Background:
The scientific integrity, perceptions of scientific misconduct, and students’ needs in the research ethics education of Korean and Japanese gifted students were analyzed to address three questions. First, how well do students practice research ethics in their research? Second, how do students perceive scientists’ misconduct? Third, do students want to learn research ethics and what aspects do they want to learn?

Material and methods:
Participants comprised 397 Korean and 370 Japanese science gifted high school students.

Results:
Survey results showed that 48.92% of Korean students and 14.86% of Japanese students experienced scientific misconduct regarding their research. However, 90.61% of Korean students and 87.54% of Japanese students could identify types of scientific misconduct. Only 32.94% of Korean students and 19.63% of Japanese students expressed a desire to learn about research ethics concepts and practical issues during research.

Conclusions:
Although professing knowledge about scientific integrity, their scientific misconduct demonstrates a lack of authentic understanding. Thus, there is a need to accurately present students with the training they need.