Why poor research practices should be discouraged: Does ethnicity determine career choice in biology and conservation-related fields?

Primary authors and editors: Dr Palesa Natasha Mothapo, Dr Ethel E. Phiri, Dr Tando Maduna, Dr Tashnica Taime Sylvester 

A recently published commentary in the South African Journal of Science (SAJS) (27 May 2020) by Professor Nicoli Nattrass affiliated to the University of Cape Town (UCT), titled “Why are black South African students less likely to consider studying biological sciences?” speculates that black students do not choose to study biological sciences largely due to the lack of interest for nature conservation, and are driven by socio-economic status, materialistic values, anti-colonialism, and not believing in evolution. The article’s abstract had been removed from the SAJS website by the time that we completed this piece (find the original article here). 

We acknowledge the response by UCT’s Black Academic Caucus (BAC), and subsequent responses by UCT’s Executive Management Team  and their Science Faculty who have distanced themselves from the views reflected in the commentary by Prof. Nattrass. We also acknowledge that Prof. Nattrass has responded to the BAC and UCT’s Executive who had denounced the problems and shortcomings of her commentary. 

While the racial debate has been acknowledged, the opportunity to interrogate the academic merit of the paper with sound academic reasoning, as stated by UCT’s Executive Management and the Science Faculty’s responses, should not be obscured. Although Prof. Nattrass was allowed to publish this as a commentary, we strongly assert that it sends a biased and unverified message about the impact of ethnicity on career choices; hence the need to respond and share our own diverse perspectives. We also take this opportunity to share our experiences with society to demonstrate that Prof. Nattrass’ commentary lacks the distinctive quality of scientific rigour, which further begs the question of whether it was approved by any of the UCT ethical committees and how it got published in the SAJS. While the racial issue has been raised in the response by BAC, we base our views on the importance of promoting racial cohesion over division along racial lines. Although we do not object to the question of why black students do not consider pursuing life sciences degrees, we feel that this commentary has neither addressed nor established whether or not being black predicts career preference at UCT or in any other context. At best, Prof. Nattrass could argue for UCT’s black students or those within universities situated in the Western Cape. Rather than the speculative suggestions in the commentary, Prof. Nattrass could have consulted a more representative and accurate reflection of reality by perusing the already existing data which is publicly available on UCT’s website. Therefore, the sampling bias displayed in the commentary presents an irresponsible approach from which flawed conclusions are drawn regarding the attitudes of students around biological sciences. Questions such as these are crucial in understanding how to attract diversity within Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Innovation (STEMI) fields and require well thought-out and multi-disciplinary approaches to avoid promoting Prof. Nattrass’ rhetoric in the commentary. This could be further enriched by a survey of Grade 12 pupils’ understanding of careers in biological sciences across the racial groups. The pupils’ exposure to role models in these fields as well as data on how specialisation choices are promoted, and information on funding opportunities for further studies would be useful. Also in her commentary, it is not stated whether the students were not necessarily part of ‘cliques’ or are not ‘associates’ in certain disciplines that tend to socialise together. This is not an uncommon socialisation occurrence amongst students in university campuses. 

In our South African context, and with the current global movements, these are sensitive and delicate topics that need to be handled with scientific rigour, they must address ethical concerns, and involve multi-sector collaboration. Instead of such commentary resulting in robust discussion on how to encourage more young people to explore STEMI fields, this was a misplaced, single author commentary that has managed to engender stereotypes, divisiveness, anger, and disappointment. We object to bad science! We suggest that in order to truly understand the research question, Prof. Nattrass should have focused on inclusivity, i.e. in terms of sample size across different ethnicities and career choices. Furthermore, the data collection methods are not robust and the narrative excludes practitioners in the biological and conservation sciences that could have been interviewed; amongst them are academic peers, conservation agencies, and industry experts. The flawed study design fails to account for a number of other factors that may determine career choice for South Africans and first-generation students in general.

The quality of basic education, studying or living environment and exposure to career options are important, and may help students make informed decisions about future career pathways. First-generation students tend to rely on external funding (bursaries, scholarships, etc.) or part-time jobs when considering pursuing a degree or enrolling for further tertiary education. Funding opportunities differ greatly across tertiary institutions, and result in career choices motivated by financial need, rather than individual interests. Also, there is a missed opportunity in this commentary to address, even briefly, these socio-economic issues and how first-generation students choose to overcome them. We can take into account many other factors determining the choice of career for South Africans and first-generation students as a whole. When assessing the career choices vs sector demands, there are limited opportunities in conservation areas that are accompanied by low staff turn-over, while many other career paths have high demands and high turn-over. An example that falls within the biological and conservation sciences is taxonomy, where turn-over can be as long as 20-40 years. These first-generation graduates who specialise in taxonomy, therefore, have a severe disadvantage coming into the workforce and generally have to pursue other work opportunities. And this is independent of their race. 

We find the apparent disregard for scientific rigour unfathomable. While recognising historical racial disparities, South African researchers have made big strides in science and technology over the years. This is despite the difficulty in obtaining funding, challenges associated with conducting research in low-resource areas and emerging obstacles faced due to their ethnicity or nationality. We are often not viewed as a productive continent and there are “indications of predatory publishing and questionable editorial practices”, further putting pressure on African researchers to prove the worth of their research to the scientific community. We are building a strong, educated, diverse and inclusive critical thinking research community on the African continent, contributing to important local and global research gaps. Unsubstantiated conclusions or opinions from the SAJS article in question garner undesirable attention to our research community and detract from the good peer-reviewed science we conduct.

Where is the evidence of rigorous peer-review? In fact, in her response to BAC, Prof Nattrass reminds us that the piece was not peer reviewed, but is merely a commentary piece. Such non-scientific practices purporting scientific outcomes lay a foundation for distorting or corrupting the disciplines of science and their research methodologies. In an article by Wicherts (2016), it is stated that “transparency of the peer-review process can be seen as an indicator of peer-review quality allowing the tool to be used to predict academic quality in new journals”. SAJS has been in publication since 1903 and hardly qualifies under Wicherts’ statement around “new journals”. A journal that is over 117 years old should not have this problem. In addition, Wicherts concludes that “journals with higher transparency ratings were less likely to accept [a] flawed paper and showed higher impact as measured by the h5 index from Google Scholar”. While Prof. Nattrass’ commentary was not peer-reviewed, its publication indicates that the publication process has major flaws. Surely, there was at least an editorial review prior to publication. This suggests that any researcher can publish even poorly constructed “research” if they wish to do so. Allowing this commentary to be published with its many flaws in the methodology and analyses, especially with content that is bound to be controversial, is deeply concerning. One would think that due to the nature of the ‘study’, the scientific process behind it and the analyses would be even more closely scrutinised before publication. But then, the article is featured as part of the Editor’s Choice and is titled “Who chooses to study Biology?”. 

A critical facet of research involving human subjects is ethical clearance, to protect the participants as well as ensure researchers respect human rights and fundamental freedoms. There is no indication that the study addressed in the commentary was issued ethical clearance, and no ethics approval number was submitted with this commentary in its current format. Moreover, it does not even seem that SAJS had considered the issue of ethics. Researchers are expected to conduct responsible research and by publishing this commentary, the SAJS has failed to maintain the high standards of scientific integrity and ensure that good, ethical and responsible research is published. 

The peer review process can be subjective and can be influenced by the views and opinions of the editor and reviewers. Traditionally, the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) has the final say on whether a submitted manuscript is accepted or rejected, and has the final responsibility to uphold the operations and policies of the journal. In our engagement with the EIC of SAJS, we asked to submit a rebuttal to the commentary of Prof. Nattrass. The EIC responded by stating that a rebuttal slot had been “booked”, and she would not allow more to be submitted. Furthermore, the EIC indicated that “SAJS regularly publishes rebuttals and responses on issues that are contentious, but not more than one on a single topic”. In a later response, the EIC further stated that “It is usually the tradition of the SAJS to invite, or accept, a rebuttal to any published contribution in the SAJS, whether a commentary (or other Front Section non-peer reviewed contribution) or a formal research paper that has undergone peer review. As I have mentioned, I accepted a rebuttal from the first person who offered it”. Our response to her was that we find it baffling that only one rebuttal is allowed by SAJS. It is our understanding that rebuttals also follow the academic peer review process before they can be published. The transparent and open academic debate on important issues such as this commentary is critical. As per experience with other journals and rebuttals published, evidence-based critique is encouraged when one submits a rebuttal to published work, and therefore there should not be a possibility of giving preference to one respondent. However, if this is how the SAJS operates, then we will respect that. It is our understanding that any published work has to be open to academic and public scrutiny even after publication. Booking a rebuttal slot is not acceptable and infringes on the right to open academic dialogue. In recent days, there has been an increased outcry against poor science published in top-end journals, which is a big blow to the peer-review process. SAJS falls under the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), which in 2016, contracted researchers from Stellenbosch University “to do a thorough, largely bibliometric study of scholarly publishing in and from South Africa in the period 2005 – 2014, with all forms of peer-reviewed scholarly publications included, whether in journals, books or conference proceedings. The group has become extremely well versed in the appropriate methodologies, using reliably indexed databases and cooperating with partners who have developed special techniques for sharpening the focus of standard parameters such as citation counts and rates over time, demographic shifts in authorships and indicators of collaboration. The study was completed in 2017, and submitted to the Academy”, and was subsequently published in SAJS. Having published this commentary, SAJS and ASSAf have violated their own Mission statement, which is: “to promote the visibility and impact of South African and African research by publishing high-quality original research from Africa or on African-relevant issues that will be of interest to readers in any discipline and for the benefit of scholars, educators, the general public and policymakers. It also provides a forum for discussion of news and developments in research and higher education”.

We are a diverse group of emerging African researchers, many of us holding PhDs, or at least a Master's degree and we represent the next 20 to 40 years of research that will be produced on the continent. We are aged between 25 and 45 (with some outliers) and represent a broad group of academics and researchers with different backgrounds, working in academia, government, and industry, that are making an impact on the continent and internationally. In South Africa there are many naturalised “races”, including white, black, indian, coloured, chinese, biracial, and everyone in between. With the flawed sampling process, there is no way that the author could adequately capture these, especially since black is compared with “other races”. What are the other races and what ratio of each race is taken into account in the conclusions of the commentary? Amongst the signatories here, we provide anecdotal evidence that can argue to the contrary with regards to the claims reported in the commentary. Prof. Nattrass’ commentary missed many of the reasons one chooses a career path. Many of us are first-generation biological and conservation sciences graduates who, predominantly, did not have tertiary-educated parents or caregivers to guide us into choosing our career paths. Those who were fortunate enough to grow up in neighbourhoods where there were tertiary graduate role models, these were nurses, teachers, lawyers, and medical doctors. This means that most of our peers, and we ourselves, did not have acquaintances, much less mentors, who were qualified in the fields of the biological and conservation sciences. 

So, does ethnicity determine career choice in biology and conservation related fields? In contrast to Prof. Nattrass’ commentary, a similar study was conducted and published in SAJS in 2019. The study was robust and included more than 5 000 African researchers, all of whom were born in Africa and were currently working in an African country. As the author rightfully states "more research is needed on potential socio-economic and cultural correlates of having considered studying biological sciences or a career in conservation biology". We can also draw the same conclusion in support of her work without being confrontational, whilst also pointing out the flaws of such a study in the current South African environment. An explorative and curious mind is not determined by race or cultural background. The commentary by Prof. Nattrass assumes that a selected black opinion is homogenous to that ethnic group. Below, each of us tells our stories in support of why we ended up pursuing or not pursuing careers in biological and conservation sciences.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are not a reflection of our respective employers’ views. We write these as private citizens, who are also biologists, conservationists, scientists, and academics. 

Contributing authors and signatories:

Some anecdotal and personal commentary on the keywords used by Prof. Nattrass:

Lack of love for nature conservation

“I grew up loving nature and always being outside. I enjoyed playing with collecting insects, growing plants, and keeping pigeons as pets. My little brother was not at all like this, still he chose a biological science field to study for his undergraduate. Further, there many more people that I know that are full nature lovers but have absolutely no interest in this field”.

“I am part of a twin, and used to love animals and insects and plants from a very young age. I have always wanted to be a marine biologist and therefore chose that career path – I am the first marine biology/biodiversity/biological sciences PhD graduate in my family. My brother, even growing up in the same household and being exposed to similar experiences, chose a career in accounting rather than biological sciences and doesn’t like nature the way I do at all, apart from his pet dog.”

“As a matter of fact, the black race and the indigenous Khoisan peoples have depended on nature for centuries and there are cultural norms and rules that were designed specially to conserve natural resources. Safe to say, the National Research Foundation allocated thousands of rands for research to indigenous knowledge systems and if Prof Nattrass took time to look at ethnobotanical literature she would have known the huge efforts the black people had put in place to main conservation of natural resources that are in demand”. 

“I am the eldest of five children, female. I have two sisters and two brothers after me. Being the first person in my family to go to university, neither myself nor my parents knew what to expect. I had a passion for the biological sciences, not conservation, from a very young age. In fact, I was fascinated by seed germination and now, when I think back, I laugh because my passion is now my career. Needless to say, neither of my four siblings went on to study anything around biology and neither of them studied beyond an honours degree (the highest qualification after my PhD).”

“I grew up in a neighbourhood which shared a fence with our region’s national park. As a small child, I knew that I was interested in the mammalian body and how it works. Never had I ever had an interest in studying plants and never had I ever imagined working in nature conservation. Now, even though I am a biologist, I still have no vested interest in conservation as a career, although I am passionate about social issues that affect young South Africans and young scientists in general. Never had I ever imagined there being a conflict between my interest in biological sciences and the social activism and outreach that I am passionate about. It is baffling that a survey would ask a student to choose between an interest between a school subject and being active in promoting human rights. (Table 1, 2nd question of the survey: “Agrees ‘Addressing social inequality is more important than wildlife conservation’”)”

Materialistic values

“My four siblings were in employment before I did. I only entered the formal workspace at the age of 37. I was a poor and hungry student and I sometimes ate my (finished) experiments for supper when I was in honours. Even after I took a gap year to work after my honours, I always had that nagging feeling to study further if I were to make a difference. I saved most of my salary and applied for bursaries to continue with my studies. I was determined to follow my passion and I worked hard, knowing that my younger siblings will most probably earn higher salaries than me, but I get to relive my childhood everyday! Everyday, I have new questions; I work on problem-solving. I am not materialistic!”

“You cannot speculate one thing (black students choose higher paying professions because of material deficits in their personal backgrounds), ask a set of questions that have nothing to do with the material wealth of black students, then conclude that you were right. The questions are entirely unrelated to a poorly formulated hypothesis, and neither prove nor disprove anything”.

“My career choice had nothing to do with materialistic aspirations. What scientist has materialistic aspirations???”

“I chose a biological science degree because I had an interest in it. I didn't bother about what the pay will be like; if I did I would have studied something else. Also whether I have pets or not, whether I'm keen on conservation does not matter. I studied what I did because I have a passion for it! And I think many other people who go into Science do it for the same reason.”

“As much as I appreciate that future financial standing is important when choosing a career, I cannot think of any “black” scientist who has ever found that being a scientist or researcher would have hindered them from pursuing their career choice. I am currently financially supporting my family and have been doing so since I was 16 years old, in high school. Going into this field, I already was not in a good financial situation but that did not have an influence on my registering for a BSc. Currently, I have 2 cousins who recently graduated from the Sciences while having grown up in a township, facing these financial limitations.”

Colonialism

“She suggests that the students she interviewed think of science as a form of colonialism. Again, she missed an opportunity in surveying across different disciplines and age groups for a clear understanding, she does not describe “other races” well, and how representative was the “other races”? She also refers to the "Fallist" students that suggest again, her focus group is not inclusive”.

“Concern with wildlife and conservation might be regarded as colonial, and students might perceive a trade-off between social justice and their educational interests”.

“Many "black" graduates who studied Conservation/Nature Conservation at different Technikons/Universities of Technologies across SA are serving in different capacities as Rangers/Biotechnicians and Managers. Most of them are risking their lives in the fight against rhino poaching across our parks and nature reserves.

Not believing in evolution

“I have taught in many first year classes where white students left when I started to teach the evolution aspects in my module. None of the students of colour left. Gaining knowledge has nothing to do with belief systems, especially when one ends up in a biological field”.

“I am a lecturer in a predominantly white university, where over 90% of the students I teach are white. Some of those students tend to disagree with learning about evolution, i.e. how species evolve. Even when you give them the classic genetic mutation of mosquitoes against DDT, they will still leave the class because the word evolution is used – but this is what is in the textbooks”. 

“In undergrad, as a young aspiring Biologist, I never knew any black student who was bothered by discussing evolution. If anything, our white colleagues were the ones who took the initiative to complain to our lecture, trying to force them to leave out that part of the lecture. The black colleagues were religious at the time and we would sit together and discuss why evolution cannot be discussed in the context of religion.”

Socio-economics

“There are various ways one can get funding for studies. Many of us, whose parents could afford to take loans, did, but we had to repay those loans. TEFSA (now known as NSFAS), funded some of us on a loan basis, and we repaid those loans”.

“Throughout my study career, I relied on bursaries and scholarships. My parents did not have money to pay for tuition or accommodation near university. The conditions of these bursaries/scholarships generally meant that I had to pass all my subjects/modules, otherwise we had to pay back the bursary/scholarship – which I knew we could not afford. I therefore made sure I passed all my subjects through extra hard work and good marks to continue to receive merit bursaries – an added stress that students in our position have to endure.”

“My parents did not have money to send me to university, I had to pay my way. This commentary fails to examine why graduates would “settle” for such a career in the first place, especially black graduates”.

“Tertiary education in South Africa is extremely expensive and a lot of our youth face the issue of funding for education. As an undergrad and in my honours, I worked as a waitress, store assistant, etc., with a lot of my classmates and students I knew from campus. They were of all races. There are a lot of white young scientists who spent their first years of employment paying off study loans or repaying their parents who financed their education. Perhaps the study could also include this aspect in future interrogations.”

Other: 

Ethics

“There are questions of ethics, and why the author did not bother to use existing statistics available at universities. 

“As a matter of fact, according to the University of Cape Town 2019 admissions report, black South Africans were the highest percentage in the Science faculty Table 1”.

Table 1: UCT admissions demographic profile”

“I am not a statistician and have not done that type of research, but I know there is an issue with how she did her sampling. I don't understand how she drew up her conclusions based on the amount or distribution of respondents. She also says there that UCT black students amount to 30%. I feel that she intentionally picked the high number of black students over the “others” that she talks about, whatever others are. I do not think you can make conclusions like that, at least it should be representative of the whole population of UCT because it's obviously going to skew the result,, and that just doesn't help. There was an intended message that she wanted to put through, and she worked so hard to just get that conclusion that she wanted. I completely agree that this is just bad science, and a manipulated result, from my standpoint.”

Peer review

“The study can be considered a short communication instead of a commentary, as there was a research process that was followed. So, on this basis, it should have gone through peer review”.

“The idea that some sections of published research do not go through peer review can result in such problems like this paper that got published. “commentary” doesn’t go through peer review”.

Pet ownership

“I know many missing middle students, regardless of race, that first can't afford higher education; second, their pets did not influence their career choice. In fact some don’t even like pets”. I grew up in a household that had dogs. As an adult, I choose to have cats. There is no correlation between my pets and me being a researcher.”

“There is no correlation between loving pets/animals and choosing a career in science. I have always had pets but am not a scientist. If what the paper says is true, then I would be either black or a scientist – but I am neither. Or all white people would own pets and be scientists?”

“I have and have had many pets whom I love dearly. I have no interest in conservation”. 

“There is obviously the issue of lack of ownership of property in the city. If you are living on campus why would you be owning a pet. The majority of off campus accommodations are not even pet friendly having spent 6 years of my life at UCT”.

“How she made an assumption based on owning pets or not, or even liking the starlings or not, is arbitrary”.

“The myths about the ability of people of colour should be burst! Internationally, many studies have addressed the racial, ethnic and gender barriers and challenges to access and success in STEM careers. There are many drivers for this and many have little to do with race or culture”.

“I’ve never owned pets nor am I fond of the idea of pets. I strongly believe that animals should not have been domesticated for the enjoyment of humans. However, I am a biologist and work with animals. I grew up knowing that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”

The science

“There is a lack of scientific rigour and quality in the commentary, even if it is exploratory”.

“The convenient sampling that was used to gather the responses to the questions – I have general problems with the design of the research”.

“Does not know all the variables that influence people's career choice and therefore she is hypothesising on insufficient data”.

“What a peculiar study. I'm no statistician but the argument seems riddled with contradictions and is the sample size large enough to draw conclusions? One thing this demonstrates to me is that you can rely on numbers alone to understand people.I think the methods are flawed. I wonder how they devised the questions?”

“Where did the person stand? If it is still as it was when I was a student there, science students are mostly on the one side of campus where labs and science departments are, and humanities and arts students on the other side, for the same reason. Even just this spatial dichotomy at UCT would have resulted in biased selection, if they sampled just at one spot. Also, what if all the science students happened to be writing a test that day, or were in labs, or in the library for an assignment. For all these reasons, even when employing purposive sampling, you do the sampling over several iterations, to cancel out these possible biases”.

“There are questions of ethics, and why the author did not bother to use existing statistics available at universities”.

“I have a problem with this “opportunistic survey” as it is. I even wonder if these 211 students were all South Africans. Also how do they know if the black students that were interviewed are those that came to UCT solely because they are not interested in the biological sciences, but are interested in the courses that UCT offers or the university’s #1 rank?”

“My husband was totally appalled! He was saying that this has nothing to do with science and why people want to study or go into the field of biological sciences. How could SAJS publish such inferior scientific “research””.

“In my first year of university I was told that Zoology is not for black people”. 

“This commentary had so many things wrong with it, and I find the fact that it made it to publication both disturbing and disappointing. There are many researchers in SA and Africa at large that are working on fascinating, complex topics and technologies using robust scientific design and contributing immensely to their various fields. I wish that was the kind of work that attracted so much attention; not a badly designed exploratory study, with baffling methods, analyses and conclusions, and whose aims I cannot understand. What was the point of this? ”