Republic of the Philippines

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY

College of Engineering, Architecture and Fine Arts
BATSTATEU ALANGILAN, Alangilan, Batangas City
www.batstate-u.edu.ph Tel. No. (043) 425-0139 loc. 118/2121

CASE STUDY
A. “Would You Rather” Dilemmas
1. Runway Train
Imagine you’re the conductor of a train that you are suddenly lost control of and is about
to crash into a group of five innocent bystanders totally unaware of their impending doom unless
you throw a switch that can divert the train to another track. But in this case, it would run over an
unsuspecting man who’s sleeping on the rails.

Question:
Would you be able to throw the switch? Explain.

Answer:
If we believe that everyone has equal rights, then sacrificing one, even if our purpose
was to save five, would be unethical. However, life is full of sacrifices, and if I ever find
myself in a situation when damage cannot be avoided, I must select what is best for many. I
will change the course of the train to the another track and sacrifice the life of one man.
Either choice would produce posttraumatic stress disorder (PSTD) but what matters is that
more lives are saved and damage is at least minimized. In conclusion, from threatening
lives of five innocent bystanders, it comes better to cost only one.

2. A Trolley out of Control

A street car is out of control and spending towards a group of seven people. Being on an
overhead footbridge, you’re not in danger. You see a big bulky guy standing next to you and you
realize that if you push the man onto the track below the footbridge it’ll stop the trolley.
However, the man will surely die. On the other hand, you will save seven innocent people.

Question:
Would you sacrifice one life for seven? Explain.

Answer:
People may be worried that sacrificing a person's life for the greater good will
make them appear to be monsters, but there will be moments when we will have to make
sacrifices. If one large man will be knocked off a foot bridge onto the tracks, and resulted
of which his body stops the trolley and saves seven other people, then I’d do it without
hesitations. If I push him, he will be able to save those individuals and can cause a little
problems. Here, it seems that this has the same logic as “Runway Train.” Consequently,
the death of one individual is not only taken into account, but is necessary.

3. A Judge’s Dilemma
You are the judge at a trial of a bank robber who is in fact innocent and you know it for
sure. But at the moment, the enemies of the accused have kidnapped your six-year old daughter
and demanding that you convict the robber in return for her freedom. You have no idea where
they’re keeping her and the police can’t figure it out as well. You are nervous wreck and can’t
help but think that the kidnappers will or already abusing your child.
Question:
Would you convict the innocent man to save your daughter?

Answer:
A judge should not allow family, social, political, financial, or other relationships to
influence judicial conduct or judgment but the first and most important thing you must
learn is to prioritize your family. If I were a judge, I would punish the innocent man even if
it was wrong, thinking about where my child is today and what they're trying to do with
her will be difficult for me. I am a judge, but I am also a mother. I'm aware that I'll be
breaking the law, but I need to save my child. A guilty verdict can appeal, so I’d save my
daughter.

4. Your Best friend’s Wedding

You’ve been invited to your best friend’s big day 2 hrs before the ceremony is supposed
to start. You notice your friend’s future spouse sneaking out of some storage room with another
guest. They both look thoroughly to shovel and you realize that they’re having an affair and here
comes the dilemma. If you tell your friend what you found out, their perfect will be completely
ruined. At the same time, how can you allow your friend to marry somebody who’s unfaithful.

Question:
What would you do in such a situation?
The first thing that I will do is to plan ahead and gather proof to back up what I’m
going to tell to my best friend. I would certainly tell my best friend if I knew for certain
that her soon to be husband was cheating on her before they got married. It would save her
unnecessary pain, dignity, and humiliation. I am not going to be letting my best friend
marry a cheater. I would rather let my best friend be hurt at that moment, than for when
she would have to find out later on and divorce him. Everyone needs to know the truth; I
know it will cause her a lot of pain at first, but it's preferable to tell the truth and make
someone cry than to tell a lie and make them smile. She will be better off letting go once she
realizes she deserves better.

5. Reporting Robin Hood

You’ve witnessed a crime. A man robbed a bank and got away with it. However, he
doesn’t keep the money for himself, he instead donates it to an orphanage that’s on the verge of
bankruptcy. After his donation, the orphanage’s management can buy clothes, books, medicine
and food for the kids. Well, you know who committed the crime but you also know that if you go
to the police, the money will most likely be returned to the bank and the orphans won’t get what
they desperately need.

Question:
What would you do in such a situation?

Answer:
Doing something nice is good, but I believe there is another way to solve the
situation. There are numerous ways to look at that problem, in my opinion. I can't make a
decision because it's as if he stole the money for a valid reason, yet the bank employees and
customers put in a lot of effort and worked extremely hard. If I were in the situation, I’d let
the thief donate it and get away with it. I mean, all the bankers and cops have enough cash
to cover anything. Despite its lack of resources, the orphanage continues to assist children
without parents, providing them with care and shelter. Bankers receive far more money
than the orphanage, and they will almost certainly be forced to return it. It may be against
the law, but I would never tell anyone since it would make them resent the poor even more
and could create more harm than good.

6. A Car crash and a killed Pedestrian

You’re on your way home one evening when you get into an accident with another car.
Even worse, you also hit and killed a pedestrian. However, as you about to get out of your car,
the driver of the other vehicle a shot woman in tears runs towards you. Having heard her
hysterical account of the event, you realized that the woman is absolutely convinced that it was
her who killed the pedestrian even though you know that you were responsible. There’s nobody
around just the two of you. You understand that the person found guilty will of course be sent to
prison. Knowing that,

Question:
Are you ready to own up to it? Explain.

7. Family or Money
Imagine you’re standing on the bank of a rushing mountain river during a flood. The
rapids are pulling your significant other, your family member and a briefcase with five million
dollars in it underwater.

Question:
Who or what will you save?

B. Responsible Conduct of Research and Participation

Scientists and educators have a duty to obey rules and regulations regarding the responsible
conduct of research and ethical participation in the activities of their department, laboratory,
or company. For publicly supported research, this means adhering to both institutional and
federal rules in making expenditures, and acting in a manner that recognizes the importance
of spending taxpayers’ money wisely, and with as little waste as possible.

Research support is not an entitlement. In the course of working within a company, a

national laboratory, or a university department, there are also issues of ethics and fairness,
which should govern day-to-day behavior. In all of these arenas, individuals may be
confronted with difficult choices. This is especially important in the context of personnel
decisions.

8. Research Management
Many universities have rules about uses of research funding, research involving live
subjects, and other areas with ethical content. In order to ensure that faculty are familiar with
these rules, they are required to complete a set of online tests. At a faculty meeting, one faculty
member complained about the time the certification took, and volunteered to give the test
answers to any other faculty member who had not already taken the certification exams.
Questions:
 What should the meeting chair have done?
 If you were a faculty member at this meeting, what would you have done?
 Are online certification tests a good way to inform faculty about all of the research rules?
 What is the difference between this faculty member’s behavior and an undergraduate
who gets the answers to a test in advance and provides them to his friends?

9. Conflict of Interest
You are in a subfield of physics that is financially strapped. You are asked to do a
technical review of an experiment, which is not directly the same as one you have proposed
but if it is not funded, yours is likely to be (or vice-versa).

Questions:
 Should you refuse to participate in the review?
 Why or why not?

C. Educational Concerns
Ethics in science are primarily learned informally through mentors and by observing
the behavior of those around us. For many, our experiences as undergraduates and graduate
students is the first time we encounter any ethical questions specifically related to science.
Issues involving data collection, authorship, and collaboration might easily be encountered the
first time a student participates in a summer research program.
Ethical issues relevant to undergraduates also often involve faculty and university
administrators. Conflicts that involve students can be magnified when there are imbalances in
experience, status, or power.
It is important to be conscious of both the role that senior scientists have in educating
students about scientific ethics and the relative lack of power of undergraduates in the
academic environment. For students, it may be helpful to learn and discuss ethical standards
before encountering them firsthand. Below, we include two scenarios relevant to
undergraduate concerns. There are also issues that have been grouped under this heading
which pertain to activities within an academic department.

10. Reporting Violations and Plagiarism

You are a faculty mentor for a graduate student in your department. The student is
taking some classes in another department that requires written essays. He asks you to read his
essay before he submits it. You routinely google his work and discover that large parts have
been lifted, verbatim, from the web with no quotation marks or citations.

Questions:

What should you do?

Unfortunately, many students are unaware that digital content is not free and must
be recognized using the same citation structure as printed literature. While ignorance of
the law is not an excuse for violating it, there is often no intent to break it. It's also
possible that this student is informed that he's plagiarizing but is claiming ignorance in
order to avoid punishment.

There are several alternatives available. One option is to disregard the issue. You might
also call his instructor and discuss the issue with her. You could inform your
department's chair that a cheating graduate student is present. You might also keep the
incident to yourself and use it as a teaching moment, working with the kid to help him
understand the significance of his actions and how to rectify them.

If I were the faculty mentor these instances are awkward and problematic, but they
are also ideal instructional moments for students to learn from their mistakes and avoid
repeating them later in life. I'd go over the entire assignment and identify any elements
that were copied verbatim without proper citations, then return the assignment to the
student with one example of proper citations. "Your paper appears to have some citation
issues. Do you have any questions about when and how to cite other people's work?" If
asked, offer assistance.


Is there a way to monitor this student’s future behavior without irreparably damaging his
career?

Teachers can avoid plagiarism and cheating concerns without their students rebelling if
they take a more conciliatory approach to enforcing the rules. I would ask my student to
correct errors whenever they occur, and I would assist them in double-checking their
assignments. So that they can develop the habit of checking their work first before submitting
it. On the other hand, I might advocate a class discussion because it allows students to reflect
on their mistakes and gives them further practice to improve their skills. In addition, I will
clarify them the disadvantages and consequences of plagiarism. As a result, students will
understand that they must avoid cheating and instead aim to be honest.You can avoid
allegations of plagiarism through awareness and honest effort

11. Whistle Blowing

A graduate student has been working in a lab for a year on what she hopes will be her
Ph.D. dissertation research. She has been troubled for the last several months by the
possibility that her advisor may be manipulating data used in his publications. This past week,
she has just discovered what she believes to be incontrovertible evidence that some of his
published data had in fact been fabricated.

Questions:

What should she do?
The graduate student must keep the evidence she has, regarding the manipulation and
fabrication of her work. With the evidence, she can confidently report the fraud to the
appropriate office, which could be the Misconduct Policy Office of the Institution. Even if she
misinterpreted the scenario, the evidence she has at her disposal is critical in assessing if her
accusations are real or not. This can be easily determined with the assistance of a relevant
office within the institution, after which her dilemma can be addressed effectively. 

With whom should she discuss the issue, if anyone?
The student's problem is serious and confidential, and it should not be disclosed to a less
trusted agent. To ensure privacy, a trusted member of the institution, such as the Misconduct
Policy Officer, is the most trustworthy person to share such information with. This officer is
required to conduct a formal and acceptable investigation into the matter. The student must be
careful not to tell this information with anybody else because doing so will notify her adviser
to her activities before the investigation is completed. If this information reaches the adviser,
he may attempt to conceal it by destroying all relevant evidence, which would undermine the
investigation.

Is there a designated person at your institution to deal with such issues?
In his mishandling of the student's crucial information, the advisor violated a various of
ethical issues. First, he hasn't been as honest as his profession requires. He should respect
other people's information and avoid using it for his own gain. On the other hand, the advisor
must always protect his client’s privacy and confidentiality. If he requires information from
the client's work, he must follow the proper method for getting confidential information. To
avoid components of fraud, such as fabrication and plagiarism, respect for a client's data
should be prioritized. These types of fraud are against writing ethics and have a negative
impact on the original author's work.

D. Data Acquisition
Testing of scientific theories through experimentation is at the heart of the scientific
endeavor. How data are acquired, recorded, and stored is thus of fundamental importance to
progress in science.
The results of research should be recorded and maintained in a form that allows
analysis and review. Research data should be immediately available to scientific
collaborators. Following publication, the data should be retained for a reasonable period in
order to be available promptly and completely to responsible scientists. Exceptions may be
appropriate in certain circumstances in order to preserve privacy, to assure patent
protection, or for similar reasons.

12. Intellectual Property

You find a novel solution to an important problem posed by your advisor; however,
your advisor sees this as an opportunity for him to get published, downplays the significance
of the results, collates a paper and submits it before you are any the wiser (the paper
acknowledges a discussion with you, but does not include you as an author). You are
absolutely clear that this idea was yours, and feel suitably put out. You approach your
advisor and make a complaint, but he empathizes with you and tells you to be a bit quicker
with the write-up next time. He tells you, “That’s just the way of the world.”
You decide not to leave it there, and approach the head of the department (going up
one link in the management chain). You make your complaint to him, and he asks you for
evidence, but you can’t provide any because you didn’t keep a dated notebook: all of your
notes are in several ring binders, some at home and some in your desk at work. You start
feeling a bit silly, and the head advises you to drop the matter.

Questions:

Should you drop the issue?

Are there long-term consequences for anyone to not dropping the issue?

Is there a “fair” way to make a claim to the results?

In the last questions, what does the word f”fair” mean?

The section on Educational Concerns has a case study about whistleblowing. Are there
whistleblower aspects to this case study?

E. Issues to Bias
Webster’s New World Dictionary1 defines bias as “a mental leaning or inclination;
partiality; prejudice; bent.” Scientists are expected to be objective, and open to learning the
truth from their research. Yet, physicists are also human. Each of us has our own likes and
dislikes, preferences and preconceptions, and “hot buttons” that make us feel angry, uneasy, or
uncomfortable. Bias can damage research, if the researcher chooses to allow his bias to distort
the measurements and observations or their interpretation. When faculty are biased about
individual students in their courses, they may grade some students more or less favorably than
others, which is not fair to any of the students. In a research group, favored students and
colleagues may get the best assignments and helpful mentoring. People often prefer associating
with other people who are similar to themselves, their family members, or their friends.
The net result of these biases hurts physics, because people who are different and
would bring valuable new perspectives to the field have traditionally been excluded or
discouraged by those already in the field. It is not unusual for women, African Americans,
Hispanics, and Native Americans to feel unwelcome in physics and other scientific fields,
because of the low expectations their professors and colleagues have for them, and because
of how they are treated by the people who should be their peers and colleagues.
While it is probably impossible to eliminate bias, each person can strive to be aware of
his or her preferences and alert to situations where the bias can be damaging to the science or
one’s colleagues. Also, one can become a careful observer of others, and take action to
counteract the unfair or inappropriate consequences of biases, especially those that work to
exclude or diminish people from different backgrounds than the majority.

13. Bias in Hiring

You are a female physicist applying for a position you want very much at a
prestigious, albeit relatively conservative, university. During the interview process, you are
asked about whether you have a husband or significant other in the same field.

Questions:

Should you answer this question?
I believe it will be up to the individual to decide whether or not to respond to the
question. I'd try first to find a subtle approach to inform the interviewer that I am unable to
discuss personal concerns with them or anybody else. I’m a private person so I would humbly
request them to respect my privacy. If they need to know something urgently, I will answer
the question instead of engaging in a detail conversation about it. And if I suspect an
interviewer is getting too personal, I try to take the conversation back to the job. The
interviewer should not inquire about your marital status, if you have children, or whether you
intend to have a family. Because it is illegal for an employer to make a hiring decision based
on your relationship status, these questions should not be asked during a job interview.

 What implications might your answer have on the search committee’s attitude toward
you? (consider both the positive and negative answer)

They'd have an opinion of me based on whether I'm nice or arrogant. Again, the
consequences of my response could be determined by the search committee. Interviewers may
talk about your personal life in order to learn more about you. However, they may be making
assumptions about your level of dedication to the work. In the worst-case situation, this
information could be used to discriminate against you because of your sexual orientation.
Some people may consider my attitude to be rude but I have the right to remain silent,
especially if we are no longer discussing work.

14. Reaction to Bias

The graduate students, post-docs, and professor in your research group have spent the
past week brainstorming ideas for a major new proposal to submit to the National Science
Foundation. After much discussion, the professor selects Sally’s idea to be the core of the
proposal, and invites John to be Co-Pricipal Investigator with him, and to
take the lead in coordinating preparation of the proposal. Both Sally and John are senior
post-docs in the lab. It is a real honor and a career advantage to be a PI early in one’s
career. By offering one of his post-docs the opportunity to be Co-PI and work with him on
preparing the grant, the professor is helping launch the post- doc’s career. The issue is, why
didn’t the professor offer this opportunity to Sally, since the core idea in the proposal was
hers?

Questions:
 In considering the scenario, how should the different students and post-docs respond to
this decision by the professor?
Different students and post-docs will be surprised as a result of the biased choice. They
built their proposal on Sally's main idea, and they came to the conclusion that John is more
deserving of the opportunity. Sally is the one who knows everything about the proposal, so
she did deserve to be in charge of coordinating its preparation. Everyone believes that John is
his favorite, which is true. It’s unfair for her that strive in the anticipation of one day being
rewarded for her efforts with a new opportunity and new or expanded duties. People don't
even realize the important of decisions until they make them incorrectly.
 What should Sally do?
If I were Sally, I would act respectfully and refrain from accusing my professor of
wrongdoing, even if you believe this is the case. Simply state that you are concerned. I'll
approach my professor and ask as to why they chose John, in fact, they used my core ideas in
the proposal. If you empathize with the professor, the professor will understand you, and
opportunity conflicts are frequently resolved in this manner. I'll accept it if he tells me that
John is more deserving of this opportunity than you. Indeed, I'll use that as encouragement to
show them that I'm capable of anything. The point decision, on the other hand, is extremely
disappointing and unfair.

 What are John’s responsibilities?

Now that John has been appointed to Principal Investigator, he is able to take over a lot of
responsibilities. In regards to the biased decision, Sally should talk to John and try to persuade
him to act ethically, as well as communicate with their professor. The professor's decision, as
given above, is biased and unethical. This is a case in which John's ethical response,
notwithstanding the risk involved, is critical. He was aware that their professor's selection
was misleading, and John was cognizant that Sally was more deserving of his position, yet the
professor chose him. John’s responsibility is to speak with his professor and find out why he
did not give Sally the chance.

 Is it unrealistic to suggest to John that he express his concern to the professor?

Receiving a promotion can be an excellent way to broaden your skill set, take on new
challenges, and push yourself to advance in your career, and everyone desires it. To be fair to
everyone, including Sally, if I were John, I'd ask my professor why he made that decision.
Sally was the one who put in the most effort for the proposal, yet why did you pick me? I
want the judgment to be equitable to all parties involved and to reward those who are
deserving. Yes, I want to be the Principal Investigator, but I want to do so through my own
hardwork, not through the hardship of others.

F. Mentoring
Mentoring is the act of providing resources to encourage healthy growth.
Mentoring can involve individual relationships ranging from a casual offer of advice up
to an apprentice relationship. Mentoring implicitly involves expectations; both the mentor
and the mentee should have realistic and well understood goals for the timing and product
of the relationship. The ethics of one-on-one mentoring involves how the mentoring
expectations are formulated and met.

Working in a mentoring atmosphere can be as important as the availability of one-on-

one help. Group leaders, from department chairs to research directors, have an ethical
obligation to create an environment that supports fair treatment and professional development
opportunities for all group members. With such broad ethical responsibility, mentoring issues
can overlap with issues of bias, health and safety, and maintaining the intrinsic ethical
standards of the discipline.

15. Mentoring Scenario

You enter graduate school with two full years of support from a fellowship awarded
by your undergraduate institution. You easily find a faculty member to work with your thesis.
At the end of the second year, the faculty member tells you that she will not be your thesis
advisor.

Questions:

What should you do?

Was the behavior of this faculty member ethical? Why or why not?

What should be the response of the department to this situation?