Biology subjects

Driessen, E. W.

Publications and source records attributed to Driessen, E. W..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2021

I, We, and They: A Linguistic and Narrative Exploration of the Authorship Process

IntroductionWhile authorship plays a powerful role in the academy, research indicates many authors engage in questionable practices like honorary authorship. This suggests that authorship may be a contested space where individuals must exercise agency--a dynamic and emergent process, embedded in context--to negotiate potentially conflicting norms among published criteria, disciplines, and informal practices. This study explores how authors narrate their own and others agency in making authorship decisions. MethodWe conducted a mixed-methods analysis of 24 first authors accounts of authorship decisions on a recent multi-author paper. Authors included 14 females and 10 males in health professions education (HPE) from U.S. and Canadian institutions (10 assistant, 6 associate, and 8 full professors). Analysis took place in three phases: (1) linguistic analysis of grammatical structures shown to be associated with agency (coding for main clause subjects and verb types); (2) narrative analysis to create a "moral" and "title" for each account; and (3) integration of (1) and (2). ResultsParticipants narrated other authors most frequently as main clause subjects (n = 191), then themselves (I; n = 151), inanimate nouns (it, the paper; n = 146), and author team (we; n = 105). Three broad types of agency were narrated: distributed (n = 15 participants), focusing on how resources and work were spread across team members; individual (n = 6), focusing on the first authors action; and collaborative (n = 3), focusing on group actions. These three types of agency contained four sub-types, e.g., supported, contested, task-based, negotiated. DiscussionThis study highlights the complex and emergent nature of agency narrated by authors when making authorship decisions. Published criteria offer us starting point--the stated rules of the authorship game; this paper offers us a next step--the enacted and narrated approach to the game.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2019

A qualitative study exploring researchers’ perspectives on authorship decision-making

BackgroundAuthorship has major implications for a researchers promotion and tenure, future funding, and career opportunities. Due in part to these high-stakes consequences, many journals require authors to meet formal authorship criteria, e.g. the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria for authorship. Yet on multiple surveys, researchers admit to violating these criteria, suggesting that authorship practices are a complex issue. Using qualitative methods, we aimed to unpack the complexities inherent in researchers conceptualizations of questionable authorship practices and to identify factors that make researchers vulnerable to engaging in such practices.\n\nMethods and FindingsWe conducted an interview study with a purposeful sample of 26 North American medical education researchers holding MD (n=17) and PhD (n=9) degrees and representing a range of career stages. We asked participants to respond to two vignettes - one portraying honorary authorship, the other describing an author order scenario - and then to describe related authorship experiences. Through thematic analysis, we found that participants, even when familiar with ICMJE criteria, conceptualized questionable authorship practices in various ways and articulated several ethical gray areas. We identified personal and situational factors, including hierarchy, resource dependence, institutional culture and gender, that contributed to participants vulnerability to and involvement in questionable authorship practices. Participants described negative instances of questionable authorship practices as well as situations in which these practices occurred for virtuous purposes. Participants rationalized that engagement in questionable authorship practices, while technically violating authorship criteria, could be reasonable when the practices seemed to benefit science and junior researchers. Participants described negative instances of questionable authorship practices as well as situations in which these practices occurred for virtuous purposes. Participants rationalized that engagement in questionable authorship practices, while technically violating authorship criteria, could be reasonable when the practices seemed to benefit science and junior researchers.\n\nConclusionAuthorship guidelines, such as the ICMJE criteria, portray authorship decisions as black and white, effectively sidestepping key dimensions that create ethical shades of gray. Our findings show that researchers generally recognize these shades of gray and in some cases acknowledge breaking or bending the rules themselves. Sometimes, their flexibility in applying rules of authorship is driven by benevolent aims that align with their own values or prevailing norms such as generosity and inclusivity. Other times, their participation in questionable authorship practices is framed not as a choice, but rather as a consequence of their vulnerability to individual or system factors beyond their control. Taken together, the findings reported here provide insights that may help researchers and institutions move beyond recognition of the challenges of authorship and contribute to the development of informed, evidence-based solutions for questionable authorship practices.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2018

Factors Associated with Scientific Misconduct and Questionable Research Practices in Health Professions Education

IntroductionEngaging in scientific misconduct and questionable research practices (QRPs) is a noted problem across fields, including health professions education (HPE). To mitigate these practices, other disciplines have enacted strategies based on researcher characteristics and practice factors. Thus, to inform HPE, this article seeks to determine which researcher characteristics and practice factors, if any, might explain the frequency of irresponsible research practices.\n\nMethodIn 2017, a cross-sectional survey of HPE researchers was conducted. The survey included 66 items derived from two published QRP surveys and a publication pressure scale adapted from the literature. The study outcome was the self-reported misconduct frequency score, which is a weighted mean score for each respondent on all misconduct and QRP items. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis.\n\nResults and DiscussionIn total, 590 researchers took the survey. Results from the regression analysis indicated that researcher age had a negative association with the misconduct frequency score (b = -.01, t = -2.91, p<.05) suggesting that older researchers tended to have lower misconduct frequency scores. Publication pressure (b = .20, t = 7.82, p<.001) and number of publications (b = .001, t = 3.27, p<.01) had positive associations with the misconduct frequency score. The greater the publication pressure or the more publications a researcher reported, the higher the misconduct frequency score. Overall, the explanatory variables accounted for 21% of the variance in the misconduct frequency score, and publication pressure was the strongest predictor. These findings provide an evidence base from which HPE might tailor strategies to address scientific misconduct and QRPs.

scientific communication and education↗