Can markers detect contract cheating? Results from a pilot study

Contract cheating is the purchasing of custom-made university assignments with the intention of submitting them. Websites providing contract cheating services often claim this form of cheating is undetectable, and no published research has examined this claim. This paper documents a pilot study where markers were paid to mark a mixture of real student work and contract cheating assignments, to establish their accuracy at detecting contract cheating. Seven experienced markers individually blind marked the same bundle of 20 second-year psychology assignments, which included 6 that were purchased from contract cheating websites. Sensitivity analyses showed markers detected contract cheating 62% of the time. Specificity analyses showed markers correctly identified real student work 96% of the time. Our results contrast with contract cheating sites’ claims that contract cheating is undetectable. However, they should be taken with caution as they are from one course unit in one discipline.     

Virtually There: Distant Freshmen Blended in Classes through Synchronous Online Education

Synchronous online education occurs when the students and faculty member are in different locations geographically and interaction occurs simultaneously through the internet at scheduled times. In this study I investigated the phenomenon of using synchronous online classes blended with a face-to-face classroom to complete the freshman year of college. The essence of the experience emerged around the concept of ambiguity, specifically in regard to group membership, functionality of technology, and place. This understanding of ambiguity provides a framework upon which to design practices for engaging such distance students and best promoting their learning.     

Taking leaps of faith: Evaluation criteria and resource commitments for early-stage inventions

Successfully developed academic inventions have the potential to spawn new technological domains, form the basis of thriving business ventures, and improve the well-being of society. However, evaluating whether an early-stage scientific invention truly has such potential is extremely difficult, and financially backing such inventions is highly risky. And yet, organizations and their evaluators still back some of these inventions with resources for further development. We investigate this puzzle to pinpoint how and why evaluators decide to offer resource commitments at early stages, despite the red flags raised using standard evaluation criteria. Many academic inventions need these initial resources to dispel concerns regarding their commercial feasibility, so evaluators need to take a leap of faith with their support to prematurely avoid eliminating high-potential opportunities. We tested our theory using text analysis on nearly 700 invention evaluation reports written by a university’s technology transfer experts. Our results revealed that evaluators backed inventions based on their feasibility (overcoming doubt and assessing maturity) and desirability (background familiarity and scientific complexity). Using the context of the research laboratory, our study insights can be applied to many management situations in which early-stage opportunities are assessed for resource commitments under high uncertainty.     

‘We’re keeping on top of the students’: making sense of test data with more informal data in a grade-level instructional team

Internationally, there has been a policy push for using student data for instruction. Yet, research has noted few examples of actually understanding how this data-use practice takes place. This study presents a case of an instructional data team making sense of student data. The study shares data to show how teachers’ process for using data to inform their instructional choices is an interpretive one. The study also highlights the fact that, to make sense of test data that are often incapable of capturing backstories of students’ work in school, teachers draw upon informal data that they glean from their observations of and interactions with students. The collective data in the heads of teachers emerge through data team discussions. We conclude with implications for policy, professional learning, and teacher development.     

Evening electronic device use: The effects on alertness,sleep and next-day physical performance in athletes

The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of different types of tasks performed with or without an electronic device (tablet) on pre-sleep alertness, subsequent sleep quality and next-day athletic performance. Eight highly trained netball players attended a sleep laboratory for pre-sleep testing, polysomnographic sleep monitoring and next-day physical performance testing on 5 separate occasions (1 familiarisation and 4 experimental sessions). For 2 h prior to bedtime, athletes completed cognitively stimulating tasks (puzzles) or passive tasks (reading) with or without a tablet. Sleepiness tended to be greater after reading compared to completing puzzles without a tablet (d = 0.80), but not with a tablet. Melatonin concentration increased more so after reading compared to completing puzzles on a tablet (P = 0.02). There were no significant differences in sleep quality or quantity or next-day athletic performance between any of the conditions. These data suggest that using a tablet for 2 h prior to sleep does not negatively affect subsequent sleep or next-day performance in athletes.     

Caffeine use in a Super Rugby game and its relationship to post-game sleep

Objective: To examine the relationship between regular game-related caffeine consumption on sleep after an evening Super Rugby game. Methods: Twenty elite rugby union players wore a wrist-activity monitor to measure sleep for three days before, three days after and on the night of an evening Super Rugby game (19:00–21:00). Players ingested caffeine as they would normally (i.e. before and sometimes during a game) and saliva samples were collected before (17:00) and after (21:30) the game for caffeine concentration. Results: Compared to the nights leading up to the game, on the night of the game, players went to bed 3?h later (23:08?±?66?min vs 02:11?±?114?min; p?p?p?p?p?p?=?.06) on game night. Conclusion: Caffeine consumption before a Super Rugby game markedly increases post-game saliva caffeine levels. This may contribute to the observed 3.5?h delay in time at sleep onset and the 1.5?h reduction in sleep duration on the night of the game. This study highlights the need for a strategic approach to the use of caffeine within a Super Rugby team considering the potential effect on post-game sleep.     

Effects of teacher gender and principal gender on ratings of teacher performance

The Ohio State University     

An analysis of factors related to the attitudes of regular classroom teachers toward mainstreaming mildly handicapped children

A model of factors was developed in order to examine variables that might be associated with the attitudes of regular classroom teachers toward mainstreaming mildly handicapped children. Using multiple linear regression analyses, the following variables were found to be significant predictors of a positive attitude toward mainstreaming: team-teaching, years of teaching experience (negative correlation), course in diagnosing learning and behavior problems, availability of resource teacher, previous special education teaching experience, number of courses taken in special education, number of students in classroom (25–27), and inservice program experience related to exceptional children. An examination of these predictors suggests that they may be used to select those regular educators who are likely candidates for implementing mainstreaming programs and that school systems can inhance their mainstreaming efforts by arranging the integration settings to conform with these predictors of positive attitude.