From the moment students start their PhD program, decision-making becomes a daily part of the challenging PhD journey. It begins with deciding which topic to focus on within the wider research project and formulating the research questions and the methodologic design and continues with a series of inevitable in-the-moment decisions to make. For instance, while conducting a set of experiments, the pressure of decision-making and questions as “am I making the right decisions?” and “will these decisions significantly impact the quality of my research?” accumulate.This was certainly what I felt, and from what I can tell, it was the same for my PhD peers. Importantly, these concerns exposed the lack of guidance on research integrity matters within PhD programmes and the need to develop tailored teaching tools.

Going back to the decision-making process, it is important to clarify that although it is often, and perhaps rightfully, expressed that a road to a PhD is mostly a lonely journey, the truth is that supervisors are key actors in the decision-making process. They are valuable in guiding and advising their students through the conceptual design and implementation of the research project. Consequently, frequent meetings are key for discussing ideas and developing the road to where the project will take and lead to. On the other hand, once those first few months of the PhD journey are past, and the road is settled, the driver needs to drive the road on its own. By this, I mean, the PhD student takes the lead of the project and starts his/her own path. Yet, like driving a road often leads to decisions to make along the way, the same analogy can be made regarding a PhD, no matter how planned things are. Thus, whenever a question appears others follow: “Who to ask? My supervisor is not around. What should I do? Can I wait for his/her return?”. Supervisors are certainly the right answer, but they are busy people and not always around or available. However, this should not diminish supervisors’ responsibilities towards their students, nor mean that students should be entitled to make decisions on their own.Acknowledging the tricky two-sided road, the balance would perhaps lie within establishing a balanced compromise, where supervisors make the rightful time to effectively supervise their students and students develop the necessary skills on critical thinking, to improve decision-making. Nevertheless, when students are faced with supervisory issues, allied with decisions to make, problems can occur, potentially effecting the quality of the research.

Giving just one of the many situations I experienced while I was a PhD student, I remember having a discussion with a fellow student I shared the office with, regarding deleting 2 outliers from her dataset. She presented her arguments stating that she was sure those deviating datapoints would not affect the main findings and that she knew for sure the reasons behind those deviating points. Also, she argued that deleting those outliers would significantly improve the regression analysis she was conducting and would clearly demonstrate the pattern she wanted to present. I would repeatedly advise her to speak with her supervisor, to which she would repeatedly argue that the supervisor team did not have time.What decision did she make regarding the outliers? I honestly don’t know. I can only guess from what I know about the pressure to finish that chapter, the fast approaching thesis’ submission date and the challenging supervisor situation. But more importantly, this individual case has more general relevance. Other PhD students have similar issues with their dataset, from which, other critical decisions would evolve, going from whether or not to adjust the experimental protocol to implications for the statistical methods to use. In my experience, reflections on the consequences of those decisions were never on the table of discussion.The pressure was on getting the results, finishing a chapter, submitting the thesis, but not on the impacts of those decisions on the areas where the research results were to be implemented, whether the development of a medical treatment, on establishing a new pattern in an engineering area, and so on.

This definitely rings the bell for me regarding the lack of effective training on research integrity within doctoral programs.Perhaps more importantly, we should ask ourselves if the problem lays on supervisors’ lack of time to effectively guide/supervise their students? Is it reasonable to make supervisors responsible for transferring knowledge on integrity and good research practice, or are higher education institutions in fact failing their students in providing, since day 1, such knowledge through a code of conduct on best practices in science and research ethics? Or if these situations expose the urgency in designing, developing and implementing tailored research integrity teaching tools into doctoral programmes. Ultimately, empowering students in critical thinking and research integrity matters would most likely make it easier for them to navigate research decision-making and make them more prepared to take the lead on their research. After all, PhD students are only a step away from becoming independent future researchers!

Thanks to Júlio Borlido Santos and Anna Olson for the comments and insights in the making of this article.