes in the external environments of universities have affected professors' research. These changes are considered from three perspectives: (1) complications associated with different types of external organizations-academic associations, the federal government, private industry, and the organized public; (2) issues related to different disciplinary sectors internal to the university; and (3) aspects of the relationship between external and internal parties based on two types of theories of organization-environment interaction-resource dependence and institutional theories. It is concluded that: significant changes in the faculty-institution relationship are occurring; increasingly complex arranaements with external groups make control of faculty behavior more problematic; and as research relationships come to have the character of governmental or corporate contracts, the special norms of autonomy and self-regulation which have distinguished academic work in the past tend to have less certain status. Contains about 100 references.
Standards of Scientific Conduct: Disciplinary Differences
Science and Engineering Ethics, 2014
Teaching of responsible conduct of research is largely predicated on the assumption that there are accepted standards of conduct that can be taught. However there is little evidence of consensus in the scientific community about such standards, at least for the practices of authorship, collaboration, and data management. To assess whether such differences in standards are based on disciplinary differences, a survey, described previously, addressing standards, practices, and perceptions about teaching and learning was distributed in November 2010 to U.S. faculty from 50 graduate programs for the biomedical disciplines of microbiology, neuroscience, nursing, and psychology. Despite evidence of statistically significant differences across the four disciplines, actual differences were quite small. Stricter measures of effect size indicated practically significant disciplinary differences for fewer than 10% of the questions. This suggests that the variation in individual standards of practice within each discipline is at least as great as variation due to differences among disciplines. Therefore, the need for discipline-specific training may not be as important as sometimes thought.
Normative Dissonance in Science: Results from a National Survey of U.S. Scientists
Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics: An International Journal, 2007
represent ideals to which most scientists subscribe. Our analysis of the extent of dissonance between these widely espoused ideals and scientists' perceptions of their own and others' behavior is based on survey responses from 3,247 mid-and early-career scientists who had research funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. We found substantial normative dissonance, particularly between espoused ideals and respondents' perceptions of other scientists' typical behavior. Also, respondents on average saw other scientists' behavior as more counternormative than normative. Scientists' views of their fields as cooperative or competitive were associated with their normative perspectives, with competitive fields showing more counternormative behavior. The high levels of normative dissonance documented here represent a persistent source of stress in science.
The academy’s zeitgeist—standards of scientifi c investigation—has recently come to the fore in the national arena as the dominant moral and intellectual framework for educational research. In this article, we explore the re-emergence of standards of scientifi c investigation as a signifi cant shaping force in education and the scholarly culture, particularly in regard to the fi elds of leadership and administration. With the recent advent of politically based decrees of quality defi ned exclusively by traditional standards, alternative approaches to exploring human issues, however rigorous they might be in the qualitative realm, tend to be marginalized. Traditional, experimental studies that involve large-scale statistical research design and randomization have been authorized, making single-subject research, naturalistic inquiry, self-study, and other qualitative research practices unlikely candidates for federal funding. For this discussion on “authorized” and “unauthorized” perspectives of research, we explore the impact of regulatory practices within the academy.