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The purpose of this Work In Progress (WIP) qualitative study was to explore how underrepresented women graduate students and faculty in Science and Engineering understand and perceive what constitutes ethical behavior in a mentoring research relationship centered around the six ethical principles of Beneficence, Nonmaleficence, Autonomy, Fidelity, Fairness, and Privacy. This WIP paper focuses on the responses of eight graduate students and four faculty to six case studies that targeted a specific ethical mentoring principle, and it represents an expansion of a larger study currently under review. The goals of this WIP paper are to: (a) explore participant understanding of each ethical mentoring principle; (b) elucidate participant perceptions of ethical issues in six case studies; and (c) reveal what ethical behaviors participants expect from their respective mentor/mentee if they placed themselves in the situation of the case studies.
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“Mentoring is ethical, right?”: Women graduate students & faculty in science & engineering speak out.
The relationship between graduate students and their research advisors within academia is pivotal to the development and success of the research enterprise. Graduate students rely on their faculty advisor to be a source of information, a departmental negotiator, and a role model to guide their professional and ethical behavior. However, if an advisor does not fully recognize a student’s best interest or they are unaware of how to be an “ethical mentor”, they may overlook the unique social capital of the graduate student (e.g., background, culture) and jeopardize the research relationship. This work aims to explore how women graduate students and faculties in science and engineering understand ethical mentoring within research relationships. Particularly, we are interested in understanding the six ethical mentoring principles suggested by Johnson (2016)—beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, fidelity, fairness, and privacy—all of which require an in-depth understanding for a productive research relationship. Qualitative analysis revealed that participants emphasized the principles of beneficence and fidelity, while principles of privacy and fairness were mentioned the least. Three key themes emerged from this analysis: (a) communication; (b) relative power between mentor and mentee; and (c) awareness (or a lack thereof) around implicit expectations within the research culture.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1653140
- PAR ID:
- 10111520
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International journal of gender, science and technology
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2040-0748
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 108-133
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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