During the first trimester of 2020, an online survey will be run in nine European countries – Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovenia and Switzerland – as part of the H2020 INTEGRITY Project. The survey will be applied to students at high school, bachelor and PhD level, from all range of disciplines (i.e. STEM, Humanities and Arts, and Social Sciences), and targets an overall 600 responses (i.e. 200 responses per study level) from each country.

The survey, developed at the University of Copenhagen by a team of experts – Mads Goddiksen, Mikkel Johansen, Thomas Lund and Marcus Tang Merit – and under the coordination of Professor Peter Sandøe, aims to map and evaluate the current understanding and experiences of European students on academic and research integrity (e.g. citation, authorship, plagiarism, data collection and handling, collaboration). Knowing this is essential to identify students’ needs so that the innovative teaching tools to be developed during the second half of the project can be tailored to meet these needs.

The survey was first pilot tested during October and November 2019 to students at the three levels of study in Portugal, Lithuania and the Netherlands. The pilot testing phase targeted 70 responses from students at each study level and each country chose and invited the educational institutions to participate in the study. A pilot test of a questionnaire is important to make sure that questions are understandable, and that the questionnaire isn’t too time consuming or confusing that respondents give up. In Portugal, we were able to do the pilot study through in-person visits to the educational institutions. This resulted in higher response rates and facilitated feedback as to whether the questions were easily understood by students, which topics students would like to be covered and how important the topics are to students.

The final survey was built-on from the preliminary results of the pilot survey and is now ready to be applied in each country. Keep an eye on the INTEGRITY website for more news on this study of students’ perceptions, experiences and needs of Research Integrity and Responsible Conduct in Research!