Tina Ashford

Defining Professional Behavior: A Situational Look at Ethics in the Classrooms and Laboratories of American Colleges and Universities

This paper is designed to help identify specific behaviors that present challenging decisions for faculty in terms of questionable ethical behavior or conflicts of interest and ways to deal with the various situations. The behaviors are divided into five sections: 1) Dishonest or unethical behavior in teaching 2) Dishonest or unethical behavior in research 3) Sexual Harassment 4) Neglect of University-related duties and responsibilities 5) Unauthorized use of University facilities, equipment, materials, data, properties or service. Through the use of scenarios, a guided discussion of the various ethics involved in each scenario will be conducted. The sets will be followed by suggested ideas that may guide the practice of faculty professionals, as well as those behaviors that would constitute misconduct.

Measuring Learner’s Subject Specific Knowledge

This was the second phase in a research project designed to compare student achievement in online and face-to-face classes. The aim of this phase was to determine if online and face-to-face students demonstrate different levels of knowledge in six distinct subject areas. For each of the six areas the means for 10 sections of students, collected over a five-year period, were plotted to visually review the results. Following the visual check, a two-sample t-test between proportions, assuming unequal variances, was performed to determine whether there was a significant difference between the samples with respect to the level of assessment scores earned. There was not a significant difference in the means of the online and face-to-face students. However two subjects warrant additional research: first is production where there was a significant difference at the .10 critical alpha level (p=0.085) and second is finance where the means were close to being significant at the .10 critical alpha level (p=0.104).