An Ohio State press release discusses how a student’s psychological profile correlates to academic integrity. An interesting study in rhetoric, focusing on promoting a cultural identity for the “academic heroes” who do honest work, rather than hunting and trapping those whose behavior is less exemplary:
The students completed measures that examined their bravery, honesty
and empathy. The researchers separated those who scored in the top
half of those measures and contrasted them with those in the bottom
half.Those who scored in the top half – whom the
researchers called “academic heroes” – were less likely to have
reported cheating in the past 30 days and the last year compared to the
non-heroes. They also indicated they would be less likely to cheat in
the next 30 days in one of their classes.
Susan, I think part of the background is that anti-drinking messages work when they focus on giving non-drinkers a positive identity — the “designated driver” makes a conscious choice not to drink, but still has a role to play in the life of the party, while the “teetolaer” or “wet blanket” is isolated by a label that defines him or her as “not a drinker”. I agree the language is a bit patronizing, and I wouldn’t use it myself but just last night I revised my syllabus section on plagiarism so that it assumes that students have academic integrity, and that their job as a scholar is to act in a way to preserve that integrity.
That phrasing differs from “You will be punished even if you claim your transgression was an accident, or if you claim you didn’t know what you were doing” — which creates a rhetorical environment in which my job is to catch you doing the naughty things I know you’re going to try to get away with. Although I don’t think I’ll use the “hero” language, it did make me think about how to approach this angle from the angle of preserving a good, rather than punishing an evil.
By the way, I removed from this thread an off-topic SEO link. Bless you blog-commenting heroes who keep your posts on topic and don’t clutter up our shared spaces on the net with unrelated advertisements.
Psychological profiling to establish a correlation to academic integrity seems like a bit of a stretch to me. But it’s interesting news none-the-less.
I’d be more interested to see how a ‘culture’ of non-competitiveness and innovation could be fostered. And hopefully, remove much of the perceived ‘need’ for cheating. Probably too idealistic though.
Academic heroes? Boy, times have changed when doing the right thing is considered above and beyond the standard. If I don’t steal or lie or murder somebody, am I then a hero? Why not instead call the plagiarist a cheat and kick him out for doing so? Would the answer be that it’s so widespread that the universities would be half empty? In my opinion, if the system hasn’t managed by the college level of education to teach that cheating is wrong, then what good is Algebra or Shakespeare?