Examining the ethical environment in higher education

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) across the world have found themselves faced with new challenges on issues of ethics. Much of this has been centred on issues of assessment: plagiarism, buying essays, sharing/lending of previously passed work and the stealing of marked/returned work of others. Institutions still treat academic misconduct as largely a behavioural difficulty rather than an issue of ethics (or education), suggesting that academia places a far greater emphasis on combating new forms of dishonesty than it does on encouraging ethical habits and a healthy ethical environment. To date, the majority of research in this area has examined these forms of academic misconduct from the point of view of the student and/or the university, with the perspective of academics receiving very limited attention. Our hypothesis is that academics are perhaps best placed to provide the education needed to create and sustain an ethical environment, and we argue that being ‘ethically aware’ is a critical factor in the development of academic competence for all parties. This study adds to existing research in three ways: firstly, by highlighting the importance of an overall framework for an ethical environment within HEIs; secondly, by suggesting an ecological model of key parties (the university, students and academics) with responsibility for this environment in assessment; and thirdly, by including new evidence (generated by a survey of academics) to extend our understanding of their views on these issues.     

Culturalisation and devices: what is culture in cultural economy?

Theorisation of culture is often absent from research on production in the creative and cultural sector. Further, cultural production has been largely untouched by the insights of the cultural economy approach. Culturalisation is a means of addressing the question of what constitutes culture and thus a cultural (economy) approach. It is the process by which culture and cultural production combine in the ‘operationalisation of the real.’ Culturalisation underpins much scholarship in this journal by posing the (economic) real as a problem of definition in order to illustrate the operations involved in its temporary resolution. The implications of this position need further addressing. There is a feedback between culture as a problem of definition and a cultural approach. Devices can interrogate the relationship between processes of cultural definition and the conceptual parameters of a cultural economy approach. Workshopping, projects and events are put forward as cultural devices emerging from a 10-month ethnography of literary performance in Bristol, England. This illustration shows firstly, how culturalisation occurs in a designated cultural sector to contingently realise culture; and secondly, the implicit logic of cultural economy as culturalisation, typified by the device as method, so as to open a debate concerning its implications.     

Thurstone Scale for Measuring Attitudes of College Students toward Physical Fitness and Exercise

Abstract

Employing modified Thurstone techniques, two equivalent forms of an equal-appearing intervals attitude scale were constructed around the topic “physical fitness and exercise.” Experimental test items were subjected to an extensive refinement process preceding the formulation of the final alternate test forms. Validity of the test was based upon authoritative opinion and expert judgment. A reliability coefficient derived from test, retest sampling was .83 ± .06. A correlation coefficient of .87 ± .03 was obtained on the parallel lest forms.     

Naturally Acquired Mentoring Relationships and Young Adult Outcomes Among Adolescents with Learning Disabilities

We evaluated whether having a naturally acquired mentor during adolescence was associated with improved adult outcomes among youth with learning disabilities (YLD). Mentored youth were more likely to have graduated from high school, reported a higher level of self‐esteem, and reported a higher overall number of positive outcomes than nonmentored youth. Mentorship by teachers/guidance counselors was associated with larger differences in high school graduation rates and self‐esteem compared to nonmentored youth whereas mentorship by nonteachers was associated with smaller changes in self‐esteem and no differences in high school completion rates. Future research should include more in‐depth, objective assessments of youths’ learning disabilities, consideration of interactions with concurrent risk factors, and efforts to clarify optimal strategies for mentoring support of YLD.     

Coursework versus examinations in end-of-module assessment: a literature review

In the UK and other countries, the use of end-of-module assessment by coursework in higher education has increased over the last 40?years. This has been justified by various pedagogical arguments. In addition, students themselves prefer to be assessed either by coursework alone or by a mixture of coursework and examinations than by examinations alone. Assessment by coursework alone or by a mixture of coursework and examinations tends to yield higher marks than assessment by examinations alone. The increased adoption of assessment by coursework has contributed to an increase over time in the marks on individual modules and in the proportion of good degrees across entire programmes. Assessment by coursework appears to attenuate the negative effect of class size on student attainment. The difference between coursework marks and examination marks tends to be greater in some disciplines than others, but it appears to be similar in men and women and in students from different ethnic groups. Collusion, plagiarism and personation (especially ‘contract cheating’ through the use of bespoke essays) are potential problems with coursework assessment. Nevertheless, the increased use of assessment by coursework has generally been seen as uncontentious, with only isolated voices expressing concerns regarding possible risks to academic standards.