Proper management of research conduct is essential to achieving reliable
results and maintaining the quality, objectivity, and integrity of research
data. The different steps of research should be monitored carefully, and
research design should include built-in safeguards to ensure the quality
and integrity of research data. This chapter addresses ethical conduct in
different steps of the research process: hypothesis formation, research de-
sign, literature review, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation,
publication, and data storage. This chapter also discusses methods that
can help assure the quality, objectivity, and integrity of research data, such
as good research practices (GRPs), standard operating procedures (SOPs),
peer review, and data audit.

Scientific research is the systematic attempt to describe, explain, and under-
stand the world. While all three main branches of science—physical science,
biological science, and social science—study different aspects of the natural
world, they share some common methods and procedures. These methods
and procedures are designed to achieve the goals of science by helping re-
searchers to acquire accurate knowledge and information. Researchers' com-
pliance with the scientific methods and procedures will minimize falsehoods
and biases and maximize truth and objectivity (Cheny 1993). One pillar of the
scientific method is the idea that researchers should subject their theories and
hypotheses to rigorous tests (Popper 1959). A test is an attempt to gather em-
pirical evidence (or data) that tends to either confirm or disconfirm a theory or
hypothesis. Ideas that cannot be tested, such as metaphysical theories or ide-
ological claims, are not scientific hypotheses or theories. Some (but not all)
tests involve experiments. In an experiment, a researcher attempts to control
the conditions of a test in order to understand statistical or causal relationships
between variables or parameters. For an experiment to be rigorous, a researcher
must describe it in enough detail that other researchers can obtain the same
results by replicating the experimental conditions (Kirk 1995).

Repeatability is important in experimentation because it confirms that oth-
ers can carry out the methods and procedures used and attain the same data.
Repeatability, or lack thereof, provides substance for public debate and in-
quiry. Private intuitions, hunches, faith, introspection, or insight can play an
important role in generating new ideas to test, but they do not constitute rig-
orous proof. Therefore, all test results in science, whether from controlled
experiments, field observations, surveys, epidemiological studies, computer
models, or meta-analyses, should be open to public scrutiny and debate. Peer

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