A look at student cheating in college science classes

To gain an appreciation of the collusion rate of college students in science classes, over three hundred undergraduates from western Pennsylvania were sampled for their attitudes toward different forms of cheating. The science students were sampled from several different divisions within the university. The survey used in the study was developed by Baird (1980) and holds a reliability coefficient of 89%. The results of the survey indicate that eighty three percent of the respondents had cheated in science sometime in their lives. The vast majority (86%) of the pupils had shared homework answers with classmates and most (81%) had told little lies to teachers or administrators to avoid getting in trouble. Fewer, but still the majority (75%), of the students admitted to have copied phrases directly out of glossaries, encyclopedias, journals or reference books turning it in as their own work. Most students (80%) had also used crib notes or written science terms on their shoes, wrists or other parts of their body to get by minor quizzes at times in their biology course. Over three quarters of the students admitted to cheating on large exams and major projects. When the results of the study are compared to students surveyed with the same instrument a decade ago, it is revealed that the cheating among students is growing. Alarmingly, when the results of the 1993 study were compared to the one in 1980, it was discovered that student collusion had increased in all of the categories in the questionnaire.     

Shaw on Education

For many Americans, citizenship and patriotism are associated with reciting the nation's Pledge of Allegiance. Therefore, this study asks the following questions: What do future teachers think about the concepts embedded in the Pledge, and what are their opinions on the usefulness of the Pledge in schools, as well as society in general? Results indicated that future or preservice teachers believed the loyalty and patriotic aspects of the Pledge to be useful for K–12 students, but did not find a personal value in their own recitation of the Pledge.     

Family disruption and academic functioning in urban,black youth

The purpose of this study was to examine from an ecological perspective the relationships between multiple levels of family disruption and children's academic functioning in a sample of 390 urban, Black adolescents at age 14. Subjects in this cohort have been followed longitudinally since before their birth. Data from previous assessments at birth and age 7 years allowed for control of important correlates in this analyses. Examination of this unique sample, using multisource data collection procedures, provides important information about the many family disruptions among urban, low‐income families and the effects of these disruptions on academic outcomes. Results revealed several consistent findings, the most notable of which is that, when parents were married, adolescents demonstrated significantly higher grades, mediated through paternal involvement. Of all variables studied, the role of fathers in the lives of these adolescents was the most influential on academic outcomes. In this unique sample, even variables such as involvement with child protective services were not significantly related to outcomes after important control variables were factored into analyses. Results of this study have important implications for future research and for prevention and intervention efforts in urban, at‐risk samples. Emphasis is made for work in the school context, particularly for school psychologists. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.