How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data

By Daniele Fanelli. PLoS ONE, 2009

1,643 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The frequency with which scientists fabricate and falsify data, or commit other forms of scientific misconduct is a matter of controversy. Many surveys have asked scientists directly whether they have committed or know of a colleague who committed research misconduct, but their results appeared difficult to compare and synthesize. This is the first meta-analysis of these surveys. To standardize outcomes, the number of respondents who recalled at least one incident of misconduct was calculated for each question, and the analysis was limited to behaviours that distort scientific knowledge: fabrication, falsification, “cooking” of data, etc… Survey questions on plagiarism and other forms of professional misconduct were excluded. The final sample consisted of 21 surveys that were included in the systematic review, and 18 in the meta-analysis. A pooled weighted average of 1.97% (N = 7, 95%CI: 0.86–4.45) of scientists admitted to have fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once –a serious form of misconduct by any standard– and up to 33.7% admitted other questionable research practices. In surveys asking about the behaviour of colleagues, admission rates were 14.12% (N = 12, 95% CI: 9.91–19.72) for falsification, and up to 72% for other questionable research practices. Meta-regression showed that self reports surveys, surveys using the words “falsification” or “fabrication”, and mailed surveys yielded lower percentages of misconduct. When these factors were controlled for, misconduct was reported more frequently by medical/pharmacological researchers than others. Considering that these surveys ask sensitive questions and have other limitations, it appears likely that this is a conservative estimate of the true prevalence of scientific misconduct.

Subfields: Pharmacology, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health, Safety Research

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d9db67acc223c9bd9b8c1d4969dc105409c6dfef

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Citations in the corpus

Sources of Variability in Estimates of Predictive Validity (2011, methodology): “Ranging from experimenter bias to selective reporting to willful manipulation, they are itemized and described in some detail by Fanelli (2009).”
Retracted Science and the Retraction Index (2011, background): “In such situations, desperate authors may be enticed to take short cuts, withhold data from the review process, over-interpret results, manipulate images, and engage in behavior ranging from questionable practices to outright fraud (26).”
Academic misconduct, misrepresentation and gaming: A reassessment (2019, neutral): “A meta-analysis by Fanelli (2009) shows about 2% of respondents confessed to engaging in serious misconduct and about one-third to engaging in other detrimental research practices.4 However, as Fanelli notes, given the sensitive nature of this topic, intrusive research methods such as surveys are…”
How Common Is Commercial Contract Cheating in Higher Education and Is It Increasing? A Systematic Review (2018, methodology): “…67 Fanelli states “given the objectivity of the information collected and the fact that all details affecting the quality of studies are reported in this paper, it was not necessary to have the data extracted/verified by more than one person” (Fanelli, 2009) and the same principle was used here.”
A Call for Examining Replication and Bias in Special Education Research (2014, background): “In a meta-analysis of surveys, Fanelli (2009) reported, on average, one third of scientists admitted to engaging in questionable research practices themselves, whereas 72% reported that colleagues had.”
Attitudes Towards Science (2018, background): “…suggest that although a typically fewer than 2% of scientists admit blatant fraud, much larger numbers admit engaging in other questionable research practices that exaggerate the significance of their findings (Fanelli, 2009; Martinson, Anderson, & De Vries, 2005; but see Fiedler & Schwarz, 2016).”
“Positive” Results Increase Down the Hierarchy of the Sciences (2010, background): “Survey data suggests that outright scientific misconduct is relatively rare compared to more subtle forms of bias, although it is probably higher than commonly assumed, particularly in medical/clinical research [69].”
Transparency, Reproducibility, and the Credibility of Economics Research (2018, neutral): “…of Health, and John, Loewenstein, and Prelec (2012) in psychology, as well as a meta-analysis of 18 surveys of academic misbehavior, do not paint a very rosy picture, with 2% of respondents admitting to data fabrication, and 34% admitting to lesser forms of academic misconduct (Fanelli 2009).”
HARKing: How Badly Can Cherry-Picking and Question Trolling Produce Bias in Published Results? (2019, background): “…Rupp, 2016b; Bedeian, Taylor, & Miller, 2010; Bettis, Ethiraj, Gambardella, Helfat, & Mitchell, 2016; Bosco, Aguinis, Field, Pierce, & Dalton, 2016; Fanelli, 2009; Grand et al., in press; Hitchcock & Sober, 2004; Hollenbeck & Wright, 2017; Lipton, 2005; Leung, 2011; O’Boyle, Banks, &…”
Towards a taxonomy of research misconduct: The case of business school research (2019, background): “Such blatant misconduct can be addressed, for example, through legal mechanisms, whereas the “less flagrant, more subtle cases of potential misconduct”, or what Fanelli (2009) and John et al. (2012) call ‘questionable research practices’, remain poorly understood.”
Deep impact: unintended consequences of journal rank (2013, background): “Although cases of clear scientific misconduct initially constituted a minority of cases (Fanelli, 2009; Van Noorden, 2011; Wager and Williams, 2011; Nath et al., 2006; Cokol et al., 2007; Steen, 2011a), the fraction of retractions due to misconduct has risen sharper than the overall retraction rate ”
Editorial: Evidence on Questionable Research Practices: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (2016, methodology): “• In a meta-analysis of surveys asking about the behavior of colleagues, Fanelli (2009) found that 72 % of respondents reported observing a variety of QRPs, such as data manipulation.”
HARKing's Threat to Organizational Research: Evidence From Primary and Meta‐Analytic Sources (2016, neutral): “HARKing’s prevalence has been acknowledged by authors and editors (e.g., Bedeian et al., 2010; Fanelli, 2009), authors’ evolving hypothesis statements within sources over time (O’Boyle et al., in press), and suspiciously low hypothesis falsification rates (e.g., Fanelli, 2010; Francis, Tanzman, &…”