Students' perceptions of academic dishonesty in the chemistry classroom laboratory

Autor: Dawn I. Del Carlo, George M. Bodner
Rok vydání: 2003
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Research in Science Teaching. 41:47-64
ISSN: 1098-2736
0022-4308
DOI: 10.1002/tea.10124
Popis: Although the literature on both academic dishonesty and scientific misconduct is extensive, research on academic dishonesty has focused on quizzes, exams, and papers, with the virtual exclusion of the classroom laboratory. This study examined the distinctions undergraduate chemistry majors made between academic dishonesty in the classroom laboratory and scientific misconduct in the research laboratory. Across the spectrum of undergraduate chemistry courses, from the introductory course for first- semester chemistry majors to the capstone course in instrumental analysis, we noted that students believe the classroom lab is fundamentally different from a research or industrial lab. This difference is so significant that it carries over into students' perceptions of dishonesty in these two environments. 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 47-64, 2004 The literature on academic dishonesty provides conflicting answers to one of the most fundamental questions in the field: How often does it occur? Different studies have reported values from as low as 9% to as high as 95% of the student population admitting that they have cheated at least once during their academic careers (Maramark & Barth Maline, 1993). Much of this discrepancy stems from the wide variety in definitions of cheating. The definition becomes particularly blurred once collaborative assignments are introduced into the curriculum. A comprehensive study of factors such as age, gender, academic achievement, and discipline on the frequency of 21 different self-reported cheating behaviors noted that cheating was reported by more younger students than older students, by more men than women, by more lower-achieving students than high-achieving students, and by more science and technology students than those in other disciplines (Newstead, Franklyn-Stokes, & Armstead, 1996). These conclusions, however, are based on self-reports of behaviors, which is a possible source of error.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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