Academic Rigor and Integrity - Term Paper Example

?Quiz – Ridley et al: online education: a study of academic rigor and integrity The researchers of this particular research sought the opportunity touse their medium to critically study the rigorousness and level of integrity that accompanies online educational courses as against offline educational courses. From their perspective, online educational courses included those academic courses offered by educational institutions exclusively through the internet without any personal interactions with tutors. Offline education also constituted those forms of education where learners have a physical interaction with tutors. Rigor was studied as how effective and serious learners and teachers alike took the courses that were offered. Integrity was also studied by virtue of how sincere learners were with their exercises and assignments. This was judged by the rate at which learners presented works that belonged to them for academic scores. The study area also covered how sincere tutors were with the grading of students. The area of study therefore had four major variables, which were divided into two with two variables constituting each set. The first set of area of study (variables) was rigor and integrity of studies. The second set of area of study (variables) was online and offline education. It is already known that as the use of technology continues to abound, more and more innovative steps to make ample use of the system continues to arise. One of the major moves is the move to utilize technology to proportionate educational opportunities to all people. Knowing that academic facilities cannot accommodate all people who seek to be educated at various levels of the educational ladder, efforts have been made to create a new form of education through online learning. Questions have however continues to rage as to whether or not online education could be considered as reliable and with any academic integrity. There have also been questions as to whether or not students and teachers attend to this system of education with rigorousness. It is indeed already known that online education comes with features that does not make very possible for the tutor to track the activeness of the student towards learning. Also with offline learning, it is also known that apart from quizzes that are taken in class, there are higher tendencies that the honesty of assignments and other take-home projects cannot be monitored closely. Knowing that there could lapses with both forms of education and knowing it would be extremely difficult to determine which form of education is attended to more rigorously and with much integrity from a distance, the researchers set themselves out to use primary data collection methods to find answers to their questions. The experiment involved the collection of data from students who undertakes both forms of education; thus online and offline education. It is noted that “the authors tested the hypothesis of grade inflation and related issues when comparing online and offline courses” (Snell and Mekies, 1999). The researchers used data collection instruments such as questionnaire, interviews and comparison of various tests to assertion the validity of the hypothesis. What was expected to be learnt was whether students undertaking both forms of education really presented works that were their own and if not, the level of dishonesty that existed among the two forms of education. The study also sought to learn about how active students and tutors were towards their education in both forms of educational setting. DEFINITIONS A. The practice of taking a critical look at an event or an occurrence for the sake of recording relevant data. Example, “An observation was carried on the students on how they responded to questions during the class lessons.” D. A type of research that involves the representation of a wider population with a smaller group known as the sample size. Example, “The researcher states that 30% of members in the community are alcoholics not because he interviewed all 3000 members of the community but had a survey research among them.” E. This is a type of study whereby events are studied over a specified period of time. Example, “In the researcher’s cross-sectional study, he looked into the case of academic dishonesty in the school over the last three semesters.” F. This is an assumption based on which a researcher may gather data to disprove or authenticate. Example, “It was only at the end of the research that the researcher found that the hypothesis he set was not valid.” G. These are factors that have a direct bearing on the independent and dependent variables. These bearings may be either positive or negative. Example, “The researcher used an experimental research design to account for confound that were not immediately known at the beginning of the research.” I. This is basically the distribution of data collected in no specialized category and with no order or structure. Example, “An identity that arranged respondents in a normal scale was used by the researcher in distinguishing the various participants.” K. This is the group set aside by the researcher for an exposure to the variables outlined. Example, “At the end of the research, it was found that the experimental group had reduced weight by at least 2kg each.” L. This is the employment of chance in a selection process of any kind. Example, “In order to ensure fairness in the selection of participants, the researcher used a random assignment selection technique.” M. This is the group who does not receive the researcher’s intervention and thus are compared to the experimental group for differences in results. Example, “The weight of the control group increased when they did not stick to the food diary.” N. This is a strategy for ensuring that carryover effects that have the potential of affecting subjects are avoided. Example, “The researcher used between subject design to ensure independence of the research designs and subjects selected.” SHORT ESSAYS C. The role of the control group in any given experiment or research is very crucial. This is especially so if there is the assignment of an intervention. Intervention as used here refers to the setting up of an empirical solution to a problem. By and large, the researcher has to have a means of testing whether or not the intervention was appropriate, whether it worked or whether it yielded any results. Because the control group and the experimental group always have the same variables at the beginning of the experiment, the presence of the control group is very important in determining if there were any changes in variables in experimental group. It is for this reason that it is important that there must be control group. D. Main effect is commonly used when referring to factorial design, whereby the overall or general effect that one independent variable has is considered as the main effect. This means that in a situation where there exist two major independent variables such as time and duration, only the overall effect of one of the variables taken independently shall count as the main effect. On the other hand, an interaction is also an effect but in this case instead of referring to the effect of one independent variable, we refer to the effect of one variable as it is dependent on the impact of the other level. In the same example with age and duration, the effect of age must be influenced by duration to talk of interaction. E. Antecedent conditions are special forms or types of variables that are used by researchers ahead of major experimentations to influence results in a more positive manner. An example can be given as a teacher who motivates his class by means of giving tokens to students who are able to answer questions based on previous lessons. Such an antecedent condition would help students take the day’s lessons serious, knowing they might be rewarded for a recall in their next lesson. REFERENCE LIST Snell J. and Mekies S. (1999). Online Education and Academic Rigor: A Research Note - Brief Article. Accessed April 10, 2012 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCG/is_3_26/ai_62980763/ Read More