Online Plagiarism Training Falls Short in Biology Classrooms

Online plagiarism tutorials are increasingly popular in higher education, as faculty and staff try to curb the plagiarism epidemic. Yet no research has validated the efficacy of such tools in minimizing plagiarism in the sciences. Our study compared three plagiarism-avoidance training regimens (i.e., no training, online tutorial, or homework assignment) and their impacts on students’ ability to accurately discriminate plagiarism from text that is properly quoted, paraphrased, and attributed. Using pre- and postsurveys of 173 undergraduate students in three general ecology courses, we found that students given the homework assignment had far greater success in identifying plagiarism or the lack thereof compared with students given no training. In general, students trained with the homework assignment more successfully identified plagiarism than did students trained with the online tutorial. We also found that the summative assessment associated with the plagiarism-avoidance training formats (i.e., homework grade and online tutorial assessment score) did not correlate with student improvement on surveys through time.     

The Larger Project within Fantasy Literature: the Lewis/Pullman Divide

This article deals with Philip Pullman's insistence on the importance of the creative power of stories in education and the need for children to think deeper about texts than the surface plot; the suitability for fantasy literature to be used for this ‘larger project’ and the current power of children's fantasy, leading to Pullman's winning of the Whitbread Prize; and Pullman's vehement rejection of links between His Dark Materials and C.S. Lewis's Narnia books. Both series are influenced by Paradise Lost but read from their own religious position: Lewis is the conservative traditionalist and Pullman the liberal reformer. In both, Christian allegory is used to encourage deeper readings of the works. Ultimately, Pullman's criticism of Narnia draws attention to similarities between the two series and the power of both to provoke challenging questions rather than straightforward answers.     

Job Analysis for Lkensure and Certfication Exams: Science or Politics?

How might empirical j o b analysis give the appearance of science to a flawed public policy? How do “political” factors have an impact on the development of licensure tests? What are areas for future research and for improvement of prevailing practices in licensure and certification testingy?     

Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning Constructs

Demographic variables, findings from the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (Schraw & Dennison, 1994), the Learning Strategies Survey (Kardash & Amlund, 1991), and the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991), as well as accuracy ratings of test performance, were examined in 2 studies. Findings indicated convergence of self-report measures of metacognition, significant correlations between metacognition and academic monitoring, negative correlations between self-reported metacognition and accuracy ratings, and positive correlations between metacognition and strategy use and metacognition and motivation. Limitations of the studies and implications for theory development and future research are discussed.     

Young offenders in New South Wales,Australia and the need for remedial sexual health education

The 2005–2008 Australian National Sexually Transmissible Infections Strategy identifies young people as a key target group in need of sexual health education, screening and management. For young people who are in contact with the New South Wales (NSW) juvenile justice system, a dire need for remedial sexual health education exists. NSW young offenders indicate initiation of sexual activity at a younger age than their peers, higher numbers of sexual partners, infrequent condom use and higher rates of sexually transmitted infections. They also report family instability, poor accessing of health services, and low school attendance: all factors that result in poor sexual knowledge and health outcomes. An examination into the cognitive profile of these young offenders indicates remedial education for this group may require a dual approach in order to redress their specific circumstances and needs. The first approach should target young offenders who simply missed out on stages of sexual health information in the school curriculum. The second approach requires a tailored teaching methodology more appropriate for a group with atypical cognitive profiles. Both approaches need to engage an educative model that acknowledges that these disadvantaged young people are already sexual active; and that many did not have the benefit of an informed or consensual decision making processes. More importantly, the tailoring of a sexual health education program to these young people needs to resonate with teaching to a cognitively distinctive population who have experienced higher than usual rates of alcohol and other drugs abuse, and higher than usual episodes of physical and emotional abuse and neglect.