Morals, morale and motivations in data fabrication

Medical research fieldworkers views and practices in two Sub-Saharan African contexts

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4599990
AutoresPatricia Kingori (0000-0001-5420-2183, University of Oxford, autor de correspondencia), René Gerrets (0000-0003-0516-9377, University of Amsterdam)
Año2016
Volumen166
Páginas150-159
Fecha de publicación2016-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial Science & Medicine (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0277-9536 • E-ISSN: 1873-5347
EditorialElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.08.019
PMID27566044
OpenAlexW2516510546
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas33
Referencias citadas28

Data fabrication, incorrect collection strategies and poor data management, are considered detrimental to high-quality scientific research. While poor data management have been occasionally excused, fabrication constitutes a cardinal sin - scientific misconduct. Scholarly examinations of fabrication usually seek to expose and capture its prevalence and, less frequently, its consequences and causes. Most accounts centre on high-income countries, individual senior researchers and scientists who are portrayed as irrational, immoral or deceptive. We argue that such accounts contain limitations in overlooking data collected in 'the field', in low-income countries, by junior researchers and non-scientists. Furthermore, the processes and motivations for fabrication and subversive practices are under-examined. Drawing on two separate ethnographies, conducted in 2004-2009 in medical research projects in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper investigates fabrication among fieldworkers using data from observations and informal conversations, 68 interviews and 7 Focus Group Discussions involving diverse stakeholders. Based on an interpretative approach, we examined fieldworkers' accounts that fabrications were motivated by irreconcilable moral concerns, faltering morale resulting from poor management, and inadequate institutional support. To fieldworkers, data fabrication constituted a 'tool' for managing their quotidian challenges. Fabrications ranged from active to passive acts, to subvert, resist and readdress tensions deriving from employment inequalities and challenging socio-economic conditions. We show that geographical and hierarchical distance between high-ranking research actors and fieldworkers in contemporary configurations of international medical research can compartmentalise, and ultimately undermine, the relationships necessary to produce high-quality data. In focusing on fieldworkers, we argue for the inclusion of wide-ranging perspectives in examinations of data fabrication

Epistemology · Political science · Public relations · Quality (philosophy · Sociology · Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education · Ethics in Clinical Research · Global Health and Surgery