Comparing Veterinary Student and Faculty Perceptions of Academic Misconduct

Abstract

A study was conducted to assess veterinary students' and faculty perceptions of a variety of academic and classroom behaviors, and the degree to which these are acceptable or not. Two instruments were developed for this purpose: 1) The Exams and Assignments Scale (EAS), consisted of 23 items measuring the extent to which a variety of examination and assignment-related actions and behaviors constituted misconduct, and 2) The Classroom Behavior Scale (CBS), consisted of 8 items and measured the extent to which a variety of classroom behaviors were acceptable professional behaviors. Student responses were pooled for analysis and compared to faculty perceptions. This comparison resulted in statistically significant differences on 11 of the 23 EAS indicators. In all cases, faculty felt the described actions were more severe offenses than students with most of these discrepancies centering on situations regarding examinations and clinical skills. Both groups felt that offenses pertaining to cheating in exam settings were the most severe infractions, and the least severe issues pertained to laboratories/assignments and other out of class behaviors. On the CBS scale, there were statistically significant differences on 3 of the 8 measures, with faculty reporting the behaviors as less acceptable. The most concerning behaviors involved actions that could potentially impact people other than the offender, while the most acceptable behaviors seemed to only impact the person committing them.

Psychometric quality of a student evaluation of teaching survey in higher education

“…Messick (1989) presented a unified concept of validity that defines validity as 'an integrated evaluative judgement of the degree to which empirical evidences and theoretical rationales support the adequacy and appropriateness of inferences and actions based on test scores or other modes of assessment' (13). This concept of validity integrates six aspects of construct validity: content, substantive, structural, generalisability, external and consequential validity (Royal, Schoenfeld-Tacher, and Flammer 2016). Fit statistics inform the content aspect of validity, the PCA of residuals informs substantive aspect of validity, separation indices inform generalisability aspect of validity, and rating scale functioning informs structural aspect of validity (Royal, Schoenfeld-Tacher, and Flammer 2016).…”

“…This concept of validity integrates six aspects of construct validity: content, substantive, structural, generalisability, external and consequential validity (Royal, Schoenfeld-Tacher, and Flammer 2016). Fit statistics inform the content aspect of validity, the PCA of residuals informs substantive aspect of validity, separation indices inform generalisability aspect of validity, and rating scale functioning informs structural aspect of validity (Royal, Schoenfeld-Tacher, and Flammer 2016). The results showed sufficient content validity as indicated by the adequate fit statistics, substantive validity as indicated by reasonably high variance explained by Rasch measures in PCA, generalisability validity as indicated by the satisfactory separation indices, and structural validity as indicated by reasonable use of the rating scale though it could be further improved.…”

“…In this study, we use a Rasch model to assess the validity and reliability of the SET data from the UMAC General Education programme. Royal and Flammer (2015) and Royal, Schoenfeld-Tacher, and Flammer (2016) used Rasch models to validate two SET instruments; the former consisted of 23 items measuring misconduct severity and the latter consisted of 8 items measuring professional behaviours. Rasch analyses of dimensionality, reliability and rating scale effectiveness were conducted.…”

Faculty and Student Perceptions of Unauthorized Collaborations in the Preclinical Curriculum: Student or System Failure?

“…However, even when there is dishonest intent, both faculty and students perceive certain collaborative cheating behaviors to be less dishonest than other types of cheating. 9,11 Although faculty rated unauthorized collaboration on quizzes/assignments as more dishonest than did students, both rated these unauthorized collaborations as being less dishonest than copying from a peer's quiz/exam. 11 Additionally, not all students viewed helping others cheat (e.g.…”

“…9,11 Although faculty rated unauthorized collaboration on quizzes/assignments as more dishonest than did students, both rated these unauthorized collaborations as being less dishonest than copying from a peer's quiz/exam. 11 Additionally, not all students viewed helping others cheat (e.g. allowing another to copy their assignment) as misconduct on their part.…”