ERIC Number: EJ1134657
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015-Jan
Pages: 23
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1931-4744
EISSN: N/A
Choosing Not to Cheat: A Framework to Assess Students' Rationales for Abiding by Academic Integrity Policies
Kolb, Kenneth H.; Longest, Kyle C.; Singer, Alexa J.
International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, v9 n1 Article 9 Jan 2015
Writing intensive first-year seminars are well situated within the curriculum to teach about issues like cheating and plagiarism. Although most research on academic integrity focuses on how--and how much--students cheat, we take a different approach. We assess whether participation in writing intensive first-year seminars produces measurable changes in students' rationales for choosing not to cheat. Relying upon data collected via pre and post-test in-depth interviews, we propose a framework to measure these changes that is grounded in students' accounts of how they negotiated real-life opportunities to cheat on campus. In general, we find that writing intensive first-year seminars produce no positive qualitative changes in students' rationales for choosing not to cheat. In the conclusion, we offer a new perspective on the possible consequences of creating "cheat proof " tests and assignments on students' ethical development.
Descriptors: Cheating, Integrity, Plagiarism, Pretests Posttests, First Year Seminars, Ethics, Semi Structured Interviews, Writing Processes, College Students, Qualitative Research
Centers for Teaching & Technology at Georgia Southern University. IJ-SoTL, Georgia Southern University, Henderson Library 1301, Statesboro, GA 30460. e-mail: sotlij@georgiasouthern.edu; Web site: http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/ij-sotl/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: South Carolina
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A