Academic Dishonesty and Testing: How Student Beliefs and Test Settings Impact Decisions to Cheat

Research shows that academic dishonesty in post-secondary education runs particularly high among students in the specific disciplines of engineering, business, and nursing. The authors were interested in how student attitudes towards specific environments for testing might contribute to the prevalence or likelihood of cheating on tests and exams. It was hypothesized that while there would be no difference in their beliefs or attitudes regarding the acceptability of cheating behaviors in unproctored versus proctored settings, students would be more likely to engage in cheating behavior in an unproctored setting. Technology continues to transform the world around us at a rapid pace, allowing faculty to incorporate more technology into the classroom and to educate more students remotely via hybrid and online classes. While these opportunities have their benefits, they also present new challenges. The opportunity for cheating on tests increases, especially when exams are delivered in unproctored environments. An instrument was created to investigate the attitudes and behaviors of first- and second-year undergraduate engineering students while taking tests in both proctored and unproctored environments. In all, 734 students were surveyed from four different institutions of higher education. Students provided both qualitative and quantitative responses to questions related to their beliefs and attitudes toward cheating in today’s socially shareable society. Results indicated that both students’ attitudes and behaviors vary as a result of tests being delivered in a proctored versus unproctored environment

Usefulness and reliability of online assessments: a Business Faculty's experience

The usefulness and reliability of online assessment results relate to the clarity, specificity and articulation of assessment purposes, goals and criteria. Cheating and plagiarism are two frequent and controversial issues that arise and there is a view that the online assessments mode inherently lends itself to both these practices. However, reconceptualising practice and redeveloping techniques can pave the way for an authentic assessment approach which minimizes student academic dishonesty. This article describes research which investigated online assessments practice in a business faculty at an Australian university and proposes what might constitute good, sustainable practice and design in university online assessment practices

A Website to help the International Students Experience (WISE)

Our VCU campus has been steadily expanding its international student population and has become an increasingly global university community. We have identified together with GEO, the need to build tangible resources that can support faculty and staff to more effectively educate our international student population. The creation of online content to be added to GEO’s current webpage seems to best fit the existing need. Our project outlines a blueprint for this online content by means of identifying data and resources that should be included as well as determining cost, sustainability and feasibility plans. Ultimately, the goal is to pave the way for centralized online content that can connect faculty and staff with important resources to optimize the academic experience and success of international students at VCU

Students go click, flick and cheat... e-cheating, technologies and more

The UAE is a major hub for most trades and tourism in the Middle East. Attracting diverse populations from around the globe, the country has opened its markets to local and international academic bodies to cater to the growing need for tertiary education within the nation. All or most of these colleges and universities are caught up in the need to introduce or increase the dependence of classroom teaching on two aspects of new era education: e-sources and e-technology. World-wide increase in publishing documents in electronic formats so as to reach more readers has surpassed the millions. Publicly accessible sites and academic library database memberships make these publications readily available to students at their finger tips. Where traditional methods involved slow processes of physically finding information, now students need simply type in key words and their screens spit out hundreds of articles, book chapters and journal articles that could give them related information. Add to this, various types of e-technology, inside and out of classrooms that make it easy for students to share information and complete assessments successfully. However, little or no research exists on the possible implications of the increased e-sources and readily-available e-technology on students’ attitudes toward e-cheating. This study looks into the two factors and if at all there are any affects on the alarmingly rising cases of e-cheating in the UAE

\u27Workshops in healing\u27 for senior medical students: 5 year overview and appraisal

We report upon the design, content and feedback from an interactive, experiential series of Workshops in Healing for senior medical students. Fifty-six final year medical students enrolled in 2×3 h workshops designed around the core themes of ‘physician know thyself’ (Workshop 1) and ‘confronting suffering’ (Workshop 2). Of the 56 students who initially enrolled, 48 students completed both workshops and provided a written openended reflection of their learning experience. The study, undertaken over a consecutive 5-year period (2008–2012), employed an emergent, qualitative design using thematic analysis of the reflective comments. We found that the design and content of both workshops promoted transformative learning for these final year medical students. Students identified the following benefits: (1) the opportunity to reaffirm their commitment to their chosen career path; (2) the value of listening to other students share their stories; (3) the importance of the timing of the workshops to occur after exams; (4) the use of various mediums such as art, poetry, music and contemporary/classic literature to present concepts of suffering and healing; and (5) the creation of a safe and confidential space. Students reported that these innovative workshops gave them a renewed sense of drive and enthusiasm for their chosen career. They highlighted the importance of addressing an aspect of medicine (healing) not covered in the traditional medical curriculum. Workshops in Healing helped them to rediscover a deeper meaning to medicine and their roles as future healthcare professionals