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A Longitudinal Study of the Perception of Academic Integrity among Students and Faculty

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Conference

2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Columbus, Ohio

Publication Date

June 24, 2017

Start Date

June 24, 2017

End Date

June 28, 2017

Conference Session

Faculty Views of Ethics

Tagged Division

Engineering Ethics

Page Count

22

DOI

10.18260/1-2--27473

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/27473

Download Count

993

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Paper Authors

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Teresa Ryan East Carolina University

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Dr. Teresa Ryan teaches mechanical engineering fundamentals such as Dynamics, Mechanics of Materials, Acoustics and Vibrations. She also focuses on technical communication skills within an engineering context. Her research interests include acoustics, the dynamics of complex structures, and the use of laser Doppler vibrometry for characterization of such structures including percussion instruments, landmines/IED, and coupled resonator arrays.

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Colleen Janeiro East Carolina University

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Dr. Colleen Janeiro teaches engineering fundamentals such as Introduction to Engineering, Materials and Processes, and Statics. Her teaching interests include development of solid communication skills and enhancing laboratory skills.

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William E. Howard East Carolina University

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William E (Ed) Howard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering at East Carolina University. He was previously a faculty member at Milwaukee School of Engineering, as well as as a design and project engineer with Thiokol Corporation, Spaulding Composites Company, and Sta-Rite Industries.

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Patrick F. O'Malley Benedictine College

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Patrick O'Malley teaches in the Mechanical Engineering program at Benedictine College in Atchison, KS.

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Abstract

Cheating has unfortunately been a perpetual issue in education. Headlines through the decades and generations often seem to imply that the next upcoming crop of students is far worse, much less virtuous, and more prone to try and skate by through cheating than prior generations. The current project intends to collect longitudinal data to begin to inform whether such headlines are part of the ``Get off my lawn!'' phenomenon of aging, or if there is a fundamental shift in the moral character of the students of today. This work reports on the second year of this ongoing study of the differences in perception of academic integrity issues among students and faculty. The study grew out of an effort to formalize and increase the rigor of instruction regarding plagiarism in technical writing. The scope expanded to include an instrument administered to both students and faculty in (REDACTED) that aimed to characterize the degree to which different cheating behaviors are considered bad or ethically unacceptable. For example, is the sharing of a homework with a peer who was ill before the due date more or less ``wrong'' than asking an earlier section of a course what is on an exam before walking in to take the exam? In addition, students who are in their first or second semester of college are compared to upperclassmen to investigate shifts of these perceptions as the students progress through their college careers. As a supplement to the items that gauge the perception of these academic integrity behaviors, the study also polls student respondents to self-report the number of times they have cheated. The ongoing work intends to administer the same instrument annually and report on changes over time as well as comparison between programs.

Ryan, T., & Janeiro, C., & Howard, W. E., & O'Malley, P. F. (2017, June), A Longitudinal Study of the Perception of Academic Integrity among Students and Faculty Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--27473

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