The Impact of Faculty Development Workshop on Students’ Understanding of Academic Integrity

Kirsten S Hochstedt; Sarah E Zappe; Thomas A. Litzinger; Tricia Bertram Gallant; Robert G. Melton; Shiyu Liu

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Conference: 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Seattle, Washington
Publication Date: June 14, 2015
Start Date: June 14, 2015
End Date: June 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-50180-1
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Engineering Ethics Division Technical Session 2
Tagged Division: Engineering Ethics
Page Count: 32
Page Numbers: 26.1542.1 - 26.1542.32
DOI: 10.18260/p.24879
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/24879
Download Count: 750

Paper Authors

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Kirsten S Hochstedt Penn State University

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Kirsten Hochstedt is a graduate assistant at the Leonhard Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Education. She received her M.S. in Educational Psychology with an emphasis in educational and psychological measurement at Penn State University and is currently a doctoral candidate in the same program. The primary focus of her research concerns assessing the response structure of test scores using item response theory methodology.

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Sarah E Zappe Pennsylvania State University, University Park

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Dr. Sarah Zappe is Research Associate and Director of Assessment and Instructional Support in the Leonhard Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Education at Penn State. She holds a doctoral degree in educational psychology emphasizing applied measurement and testing. In her position, Sarah is responsible for developing instructional support programs for faculty, providing evaluation support for educational proposals and projects, and working with faculty to publish educational research. Her research interests primarily involve creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship education.

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Thomas A. Litzinger Pennsylvania State University, University Park

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Thomas A. Litzinger is Director of the Leonhard Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Education and a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Penn State. His work in engineering education involves curricular reform, teaching and learning innovations, assessment, and faculty development. Dr. Litzinger has more than 50 publications related to engineering education including lead authorship of an invited article in the 100th Anniversary issue of JEE and for an invited chapter on translation of research to practice for the first edition of the Cambridge Handbook of Engineering Education Research. He serves as an Associate Editor for Advances in Engineering Education and on the Advisory Board for the Journal of Engineering Education. He was selected as a Fellow of ASEE in 2008 and of ASME in 2012. He holds a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from Penn State, an M.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering from RPI, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton.

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Tricia Bertram Gallant University of California, San Diego

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Dr. Bertram Gallant is a Lecturer with the Rady School of Management and Director of the Academic Integrity Office at UC San Diego. She is also the Outreach Coordinator for the International Center for Academic Integrity (Clemson University).

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Robert G. Melton Pennsylvania State University, University Park

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Shiyu Liu Pennsylvania State University

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Shiyu Liu is a postdoctoral scholar at the Leonhard Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Education at Pennsylvania State University. She has a B.S. in applied psychology, a M.A. and Ph.D. in educational psychology. Her research focuses on teacher professional development in STEM education and factors that affect K-16 STEM learning.

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Abstract

The Impact of Faculty Professional Development on Students’ Understanding of Academic IntegrityAbstractAcademic misconduct, prevalent in universities, threatens student potential for academic andprofessional success. A new initiative to assist engineering faculty in creating classrooms ofintegrity provided the impetus for this study. Nine faculty members from the College ofEngineering at a large, Mid-Atlantic University participated in the initiative to redesign theircourse in order to create and implement plans to enhance students’ understanding of academicintegrity. Specific goals included increasing the likelihood that students will practice academicintegrity and illustrating links between academic integrity and professional ethics.Using a pre/post assessment mechanism, this study investigates students’ understanding of howacademic integrity is defined and why it is important before and after the faculty participantsimplemented their redesigned plans. As such, 72 pre-assessment and 86 post-assessment studentresponses from one course were analyzed and serve as a case study. This course was selected dueto the high response rate in both the pre- and post-assessment, which facilitates time pointcomparisons. A coding scheme was developed and content analysis principles were used toanalyze students’ responses. After responses were categorized based on content, frequencydistributions were generated for each category. These code frequencies were compared for thepre- and post-assessment responses.The results yielded some notable and encouraging patterns. First, when students were asked todescribe academic integrity, there were fewer responses on the post-assessment definingacademic integrity as “not copying, cheating, plagiarizing, or using others’ work as your own” ormerely “following class rules.” There were more responses defining academic integrity as “doingyour own, original work” and as “honesty.” Further, twice as many students cited “doing the‘right’ thing (even if no one is looking)” and “being ethical” in their post-assessment definitions.New post-assessment definitions of integrity also emerged, including “fairness/level playingfield,” and “needed for learning, to know the material and apply concepts.” There appears to be ashift away from defining academic integrity as simply following rules towards viewing academicintegrity as being honest, ethical, and fair, all of which are essential for learning.Second, when students were asked to define why academic integrity is important, there was adecrease on the post-assessment in responses like “ensures everyone is doing their own work”and “needed so work/degree not devalued” and an increase in answers like “needed for futurecareer,” and “to recognize those who deserve credit.” Moreover, post-assessment codes werecreated to capture responses not seen in the pre-assessment, including “needed for safety,legitimacy, being qualified in engineering” and “needed to advance, improve engineering andsociety.” As with students’ definitions of academic integrity, fewer responses concerned theimportance of following class rules after the redesigned course assignments. Responses linkingthe importance of academic integrity to professional ethics emerged. The final paper will providea more comprehensive description of the workshop and assessment results as well as a discussionof implications for engineering education.

Citation
Format

Hochstedt, K. S., & Zappe, S. E., & Litzinger, T. A., & Bertram Gallant, T., & Melton, R. G., & Liu, S. (2015, June), The Impact of Faculty Development Workshop on Students’ Understanding of Academic Integrity Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.24879

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -                 The Impact of Faculty Professional Development on                 Students’ Understanding of Academic IntegrityAbstractAcademic misconduct, prevalent in universities, threatens student potential for academic andprofessional success. A new initiative to assist engineering faculty in creating classrooms ofintegrity provided the impetus for this study. Nine faculty members from the College ofEngineering at a large, Mid-Atlantic University participated in the initiative to redesign theircourse in order to create and implement plans to enhance students’ understanding of academicintegrity. Specific goals included increasing the likelihood that students will practice academicintegrity and illustrating links between academic integrity and professional ethics.Using a pre/post assessment mechanism, this study investigates students’ understanding of howacademic integrity is defined and why it is important before and after the faculty participantsimplemented their redesigned plans. As such, 72 pre-assessment and 86 post-assessment studentresponses from one course were analyzed and serve as a case study. This course was selected dueto the high response rate in both the pre- and post-assessment, which facilitates time pointcomparisons. A coding scheme was developed and content analysis principles were used toanalyze students’ responses. After responses were categorized based on content, frequencydistributions were generated for each category. These code frequencies were compared for thepre- and post-assessment responses.The results yielded some notable and encouraging patterns. First, when students were asked todescribe academic integrity, there were fewer responses on the post-assessment definingacademic integrity as “not copying, cheating, plagiarizing, or using others’ work as your own” ormerely “following class rules.” There were more responses defining academic integrity as “doingyour own, original work” and as “honesty.” Further, twice as many students cited “doing the‘right’ thing (even if no one is looking)” and “being ethical” in their post-assessment definitions.New post-assessment definitions of integrity also emerged, including “fairness/level playingfield,” and “needed for learning, to know the material and apply concepts.” There appears to be ashift away from defining academic integrity as simply following rules towards viewing academicintegrity as being honest, ethical, and fair, all of which are essential for learning.Second, when students were asked to define why academic integrity is important, there was adecrease on the post-assessment in responses like “ensures everyone is doing their own work”and “needed so work/degree not devalued” and an increase in answers like “needed for futurecareer,” and “to recognize those who deserve credit.” Moreover, post-assessment codes werecreated to capture responses not seen in the pre-assessment, including “needed for safety,legitimacy, being qualified in engineering” and “needed to advance, improve engineering andsociety.” As with students’ definitions of academic integrity, fewer responses concerned theimportance of following class rules after the redesigned course assignments. Responses linkingthe importance of academic integrity to professional ethics emerged. The final paper will providea more comprehensive description of the workshop and assessment results as well as a discussionof implications for engineering education.
AU  - Kirsten  S Hochstedt
AU  - Sarah E Zappe
AU  - Thomas A. Litzinger
AU  - Tricia Bertram Gallant
AU  - Robert G. Melton
AU  - Shiyu Liu
CY  - Seattle, Washington
DA  - 2015/06/14
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - The Impact of Faculty Development Workshop on Students’ Understanding of Academic Integrity
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/24879
DO  - 10.18260/p.24879
ER  -