scholarly journals Academic integrity and the implementation of the honour code in the clinical training of undergraduate dental students

Author(s):  
Vidya Raman ◽  
Shaun Ramlogan

Abstract Educational pressures such as challenging workload, demanding deadlines and competitiveness among undergraduate dental students erode academic integrity in clinical training. The implementation of honour codes have been associated with the reduction in academic dishonesty. An action research was undertaken to investigate and foster academic integrity through creative pedagogical strategies and the implementation of an honour code within the undergraduate dental programme. Students reported the honour code as relevant (86.3%) and it encouraged (> 92%) the five investigated fundamental values of academic integrity (International Centre of Academic Integrity). The students also favoured (86.3%) the annual implementation of the honour code. The creative pedagogical strategy facilitated a change in perception on academic integrity in the clinical scenarios sessions. Most students (85.7%) showed changes in perception of academic integrity. The majority of students’ narratives/responses were positive and the emerging subthemes also espoused the five out of the six ICAI fundamental values of academic integrity. Students indicated the need for inclusion of academic integrity education within the curriculum. They felt that staff also should be guided by an academic integrity policy. Implementation of an honour code coupled with creative pedagogical strategies helped to foster understanding and appreciation for academic integrity. Conversely the honour code implementation was more effective due to the use of supportive creative pedagogical strategies on academic integrity. It is still undetermined whether these change in perception impacted on clinical practice during training and post-graduation.

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Viveca Lindberg ◽  
Sofia Louca Jounger ◽  
Maria Christidis ◽  
Nikolaos Christidis

Abstract Background The transition from upper secondary to higher education and from higher education to professional practice requires that students adapt to new literacy practices, academic and professional. However, there is a gap of knowledge regarding literacy practices in dental education. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify what characterizes dental students’ notetaking and secondarily to determine what dental students express regarding their notetaking. Methods To analyze students’ perspectives about the purposes of notetaking and to examine their written notes in depth, three volunteer students, out of the 24 students that voluntarily and anonymously handed in their notes, were interviewed. The three undergraduate dental students that participated in this material-based, semi-structured interview study, framed within a New Literacy Studies approach, were on their third year (6th semester). The focus of these material-based interviews was on each student’s notes. Questions prepared for semi-structured interviews were open-ended and allowed for individual follow-up questions related to the interviewee’s answer. To analyze the outcome of the interviews a thematic analysis was used. Results From the material-based interviews eight themes that relate to what, how and for what purpose students write were discerned. These eight themes include professional vocabulary, core content as well as clinical examples that belong to what students read and write; multimodal accentuation as well as synthesis that belong to how students read and write; and mnemonic strategies, academic purposes, and professional purposes that belong to for what purpose students read and write. Conclusions Findings from the interviews indicate that the digital development, offering a variety of available tools, has expanded the notion of notetaking. This study identified that dental students’ notetaking has changed during their education from initially being synchronous, to also include multimodal and asynchronous writing, making notetaking more of a writing practice. Further, students’ writing practices seem to be motivated by their knowledge formation in relation to a subject matter, but also in relation to their experiences during clinical training. Although, our hypothesis was that the main purpose of notetaking and writing was to pass their course examinations, this study showed that students that were half-way through their dental education, are aware that literacy practices are for learning for their future profession, and not only for passing their exams.


2021 ◽  
pp. 104687812110082
Author(s):  
Omamah Almousa ◽  
Ruby Zhang ◽  
Meghan Dimma ◽  
Jieming Yao ◽  
Arden Allen ◽  
...  

Objective. Although simulation-based medical education is fundamental for acquisition and maintenance of knowledge and skills; simulators are often located in urban centers and they are not easily accessible due to cost, time, and geographic constraints. Our objective is to develop a proof-of-concept innovative prototype using virtual reality (VR) technology for clinical tele simulation training to facilitate access and global academic collaborations. Methodology. Our project is a VR-based system using Oculus Quest as a standalone, portable, and wireless head-mounted device, along with a digital platform to deliver immersive clinical simulation sessions. Instructor’s control panel (ICP) application is designed to create VR-clinical scenarios remotely, live-stream sessions, communicate with learners and control VR-clinical training in real-time. Results. The Virtual Clinical Simulation (VCS) system offers realistic clinical training in virtual space that mimics hospital environments. Those VR clinical scenarios are customizable to suit the need, with high-fidelity lifelike characters designed to deliver interactive and immersive learning experience. The real-time connection and live-stream between ICP and VR-training system enables interactive academic learning and facilitates access to tele simulation training. Conclusions. VCS system provides innovative solutions to major challenges associated with conventional simulation training such as access, cost, personnel, and curriculum. VCS facilitates the delivery of academic and interactive clinical training that is similar to real-life settings. Tele-clinical simulation systems like VCS facilitate necessary academic-community partnerships, as well as global education network between resource-rich and low-income countries.


2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 1255-1265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Augusto Thiene Leme ◽  
Antônio Carlos Pereira ◽  
Marcelo de Castro Meneghim ◽  
Fábio Luiz Mialhe

Supervised training periods in primary care have been used as spaces for teaching and extension in the area of health, making it feasible to include undergraduates in concrete teaching-learning scenarios. The aim of this study was to analyze the perceptions of dental students about the importance of supervised training periods in Family Health Units to their professional education. The sample consisted of 185 students who answered the question: What is your opinion about the importance of this training period in SUS to your professional education? Comment on this experience and its positive and negative aspects The responses were analyzed by the quali-quantitative Collective Subject Discourse (CSD) technique. The students appreciated learning through practice in the service; contact with professionals from other areas; opportunity for technical-operative improvement and demonstrated sensitivity in the face of social reality, although they appeared to be concerned about being absent from the faculty, arguing that they were being prejudiced as regards their intramural clinical productivity, exhaustively demanded of them. It was concluded that students placed value on the extramural experience, however, it was perceived that there was still a predominant influence of focus on intramural clinical training.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne H. Verhoef ◽  
Yolandi M. Coetser

Background: This article examines the phenomenon of academic integrity during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, with particular reference to emergency online assessments in 2020.Aim: It explores academic dishonesty, cheating and plagiarism of university students during emergency remote online assessment, from the perspective of South African students.Setting and Methodology: The authors explore the approaches of different universities worldwide, as well as the extant literature on the topic. An examination of the current literature related explicitly to the COVID-19 online assessments reveals a dearth of engagement by researchers in the South African context. In order to address this lacuna, the authors rely on data generated from an institutional forum on academic dishonesty at a University in South Africa. It focuses specifically on the voices of students presented during the forum, which explained both why students are dishonest and ways to curb dishonesty.Results and Conclusion: The data generated show whilst some students were dishonest due to pandemic-related issues (like lack of monitoring), there are also other reasons, such as lack of time management, feeling overwhelmed and stressed and struggling with technology that contributes to student dishonesty. Students suggest that assessments be approached differently online to curb academic dishonesty. The paper concludes by providing some fundamental changes needed to address academic dishonesty.


Author(s):  
Joan Lynch ◽  
Yenna Salamonson ◽  
Paul Glew ◽  
Lucie M. Ramjan

AbstractIn nursing, expectations of honesty and integrity are clearly stipulated throughout professional standards and codes of conduct, thus the concept of academic integrity has even more impetus in preparing students for graduate practice. However, a disparity between policy and practice misses the opportunity to instil the principles of academic integrity, and at its core honesty, a pivotal trait in the nursing profession. This study draws upon the experience of the nursing faculty to explore how academic integrity policy of deterrence operate in nursing education.While participants deplored cheating behaviours, they expressed frustration in having to ‘police’ large numbers of students who had little awareness of the academic standards to meet policy requirements. In addition, they were cynical because of a perceived lack of severity in sanctions for students who repeatedly breached integrity. Participants expressed a moral obligation as educators to meet student learning needs and preferred to engage with students in a more meaningful way to uphold academic integrity. The ambivalence to detect and report breaches in integrity undermines the effectiveness of policy. Therefore, faculty must recognise the importance of their role in detecting and escalating cases of dishonesty and execute deterrence in a more consistent way. To do this, greater support at an institutional level, such as smaller class sizes, inclusion in decision making around sanctions and recognition of additional workload, will enable faculty to uphold policy. Although policing was not their preferred approach, the role of faculty in detecting and reporting cases of misconduct is crucial to increase the certainty of students getting caught, which is essential if policy is to be effective in deterring dishonest behaviour.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 205
Author(s):  
Syamsul Bahri ◽  
Ika Kana Trisnawati

This study aimed to investigate the student perceptions of plagiarism and the reasons that led to plagiarism in the students’ assignments. The population of the study included the students of English Education Department at UIN Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh, with 166 students randomly selected as the sample. Questionnaire was used as the instrument for collecting data. The data were then analyzed with the SPSS in order to obtain their descriptive statistics. The results of the study showed that there were various students’ perceptions about the notion of plagiarism and the underlying reasons for their plagiarism. It was generally understood that plagiarism wa the use of words/ideas of others recognized as one’s own. Further, the major causes of plagiarism in the assignments were due to lack of English language skills and lack of time management. In addition, the behaviors of lecturers and the university involvement in socializing the concept of plagiarism also became the causes for the higher proportion of academic dishonesty among the students. These findings are expected to be the input for the creation of campus policy so that academic integrity and better lecture system can be achieved in any university.


Author(s):  
Angela Clark ◽  
Jamie Goodfellow ◽  
Sandra Shoufani

This paper describes a comprehensive review of academic integrity across course-level learning outcomes for all courses at one institution. The authors developed a taxonomy based on The International Center for Academic Integrity’s (ICAI) fundamental values of academic integrity to audit course-level learning outcomes for evidence of academic integrity instruction. Approximately 23% of the 3379 courses examined demonstrated a clear component of academic integrity and instruction varied across Faculties and levels of study. The study provides insights into academic integrity instruction and opportunities for academic institutions to better understand, utilize, and integrate academic integrity instruction into their courses and programs.


Author(s):  
Mingsheng Li

Student plagiarism is a pervasive issue at all levels of study in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) around the world. Plagiarism is considered as a cultural phenomenon and students from certain cultures are often stereotyped as ‘persistent plagiarists'. This chapter reports the findings of a research project and examines the issues of academic dishonesty reported by Chinese students in New Zealand universities. Four lecturers and six university graduates participated in the interviews and the focus group discussion. The study has identified seven forms of disguised plagiarism deriving from four interrelated variables: inadequate language proficiency, lack of discipline knowledge and conventions, issues of assessment, and situational variables. The university is morally responsible to teach the students the concept of Academic Integrity (AI) and plagiarism, discipline conventions and rules of games in academic writing, and develop their language, writing, and research skills to help them avoid the traps of plagiarism.


2010 ◽  
pp. 1626-1643
Author(s):  
Peg Wherry ◽  
Deborah Lundberg Windes

This case study outlines problems with student conduct in an online undergraduate program and explains how astudent code was applied to resolve the issues and institute procedures to reduce future incidents of academic dishonesty and incivility. The study describes several instances of student misconduct and explains how online program administrators responded by improving communication with both students and faculty and by modifying course design and development processes as well as instructional practices. It also reports on how other administrators assisted in handling resolution and discipline. While technology itself may both complicate themaintenance of conduct standards and provide new ways to protect academic integrity, this study demonstrates thatthe introduction of technology should not change the rules.


Author(s):  
Peg Wherry ◽  
Deborah Lundberg Windes

This case study outlines problems with student conduct in an online undergraduate program and explains how a student code was applied to resolve the issues and institute procedures to reduce future incidents of academic dishonesty and incivility. The study describes several instances of student misconduct and explains how online program administrators responded by improving communication with both students and faculty and by modifying course design and development processes as well as instructional practices. It also reports on how other administrators assisted in handling resolution and discipline. While technology itself may both complicate the maintenance of conduct standards and provide new ways to protect academic integrity, this study demonstrates that the introduction of technology should not change the rules.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document