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Reliability and validation of an attitude scale regarding responsible conduct in research

BACKGROUND: Several studies reveal a problematic prevalence of research misbehaviors. There are several potential causes of research misconduct but ensuring that scientists hold attitudes that reflect norms of acceptable behaviors is fundamental. AIM: Our aim was to evaluate the psychometric propert...

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Autores principales: Abd ElHafeez, Samar, Salem, Mohamed, Silverman, Henry J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8926210/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35294502
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265392
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author Abd ElHafeez, Samar
Salem, Mohamed
Silverman, Henry J.
author_facet Abd ElHafeez, Samar
Salem, Mohamed
Silverman, Henry J.
author_sort Abd ElHafeez, Samar
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Several studies reveal a problematic prevalence of research misbehaviors. There are several potential causes of research misconduct but ensuring that scientists hold attitudes that reflect norms of acceptable behaviors is fundamental. AIM: Our aim was to evaluate the psychometric properties (factor structure and reliability) of an “attitude” scale that we adopted from a questionnaire we previously used to investigate the prevalence of research misbehaviors in the Middle East. METHODS: We used data from participants (n = 254) who were involved in our prior questionnaire study to determine the validity of an attitude scale that we adapted from this previous study. We performed exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to determine the factor structure of the attitude scale followed by measures of convergent and concurrent validity. We assessed reliability by computing the Cronbach’s alphas of each construct of the attitude scale. RESULTS: EFA indicated that the attitude scale consists of two factors (constructs). Convergent validity was demonstrated by significant correlations of item-item and item-total. Correlation analysis revealed that the attitude constructs were significantly correlated with the Research Misbehavior Severity Score, thereby demonstrating concurrent validity. Cronbach’s alphas were greater than 0.75 for both constructs. CONCLUSION: We demonstrated a valid and reliable 20-item attitude scale with two factors related to “acceptability of practices in responsible conduct in research” and “general attitudes regarding scientific misconduct”. The use of a validated attitude scale can help assess the effectiveness of educational programs that focus on participants acquiring attitudes that are instrumental in responsible conduct in research.
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spelling pubmed-89262102022-03-17 Reliability and validation of an attitude scale regarding responsible conduct in research Abd ElHafeez, Samar Salem, Mohamed Silverman, Henry J. PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Several studies reveal a problematic prevalence of research misbehaviors. There are several potential causes of research misconduct but ensuring that scientists hold attitudes that reflect norms of acceptable behaviors is fundamental. AIM: Our aim was to evaluate the psychometric properties (factor structure and reliability) of an “attitude” scale that we adopted from a questionnaire we previously used to investigate the prevalence of research misbehaviors in the Middle East. METHODS: We used data from participants (n = 254) who were involved in our prior questionnaire study to determine the validity of an attitude scale that we adapted from this previous study. We performed exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to determine the factor structure of the attitude scale followed by measures of convergent and concurrent validity. We assessed reliability by computing the Cronbach’s alphas of each construct of the attitude scale. RESULTS: EFA indicated that the attitude scale consists of two factors (constructs). Convergent validity was demonstrated by significant correlations of item-item and item-total. Correlation analysis revealed that the attitude constructs were significantly correlated with the Research Misbehavior Severity Score, thereby demonstrating concurrent validity. Cronbach’s alphas were greater than 0.75 for both constructs. CONCLUSION: We demonstrated a valid and reliable 20-item attitude scale with two factors related to “acceptability of practices in responsible conduct in research” and “general attitudes regarding scientific misconduct”. The use of a validated attitude scale can help assess the effectiveness of educational programs that focus on participants acquiring attitudes that are instrumental in responsible conduct in research. Public Library of Science 2022-03-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8926210/ /pubmed/35294502 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265392 Text en © 2022 Abd ElHafeez et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Abd ElHafeez, Samar
Salem, Mohamed
Silverman, Henry J.
Reliability and validation of an attitude scale regarding responsible conduct in research
title Reliability and validation of an attitude scale regarding responsible conduct in research
title_full Reliability and validation of an attitude scale regarding responsible conduct in research
title_fullStr Reliability and validation of an attitude scale regarding responsible conduct in research
title_full_unstemmed Reliability and validation of an attitude scale regarding responsible conduct in research
title_short Reliability and validation of an attitude scale regarding responsible conduct in research
title_sort reliability and validation of an attitude scale regarding responsible conduct in research
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8926210/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35294502
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265392
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