Preventing Academic Dishonesty...

On the heels of our experiences in the Grading Inferno, we are reminded of this very interesting article from UA about The importance of ethics education from October.

Author Emily Bell discusses teaching courses on ethics, and the broader life lessons that she's learned (and hopes her students have learned) from this experience. What is interesting to consider here is how the breaches in academic honesty and ethics in our university classrooms (I didn't mean to/ knwo I was plagiarizing, for instance) spring from the same sources unethical behaviour that occurs beyond academia.

In addition to Obedience to authority and Conformity bias, Bell notes the following factors that play into when and how people choose to act unethically:

• Rationalization and bias: We believe that we are more ethical than we actually are, and create rationalizations to explain any unethical behaviours. We believe that we are good people and this leads us to make ethical decisions rapidly.
• Time pressure: Unethical behaviours are more likely when we act under a time pressure.
• Fatigue: Unethical behaviours are more likely when we are fatigued.
• Lack of transparency: Unethical behaviours are more likely when we know that no one is watching.

We can see how and when students might test or breach the boundaries of ethical behaviour given these dimensions of our classrooms. For instance, time-pressure and fatigue are near constants during semester crunch-times.

Luckily, Bell also suggests how instructors might consider bringing a discussion of these factors into our teaching, by making room for students to reflect on ethical dilemmas and choices for action. These include a focus on learning objectives, critical reflection on ethically complex case-studies, making space and time for discussion, and encouraging "students to think about how these factors may be present in different contexts (for instance, in business, sports, or in different work environments)."

Check out Bell's article and related resources in the quick links and links to further reading on similar topics below:

• The importance of ethics education (October 2017, University Affairs)
• From anthro everywhere!
• Did I plagiarize? A flow chart (6 November 2017)
• Anthropological Ethics Outside Anthropology Classrooms (12 June 2017)
• Bullshit! Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data Syllabus (23 March 2017)

Inside the Grading Inferno

Like many teachers at this time of year, we are currently in the depths of what feels like 'the Grading Inferno' where there are many levels of punishment for our past deeds...or so it feels.

Below is PHDComic's version of Dante's Inferno for graduate students and postdocs:

The Academic Edition of Dante's Inferno (Jorge Cham 2015)

Our Grading Inferno might be described as more like: 

1. Post-grading haze
2. Office hours filled with students wanting to know how they can do better next time
3. Office hours (and emails) filled with students wanting to know how they arrived at the mark they did
4. Office hours filled with students who think something went wrong (with their assignment or the marking process) *levels 2 - 4 come from Menzies' 2015 blog post*
5. Carting home piles of papers from campus to home (only to cart them back again before end of term)
6. Scrolling through emails for students' work (for those who couldn't find the online dropbox)
7. Online learning management system woes
8. Emails from students (or calls from parents!) asking why they received the grade they did (or to argue about plagiarism or late penalties)
9. It's on the Syllabus...

How are practicing anthropologists and candidates experiencing their end-of-term? Tweet us @anthrolens (though we probably wont have time to respond because of the Grading Inferno...)

Quick Links:

• Jorge Cham's 2015 Dante's Inferno (Academic Version)
• Menzies' (2015) Grades: “In Full Honesty, My Paper Deserves A Better Grade.” on Anthropology @ UBC blog

Sample Boilerplate Language for Ethnographic Ethics Proposals

Blogger Jennifer Long has been spending lots of time (too much time) writing ethics proposals these days. However, many university-related ethics boards have very useful tips, tricks and resources to help researchers along.

So if it's your first or fortieth kick of the ethics proposal can, check out your institutions REB home page before pulling out your hair and throwing items across the room.

Although I'm not conducting ethnography at this time, McMaster's REB has an ethnographic boiler plate template for ethnographic studies. It's a useful document with tidbits such as these for the methods section:

This project will be based on standard methods of ethnographic research in the discipline of anthropology. Researchers in cultural anthropology (ethnographers) engage in participant observation, a fieldwork method based on social relationships between individuals and the ethnographer, in which the ethnographer assumes the position of a student or apprentice who learns through participating in everyday activities with community members and observing social life.  This participant observation component of my research is essential because it will provide the broad social and cultural context for my specific research questions that deal with [INSERT YOUR RESEARCH TOPIC HERE].

Following the general methodology of participant observation, this study will involve several specific tasks.  From approximately [INSERT DATE] to [INSERT DATE] I will reside in [INSERT LOCATION(S) ] where I will participate in many aspects of community life including [INSERT DETAILS].  
Because of my [INSERT DETAILS, IF APPLICABLE], I already know many people in [INSERT NAME OF LOCALITIES] and I expect that I will have no trouble integrating into the community.  I also plan to [INSERT DETAILS]. 

Follow the link in the Quick Links to see the whole document. Many thanks to its original authors from the Anthropology program at McMaster: Dr. Badone and Rebecca Plett.

Quick Links:

• Sample Boilerplate Wording for Ethnography, Badone and Plett (McMaster Research Ethics Board) 2013

Studying People We Don't (Necessarily) Like - Bangstad

Sindre Bangstad wrote (2017) Doing Fieldwork among People We Don’t (Necessarily) Like for Anthropology News' Anthropological Publics, Public Anthropology section. Bengstad writes,

Marcus Banks and Andre Gingrich have suggested that we as anthropologists tend to investigate topics and work with individuals and groups whom we are able to sympathize with. And relatively few anthropologists (though there certainly are some exceptions; if we are honest about anthropology’s checkered past, we should also realize that we have what Didier Fassin has aptly described as a “dual legacy” to contend with here) tend to sympathize with populist right-wingers. In line with this, Joel Robbins has argued that anthropologists since the 1980s have replaced the proverbial “savage slot” with the “suffering slot.”

Anthropologists, in other words, have tended to study those people who in some way or other can be said to “suffer.” When we speak of “suffering,” images of white male populist right-wing sympathizers are perhaps not the first images that cross our anthropological minds though some of them both feel and are marginalized and suffering.

Bangstad ends using Nitzan Shoshan's work which points to anthropologists historical interests in the seemingly abnormal and occult (in addition to the marginal).

Check out his post by following the link the in Quick Links to read more.

Quick Links:

• Doing Fieldwork among People We Don’t (Necessarily) Like by Sindre Bangstad Anthropological Publics, Public Anthropology (Aug 28, 2017)

One Size Does Not Fit All - Preliminary Findings

On November 13th, anthro everywhere! blogger Jennifer Long continued her One Size Does Not Fit All series where she provides readers with an overview of her new pedagogical research project in collaboration with Ms. Silvie Tanu Halim at the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice & Technology. This research explores mature and non-traditional students' educational experiences where we seek to understand how these perspectives differ depending on our medium of instruction: online (synchronous, asynchronous), or face-to-face.

We left off on Nov 12th discussing how blogger Jennifer Long invited students to participate in their survey.

Although the survey is still open, the following is a line graph outlining when we received our 86 responses (thus far):

Figure 1. Responses according to date

As mentioned in previous posts, although we did use incentives to encourage participation, it appears that most participants decided to take part soon after the project was introduced by Blogger Jennifer Long.

Dr. Long attended Ms. Tanu Halim's classes on November 07th (online, yes, I made an appearance in the online course) and November 9th (in class). November 7th sees the greatest spike. This spike can perhaps be accounted for, if we consider that students were already in front of their computer when they were invited to participate in an online survey. The second spike appears to be on the Sunday or Monday following my visit to the classroom (after the weekend) on the 10th.

I also thought I'd share some of the aggregated information about those taking part in the survey. When speaking about mature students, it became apparent that the majority of our respondents were between the ages of 21 and 25.

Age Ranges of Participants thus far (Nov 16 2017)

It will be interesting to compare this information with that of other scholars and how individuals 25+ experience education at SEPT when compared to those in the 21-25 category.

What is also informative are their responses to preferences to learning:

Learning Preferences of Mature Students

It will be very interesting to delve into their comments to understand what we see here, that more respondents prefer to learn new course material in-class rather than online.

Check out future posts to learn how the researchers will collect and analyse their data -- or see all posts in the One Size Does Not Fit All research series on our updated page Special Series: Ethnography & ... (formerly "Ethnography & Tourism")

Want to use these findings for your own work? Please cite this source as follows:

• Long, J., & Tanu Halim, S. (2017, November 16). One Size Does Not Fit All - Preliminary Findings [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://anthrolens.blogspot.ca/2017/11/one-size-does-not-fit-all-preliminary.html

One Size Does Not Fit All - Encouraging Participation without Coercing Participation

We take up from where we left off on November 8th when anthro everywhere! blogger Jennifer Long continued her overview of her new pedagogical research project in collaboration with Ms. Silvie Tanu Halim at the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice & Technology. All posts that begin with 'One Size Does Not Fit All' describe a project which explores mature and non-traditional students' educational experiences and seeks to understand how these perspectives differ depending on our medium of instruction: online (synchronous, asynchronous), or face-to-face.

We left off on Nov 8th providing a final overview of our survey questions about educational experiences and preferences. Today, we're going to discuss how blogger Jennifer Long invited students to participate in their survey.

As discussed in previous posts, the target population of our research are our own students. To be more specific, they are Ms. Tanu Halim's students. To conduct this research, Ms. Tanu Halim and Dr. Long had to submit an ethics proposal to our university's board of ethics for research projects involving human beings. This is standard practice for any researchers working with consenting individuals. Unsurprisingly, our research board wanted to understand how we'd be mitigating the pressure students might feel if their own instructor is asking them to take part in research.

First, as researchers, we had to outline how our research was voluntary, as in, our participants would not be negatively effected by choosing not to take part. Therefore, our letter of consent included the following text:

Your participation in this study is strictly voluntary. This study is not an assessment component for this course; therefore, your responses will not be evaluated in any way during this study. As such, your grade for your class will not be negatively impacted if you choose to withdraw or not participate in the study. 

We also outlined the potential risks facing students if students chose to take part. For this project, we identified the potential of both psychological and social risks. The following is the text describing how we will try to mitigate these risks:

Psychological risks:
Participants are informed in the online invitation and Letter of Information that this study is voluntary. If worried about the social risk, students are informed in the invitation text and Letter of Information that they can access the survey and choose not to participate while still contributing to the 70% participation threshold. 

Social Risks:
Further, if participants wish not to answer particular survey questions, they will have the option to skip any question they are not comfortable answering. 

As described in the psychological risks, we're awarding everyone in the class a bonus mark once we've hit a 70% response rate threshold. To maintain anonymous responses, we've decide to dole out these bonus marks to everyone as we're not collecting their identifying information. This could however make some students feel forced to take part and therefore, we've included an option where students can click on the survey and then decide not to take part (selecting 'no' to the consent screen). In so doing, these click throughs to 'non consent' still count toward the 70% threshold.

There has been some debate regarding how much incentivizing participants will influence the responses researchers receive.  As becomes evident, Ms. Tanu Halim and I had to walk a fine line of trying to entice students to participate (online surveys suffer from low response rates) and overstepping our boundaries as instructors by influencing our students to take part.

Another step we're taking to encourage realistic responses and experiences is to collect this information anonymously.  In taking this approach, we're hoping that our students are able to willingly take part and provide us in-depth information about their learning experiences and preferences in ways that are meaningful to them. Further, if we don't know who took part, we can't give preferential treatment to anyone.

Finally, when inviting students to take part in our survey, Dr. Tanu Halim left the room while Dr. Long provided a brief explanation about the research and its project plan. This 'script' is outlined again in our ethics proposal, as a means to avoid undue coercive behaviour. This approach allows students to ask questions and speak to any concerns they may have away from the eyes and ears of their professor. Blogger Jennifer Long told the students about the study and where to find the link, but students have the choice to take part at a later point in time and not, for example, under Dr. Long's 'watchful eye'. This would present few options for some students.

Check out future posts to learn how the researchers will collect and analyse their data.

Want to use any ethics phrasing for your own work?
Please cite this source as follows:
Long, J., & Tanu Halim, S. (2017, November 13). One Size Does Not Fit All - Enouraging Participation without Coercive Participation [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://anthrolens.blogspot.ca/2017/11/one-size-does-not-fit-all-encouraging.html

One Size Does Not Fit All - Research on Mature Students' Educational Experiences

In a follow up from our post on November 2nd, anthro everywhere! blogger Jennifer Long continues to discuss her new pedagogical research project in collaboration with Ms. Silvie Tanu Halim at the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice & Technology. 

Check out last week's posts to learn the context behind our study. In a nutshell, we seek to know more about mature and non-traditional students' educational experiences  and, to explore how these perspectives differ depending on our medium of instruction: online (synchronous, asynchronous), or face-to-face.

We left off on Nov 2nd by showcasing some of our questions about the demographic information of our participants. In today's post, we get down to the nitty-gritty of the learning experiences and preferences.

The rest of our questions deal with student experiences of online learning. Therefore, we have to narrow our participant group to those with online experiences. 

Question 8 follows: Have you ever taken an online course (including high school, college or university courses, training, or workshops) in the past? Yes/No

Here, we put a little logic into things, if a student answers 'no', they are thanked for their time. If they answer yes, students will continue on to the question set below.

If student participants select yes, they are asked to fill out a matrix  with answers between not very effective (all the way) to very effective for the following items:

1. How effective do you find time spent attending online lectures (in synchronous [defined in survey] format)?
2. How effective do you find time spent watching pre-recorded lecture videos (which you can watch at any time)?
3. How effective do you find time spent reading through course notes (for comprehension of material)?
4. How effective do you find time spent working through problems in the course textbook (through self-directed learning in complement to online resources)?
5. How effective do you find time spent discussing course content with student peers? 
6. How effective do you find time spent discussing course content with your instructors?

Then we ask them questions about their use of resource materials for online learning: 

1. Do you prefer synchronous or asynchronous learning for online courses? Why?
2. Do you use the accommodation/preference options on the pre-recorded videos (e.g. slow down, speed up videos)? 
3. Do you replay videos if you do not understand a concept? Why (or why not)? 
4. How important is it to have an online community with your student peers? Scale of not at all to very important.

As it happens, our survey opened up last night. Check out some of next week's posts to learn how blogger Jennifer Long invites her colleagues students to participate and how we work to avoid undue pressure on our student participants to take part in our survey.

Want to use these questions for your own work? 
Please cite this source as follows:
Long, J., & Tanu Halim, S. (2017, November 02). One Size Does Not Fit All - Research on Mature Students' Educational Experiences [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://anthrolens.blogspot.ca/2017/11/one-size-does-not-fit-all-research-on.html

Quick Links:

• Simon Coleman and Bob Simpson, Unintended consequences?  Anthropology, pedagogy and person Anthropology Today (1999) http://www.jstor.org/stable/2678353
• One Size Does Not Fit All - Anthropological & Pedagogical Research on Mature Students Anthro Everywhere! (Nov 2 2017)
• One size does not fit all - Applying Anthropological Principals to Pedagogical Research Anthro Everywhere! (Oct 30 2017)
• What do Cultural Anthropologists do? "Decode" Human Behaviour, Anthro Everywhere! (Aug 28 2017)
• Qualitative versus Quantitative Research - from a business perspective (Feb 23 2017)
• A New Home for Ethnography: The Use and Legacy of Ethnography by Anthropologists and Non-Anthropologists Anthro Everywhere! (June 9, 2016)

Did I plagiarize? A flow chart

For teachers and students alike, early November is the heart of the mid-term assignment swamp. As we wade through various assignments, questions of how to maintain academic integrity in one's work are bound to arise.

Well, since I am also in the middle of that swamp, here's a quick, kind of fun infographic to share from The Visual Communication Guy's blog:

Did I Plagiarize? Infographic Flow Chart from The Visual Communication Guy

Click on the photo's caption to follow the link to the original post (and zoom-able graphic).

Good luck getting through the mid-term marking! See you on the other side...

One Size Does Not Fit All - Anthropological & Pedagogical Research on Mature Students

In a follow up from our post on Monday, anthro everywhere! blogger Jennifer Long continues to discuss her new pedagogical research project in collaboration with Ms. Silvie Tanu Halim at the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice & Technology. 

Here, we as researchers are interested in exploring the educational experiences and learning preferences of mature and/or non-traditional students and, to explore how these perspectives differ depending on the instruction medium. We left off last day promising to further explain the types of questions would wanted to ask.

As mentioned in the previous post, our population would include students signed up to the Degree Completion Program. These students have completed (at least) an advanced diploma from a College. 

What assumptions do we make about this population? 

As mentioned in the last post, we assume that these students will have more or different competing responsibilities for their time. To expand on this point, we find that the majority of our students do not come straight from a college program but are returning to post-secondary education after having begun their career. Therefore, these students typically work a 40 hour work week, may have dependents to care for, and other commitments on their time.

In their exploration of the role of anthropological knowledge outside the classroom, Coleman and Simpson (1999) find that anthropological knowledge provides: (1) a unique opportunity to hold a mirror up to one's own life circumstances and (2) a chance to reflect on one's personal experiences. However, the cultural outcomes of participating in higher education may generate contrasting relationships outside of school and personal change that is not without a problematic middle-class undertone. Citing David James (1995), the authors warn  that post-secondary participation may very well reproduce a social distance between one's university and home life. Importantly, these authors - using Alison James' work - help us question how a return to university may be felt by some to be a world of new possibilities and for others, an alternative form of personal  displacement and dis-empowerment.

How then, are our DCP students experiencing their education here at SEPT? Are they experiencing a new world of possibilities or personal displacement and dis-empowerment. What is the role of the medium of pedagogy - and how does his affect how these students experience their post-secondary education? 

Below are a list of questions we included in our online survey to help understand the rounded picture of people's lives (borrowed from Coleman and Simpson). Next week, we'll follow up with an overview of the questions around the mediums (paths) of learning:

1. Your gender (multiple options available)
2. Your age (range)
3. Hours per week spent on family and household responsibilities (range)
4. Hours per week spent on work, work-related activities (e.g. travel), or other weekly tasks (e.g. volunteering, searching for work, etc. ) during a typical (or average) work week throughout the year (range)
5. How do you prefer to learn new course material? (Options include in class, online, or on your own through self-directed learning (i.e. using course materials to complete tasks at your own pace according to set deadlines)? Follow up question: Why? [Open text box]
6. How do you learn (new course material) most effectively? Options include in class, online, or self-directed learning (definitions integrated into survey). Why? [Open text box]
7. As a mature student, how will your educational experience differ from those traditional students entering university directly from high school? [Open text box]

Want to use these questions for your own work? 
Please cite this source as follows:
Long, J., & Tanu Halim, S. (2017, November 02). One Size Does Not Fit All - Anthropological & Pedagogical Research on Mature Students [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://anthrolens.blogspot.com/2017/11/one-size-does-not-fit-all.html

Quick Links:

• Simon Coleman and Bob Simpson, Unintended consequences?  Anthropology, pedagogy and person Anthropology Today (1999) http://www.jstor.org/stable/2678353
• One size does not fit all - Applying Anthropological Principals to Pedagogical Research Anthro Everywhere! (Oct 30 2017)
• What do Cultural Anthropologists do? "Decode" Human Behaviour, Anthro Everywhere! (Aug 28 2017)
• Qualitative versus Quantitative Research - from a business perspective (Feb 23 2017)
• A New Home for Ethnography: The Use and Legacy of Ethnography by Anthropologists and Non-Anthropologists Anthro Everywhere! (June 9, 2016)