AWARENESS OF RESEARCH ETHICS AMONG UNDERGRADUATE SCIENCE EDUCATION STUDENTS IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN MINNA METROPOLIS

Abstract

Ethical Consideration is paramount to every profession, let alone the education enterprise. Educational research as an embodiment of applied research uses human subjects in most cases to identify and propound solutions to certain educational problems. Students at higher level of education are expected to be conversant with research ethics to ensure credibility, precision, objectivity and quality. This paper presents a survey of awareness and of research ethics among undergraduate researchers in tertiary institutions in Minna, Niger State. The study adopted descriptive survey design, and the population comprised all graduating science education students in the tertiary institutions within the metropolis. Simple random sampling technique was used in the selection of 100 final year students from the two institutions running science education programme in the metropolis. Research Ethics Awareness and Implementation Questionnaire was developed, validated and used for data generation. Five research questions were raised and answered using frequency counts simple percentages. The results indicated that majority of the graduating science education students have positive perception of the research ethics for being ethical in nature, but were not fully aware of the existing published research ethics standards in education to be adhered to in research. It is recommended among others that more emphasis should be laid on research ethics in educational research courses offered by the students in their respective institutions to keep students abreast of the published ethics standards in research.