Carol F. Shoptaugh

Reasons Not to Cheat, Academic-Integrity Responsibility, and Frequency of Cheating

The authors investigated the relations among reasons students gave for why they would not cheat in response to a cheating vignette, self-reported cheating, and the extent to which students take responsibility for promoting academic integrity. The authors surveyed 1,086 graduate and undergraduate students. Students who said they would not cheat because of punitive consequences were more likely to report that they cheated in classes and took less responsibility for promoting academic integrity. Students whose reasons related to the value of learning, personal character, and/or it being simply not right reported less cheating and took more responsibility for academic integrity. Academic-integrity responsibility correlated with less cheating. Results are discussed in terms of the effectiveness of punishment and the significance of internalizing integrity standards.

The Role of a Vivid and Challenging Personal Vision in Goal Hierarchies

ABSTRACT This study examines personal vision and its role in human motivation. It examines the concept of personal vision within goal hierarchies, describes the elements that constitute goal hierarchies, and examines the effect of students’ compelling personal vision on the quality of proximal goals. Asking participants to describe their expected or compelling personal vision did not influence the difficulty and vividness of such vision. Instead, individual differences overrode the manipulations with some students conceptualizing a more challenging and vivid personal vision compared with others. Students who naturally set a challenging and vivid personal vision also set more difficult and specific college goals. Students who conceptualized a vivid personal vision were more committed to their semester goals.

When Sending Flowers Is Not Enough: The Eldercare Dilemma in the Workplace

This chapter examines issues associated with eldercare responsibilities for working caregivers and organizations. Eldercare programs and benefits are explored from caregiver and organizational perspectives. Attitudes concerning the benefits and costs of eldercare programs are also examined. Finally, eldercare programs and benefits are examined through the ethical prism of justice. As organizations respond to the needs of employees with eldercare responsibilities, they will face dilemmas related to the fairness of their policies and benefits across all levels of employment.

RISKTAKING AND DRIVER BEHAVIORS: A LABORATORY STUDY

A number of variables have been implicated as predictors of actual risky driving behaviors. However, due to differing methodologies, the literature shows few consistent findings. The current study is an attempt to establish a more complete understanding of the relationship between risk related characteristics and actual risktaking decisions. It was predicted that individuals who had a greater propensity for taking risks would also be more prone to making risky decisions in a simulated driving task. Sixty subjects (30 male, 30 female) were selected based on their Kogan and Wallach Choice Dilemma risktaking scores (15 high and 15 low risktakers in each gender group). Subjects participated in two 1 1/2 hour experimental sessions. Session one was a video tape risk choice session and session two, a battery of demographic, driving and risktaking characteristic questionnaires were given. The most significant finding in this study involved the misuse of speed and distance in making turn decisions. All subjects adopted a safer criterion than the normative model for left turn gap distances, but for right turn merging gaps high risktaking subjects perceived significantly more gaps as safe than did low risktaking subjects. Further, as speed increased from 30mph to 55mph all subjects believed more gaps to be safe for right turn merging. This miscalculation could result in a rear end accident. Most demographic, driver and risktaking measures failed to correlated significantly with risky decision making. Only the Choice Dilemma and the Pelz-Schuman Impulsivity questionnaire correlated with each other and the risky driver decisions.

Redesigning a Large Enrollment Course: The Impact on Academic Performance, Course Completion and Student Perceptions in Introductory Psychology.

Increasing college enrollments, and decreased funding have led institutions and instructors to focus on developing courses that can be taught effectively in a large class format. This article presents the effectiveness of a redesigned, blended format of Introductory Psychology taught in large sections. The goals of the project included improving academic performance and student engagement through the use of empirically supported pedagogical methods, increasing course completion rates, reducing course drift, and reducing instructional costs. Student data from traditional sections taught in fall 2011 (n = 284) were compared to data obtained from students in redesigned sections in fall 2012 (n = 1340). Results indicated significant increases in academic performance in the redesigned course compared to the traditional sections. Performance with online course materials predicted overall exam performance and all pedagogical enhancements were, on average, perceived by students as effective. While course completion rates initially remained unchanged, there was greater consistency across sections and a substantial reduction in instructional costs. Implications of these results are discussed and suggestions for other institutions interested in redesigning large courses are presented.

Transforming Introductory Psychology: a systematic approach to course redesign

Higher education is faced with the daunting task of serving greater numbers of students and improving student outcomes while facing declining resources. This combination of factors has created an environment predisposed to course transformation/redesign. Facing course redesign can be puzzling, intimidating, and overwhelming. The purpose of the current article is to break down barriers and demystify the process of course redesign. Issues that lead to course redesign, including high DFW (grade of D/F or Withdrawal) rates, poor learning outcomes, course drift, and grade inflation, are explored. A systematic approach to course redesign is presented, including the early stages of garnering support through the process of developing an effective evaluation strategy. The ‘whole course’ redesign approach used for a large enrolment, general education Introductory Psychology course at a large Midwestern US university is used as a case study to demonstrate the process, issues, and challenges. Specific redesign plans and suggestions for institutions considering the process are discussed. In addition, data are presented regarding the faculty teams satisfaction with the redesign process as well as perceptions of the course from the undergraduate learning assistants.

Helping When They Are Listening: A Midterm Study Skills Intervention for Introductory Psychology

This study examined the effectiveness of a study skills training session offered at midterm to students enrolled in a large section of Introductory Psychology. In the training session, students watched a series of five, short videos on effective learning and answered related clicker questions that encouraged them to reflect their own study strategies and beliefs about learning. Students across all levels of course performance rated the training as helpful and effective. Although there were no differences in subsequent study time and metacognitive skills between students who attended the training and those who did not, students who attended the training gained insight into some of the limitations of their own past study strategies. Additionally, although students who chose to attend the training had lower scores on exams taken prior to training, the difference between those groups disappeared for exams that followed training. Embedding study skills training into an existing course at a point in the semester when students are highly motivated to change and can meaningfully reflect on their own past course performance appears to be a useful pedagogical strategy for introductory-level students.