Minnesota State University Moorhead RED: a Repository of Digital Collections Dissertations, Theses, and Projects Graduate Studies Spring 5-15-2020 Uncertainty in Academia: A Mixed Methods Study Identifying How Value Statements on Plagiarism Correlate with Plagiarism Reporting Behaviors of Undergraduate Faculty in a Distance Education Program Laurie Kay Larson laurie.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://red.edu/thesis Part of the Higher Education Administration Commons, Online and Distance Education Commons, and the Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons Researchers wishing to request an accessible version of this PDF may complete this form. Recommended Citation Larson, Laurie Kay, "Uncertainty in Academia: A Mixed Methods Study Identifying How Value Statements on Plagiarism Correlate with Plagiarism Reporting Behaviors of Undergraduate Faculty in a Distance Education Program" (2020). Dissertations, Theses, and Projects.edu/thesis/299 This Dissertation (799 registration) is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at RED: a Repository of Digital Collections. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Projects by an authorized administrator of RED: a Repository of Digital Collections.
For more information, please contact RED@mnstate. Uncertainty in Academia: A Mixed Methods Study Identifying How Value Statements on Plagiarism Correlate with Plagiarism Reporting Behaviors of Undergraduate Faculty in a Distance Education Program A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Faculty of Minnesota State University Moorhead By Laurie Kay Larson In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership May 2020 Moorhead, Minnesota ii Copyright © Laurie K. All rights reserved. iii UNCERTAINTY IN ACADEMIA: A MIXED METHODS STUDY IDENTIFYING HOW VALUE STATEMENTS ON PLAGIARISM CORRELATE WITH PLAGIARISM REPORTING BEHAVIORS OF UNDERGRADUATE FACULTY IN A DISTANCE EDUCATION PROGRAM By Laurie K.
Larson has been approved March 16, 2020 APPROVED: Boyd L. Suarez-Sousa, Ph., Committee Member Joy Henrich, Ed., Committee Member Andrew S., Committee Member ACCEPTED AND SIGNED: ______________________________________________ Boyd L. ______________________________________________ Ok-Hee Lee, Ph. Dean, College of Education and Human Services iv DEDICATION For my mom and dad… Consider this a promise kept.
Thank you for wanting more for me than I ever wanted for myself. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES. PLAGIARISM IN DISTANCE EDUCATION. 23 Assumptions and Limitations.
A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE. 30 Student Rationale and Justification of Plagiarism in the Classroom. 37 Faculty Fear of Retaliation. 39 Inconsistent Plagiarism Reporting Processes.
41 Practical Application to Higher Education. 47 Sampling and Recruitment. 60 Plagiarism Questionnaire Design Process. RESULTS OF THE STUDY.
73 Summary of the Study. 95 Summary of the Study. 95 vi Research Questions. 96 Synopsis of Findings.
99 Findings Related to the Literature. 109 Recommendations for Implementation. 109 Opportunities for Continued Research. Plagiarism Questionnaire - Full Research Study.
Plagiarism Questionnaire - Pilot Study. Recruitment Email - Faculty. Informed Consent Letter - Faculty. Recruitment Email - Dean.
Informed Consent Letter - Dean. Content Validity Index Testing. Virtual Focus Group Interview Protocol. Virtual Focus Group Code Book.
149 vii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 3. Content validity index – requirements of agreement for subject matter experts when making decisions relating to retaining an item. Adapted from “A Quantitative Approach to Content Validity,” by C. Lawshe, 1975, Personnel Psychology, 28, p.
Copyright 1975 by Personnel Psychology, Inc. Pearson r results for correlation between value statements on plagiarism and plagiarism reporting behavior. Pearson r results for correlation between plagiarism defined factor and plagiarism reporting behavior. Virtual focus group themes and secondary codes.
93 viii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1. Definition of terms .1 Extraneous variables and the minimization of potential effects .1 Eliminated value statement of plagiarism questions and their impact on each value statement factor .2 Virtual focus group participant demographics. Qualitative support for from the virtual focus group participants .4 Typical, high, and low ranges for statistical mean scores from demographic variables compared to faculty plagiarism reporting behavior. Demographic statistics and mean scores related to faculty plagiarism reporting behavior.
Qualitative support derived from the virtual focus group participants. 91 ix NOMENCLATURE APA American Psychological Association SPSS 26 Statistical Package for the Social Sciences – Version 26 SME(s) Subject Matter Expert(s) LMS Learning Management System CVR Content Validity Ration Pearson r Pearson Product-Moment Coefficient IV Independent Variable DV Dependent Variable IRB Institutional Review Board x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It has been said that it takes a village to raise a child, so it should be no surprise that it takes a similar village to support a doctoral candidate through the dissertation process. Boyd Bradbury: thank you for including me in this initial cohort. I have greatly appreciated your continued guidance and candid feedback.
Ximena Suarez-Sousa: your knowledge of SPSS, statistics, and quantitative analysis was critical to my success – as was your never-ending patience. Joy Henrich: thank you for believing in me even when I did not. Your doctoral journey inspired mine. Your guidance provided me with an amazing roadmap for the path that I would travel.
Andrew Burklund: my partner in crime, my Perkins breakfast companion and my favorite English teacher. Thank you for taking me on THIS journey with you. To my family – Hy, Kiran, and MacKenzie: thank you for allowing me to follow my dream. I appreciated your understanding when I had to stay home or say no because of the workload I faced.
Your never-ending love and support were the pieces that saw me through the tough times. I could not have done this without the three of you. Additionally, I would like to thank Dr. Caroline Gulbrandsen, Tom LeNeau, and Julie Lawrence, for the contributions that the three of you made to this process.
I will forever be grateful for your kind words, endless encouragement, and practical advice. Finally, to my colleagues in this initial doctoral cohort: This has been an amazing journey, and I could not have wished for better company. “We started together. We finished together!” xi ABSTRACT Plagiarism is a growing concern for colleges and universities around the globe.
Research has shown that an overwhelming majority of college students today have admitted to cheating at some point during their academic career; however, some studies have demonstrated that faculty reporting rates are not mirroring this trend. While many studies detail faculty perceptions on plagiarism, this study focused specifically on faculty plagiarism reporting behaviors at a predominantly online institution. Additionally, this study identified five predetermined value statement factors derived from the available literature and further explored how those factors influenced and/or impeded faculty decisions to report a plagiarism violation. For this study, a pragmatic mixed methods approach was chosen to better define both the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ within this project.
The study consisted of 101 faculty participants and nine Academic Deans from a predominantly online private college who were recruited to participate in a questionnaire (faculty) and virtual focus group (deans) that provided feedback and perspective into faculty reporting behavior. This perspective also created valuable insight into the institutional reporting tools and processes that existed at the institution under study and how they could be streamlined for a more effective and efficient faculty experience. PLAGIARISM IN DISTANCE EDUCATION To report or not to report, that is the question. Plagiarism is a growing concern on college campuses and universities around the globe.
Auer and Krupar (2001) noted that “the proliferation of paper mills, full-text databases, and World Wide Web pages has made plagiarism a rapidly growing problem in academia (as cited in Ison, 2014, p. Robinson & Glanzer (2017) explained that while more than two-thirds of college students today have participated in some form of cheating during their academic career, studies showed that faculty reporting rates were not aligned to those statistics. There are those in academia who believe that “faculty members have a responsibility to prevent cheating and faculty who ‘allow’ dishonesty are morally responsible for it” (Burrus, Jones, Sackley, & Walker, 2015, p. If this is true, one might need to consider how this impacts student success.
Hard, Conway, and Moran (2006) stated that “Reducing misconduct requires understanding the factors influencing the behaviors of each of the two parties most closely involved: the students, whose behavior determines whether and how often misconduct occurs, and the faculty, whose behavior can potentially deter misconduct” (p. Students develop their perceptions of academic integrity based on the behaviors and attitudes of the instructors in their classrooms (Robinson & Glanzer, 2017). Additionally, when faculty do not address plagiarism in their courses and fail to report the violations that they have witnessed, students are left to assume that plagiarism is not a concern (Robinson & Glanzer, 2017). This failure to respond leads many to question whether a faculty’s inability to enforce student accountability may impact student assumptions and behaviors.
Whitley and Keith-Spiegel (2002) prefaced that this inability for faculty to pull the proverbial trigger may be inadvertently creating a “pro-cheating” 13 environment. Plagiarism quickly presented itself as not only a widespread concern, but as an impetus for change. Additionally, there was a level of hesitation on the part of faculty to report a plagiarism violation that the researcher did not understand. Perhaps faculty were acutely aware of how the said violation impacted the student’s academic future.
Others might be more hesitant because they simply were not sure what instances to cite, or what level of punitive consequence might be appropriate to apply. While the variables fluctuated as this project took shape, the primary research focus remained constant; to determine how the perceived performance roles and expectations of faculty impacted the plagiarism reporting process within a distance education program. Plagiarism is not a new phenomenon; however, the nontraditional approach of studying the behavior of faculty reporting at a predominately online institution fulfilled a niche not only in distance education but academia as a whole. This study was incredibly important to the researcher on a professional level.
In her role as an Academic Dean, and as a member of her institution’s Academic Integrity Committee, she worked with plagiarism cases daily. All too often, she was faced with students in their final quarter before graduation being cited for plagiarism violations. The challenge that the researcher faced related directly to the faculty who taught for the institution. While in most instances, the student was indeed in violation of the institution’s Academic Integrity Policy, rarely had a previous instructor made note of the student’s inability to utilize proper citation methods and student voice.
It was important to understand why students were getting to this point of no return with no previous coaching or mentoring on plagiarism from a faculty member. Conversations with faculty and experience derived 14 from the researcher’s role on the Academic Integrity Committee helped to fill in the blanks. Time was of the essence. Faculty are asked to do more with less – heavy workloads, large class sizes, and research and committee expectations.
Faculty members employed at the institution under study were no different. These were individuals teaching non-traditional students who often required a high level of remediation in English and Math. A large portion of these students had English as a second language. Faculty often mentioned to the researcher how cumbersome and time consuming the plagiarism reporting process was on top of their other responsibilities.
While faculty understood that the burden of proof fell on their shoulders, plagiarism investigations took time; time they didn’t have. Additionally, there were challenges with the tools available for them to identify plagiarism. While the college did provide complementary access to Grammarly for all faculty and students, this merely provided the source citation for the work, not access to the citation itself. In many instances, faculty required membership access to view the complete citation.
While faculty were aware of these websites that specialized in plagiarism detection, many came at a personal financial cost; one that most faculty members were not willing to subsidize.