TABLE 2.

Student responses to the question “Briefly describe your reasoning for selecting that score” when asked about the ethicality of the misconduct case study

Themes and codes	Number and percentage of cases coded n = 136
Major Theme 1: Justification—Comments that the subjects made to justify the actions of the characters or minimize the severity of the issue.
Good Effort	5 (3.7%)
Sample Response: “They were using the best information they had in place of the failed third purification.”
No Malicious Intent	2 (1.5%)
Sample Response: “…the students may not have been intentionally trying to cheat.”
Purpose of the Data	1 (0.7%)
Sample Response: “Since this is a school project it is not hurting anyone that much.”
External Pressures	18 (13.2%)
Sample Response: “The motivation, while wrong, is somewhat understandable in an academic environment that focuses so heavily on grades.”
Not a Severe Issue	10 (7.4%)
Sample Response: “No one is hurt in this situation.”
Major Theme 2: Recognizing ethical issues—Subject comments on specific actions or issues.
Recognizing as QRP	10 (7.4%)
Sample Response: “…they did not correctly follow the instructions.”
Recognizing as Research Misconduct	65 (47.8%)
Sample Response: “They falsified their results and therefore it is not ethical.”
Recognizing as Academic Dishonesty	27 (19.9%)
Sample Response: “I think that this [is] in clear violation of GU’s code of ethics on cheating.”
Recognizing as Ethical Issue but not Research/Academic	14 (10.3%)
Sample Response: “… just genuinely is dishonest in their approach to the problem period”
Major Theme 3: Identifying Potential Actions and Consequences
Communicating to Instructor	42 (30.9%)
Sample Response: “They should have informed the professor of their situation.”
Unbiased Reporting of Procedure	27 (19.9%)
Sample Response: “I feel that they could have stated that their third purification did not work, and instead labelled everything correctly.”
Repeat Experiment	11 (8.1%)
Sample Response: “They should have redone the purification.”
Identifying consequences to science integrity/process of science	29 (21.3%)
Sample Response: “This behavior undermines the validity of their experiment and it [is] a horrible practice to have in scientific discovery.”
Major Theme 4: Nature of Science
Nature of Science	26 (19.1%)
Sample Response: “Failure of experiments is a very common thing with research and is normal.”