Professor A suspected that researcher B in the field of human sciences and assistant professor C at university X were guilty of falsification. During the process of writing their comment article, B and C had contacted A about the results of analyses that A and another author D had not reported in their original publication. Professor A had sent the p-values of two statistical correlation tests to B and C. B had asked A whether A could also share the research data with B so that B and C could interpret the p-values obtained from A. A refused to share the material. B and C did not mention the p-values sent by A in their article because they could not verify the p-values by examining the material used.
University X decided that B and C had not committed a violation of responsible conduct of research. In their request for a statement, A considered that it is a well-established practice that comment articles use the results of statistical analyses without seeing the actual research data and asked TENK to comment on whether B and C were guilty of the falsification of research results.
TENK agreed with the decision of University X. According to TENK, researchers are not obliged to publish under their name p-values they have received without the possibility to view the material from which the values have been calculated.