Academic Integrity and Senior Nursing Undergraduate Clinical Practice

Background: Academic integrity (AI) has been defined as the commitment to the values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility with courage in all academic endeavours. The senior years of nursing studies provide an intersection for students to transition to professional roles through student clinical practice. It is essential to understand what predicts senior nursing students’ intention to behave with AI so that efforts can be directed to initiatives focused on strengthening their commitment to behaving with AI. Research Questions: To what extent do students differ on Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) variables? What predicts intention to behave with academic integrity among senior nursing students in clinical practice across three different Canadian Schools of Nursing? Method: The TPB framework, an elicitation (n=30) and two pilot studies (n=59, n=29) resulted in the development of a 38 question (41-item) self-report survey (Miron Academic Integrity Nursing Survey—MAINS: α>0.70) that was administered to Year 3 and 4 students (N=339). Three predictor variables (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control) were measured with students’ intention to behave with AI in clinical. Age, sex, year of study, program stream, students’ understanding of AI policies, and locations where students accessed AI information were also measured. Results: Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that background, site, and TPB variables explained 32.6% of the variance in intention to behave with academic integrity. The TPB variables explained 26.8% of the variance in intention after controlling for background and site variables. In the final model, only the TPB predictor variables were statistically significant with Attitude having the highest beta value (beta=0.35, p<0.001), followed by Subjective Norm (beta=0.21, p<0.001) and Perceived Behavioural Control (beta=0.12, p<0.02). Conclusion: Student attitude is the strongest predictor to intention to behave with AI in clinical practice and efforts to positively influence students’ attitudes need to be a focus for schools, curricula, and clinical educators. Opportunities for future research should include replicating the current study with students enrolled in other professional programs and intervention studies that examine the effectiveness of specific endeavours to promote AI in practice.

From Where Do We Teach? Potential Positions in Public Education

This thesis is a conceptual examination of the positions from which we teach in public education. As it is philosophical in nature, it takes no qualitative or quantitative data. It offers a review of selected relevant literature and an analysis of personal and professional experience, with the intent to pose critical questions about teaching and learning. The framework of this thesis represents the following contentions: First, from its inception, public schooling served capital by preparing skilled labour for emerging industrial markets. This history is the hegemonic shadow that hangs over public education today. Second, movements toward the standardization of funding, curriculum, and evaluation support the further commodification of public schooling. The “accountability” that standardization offers, the “back to basics” that it aims for, is counter to the potential that public education might critically inform citizens and seek social justice. Third, movements toward the privatization of public schooling under the guise of “choice” and “mobility”, brought on by manufactured crisis, serve only to widen socio-economic inequities as capitalist neoliberal interests seek profit in both the product of public schools and in schooling itself. If we recognize and understand the power of public education to inform vast numbers of citizens who will, in turn, either maintain or reform society, we must ask: What do we want public education to be? What are the effects of continuing down historically conventional and increasingly standardized paths? What do progressive pedagogies offer? How might teachers destandardize their pedagogy and pursue equitable opportunities for marginalized students? How might students name themselves and their world, that they might play a part in its reimagining? For whom do we teach, and under what conditions? From where do we teach, and why? For educators to ask these questions, and to employ what they discover, will necessitate taking substantial risks. It will necessitate taking a stand and cannot be done alone. Teachers must seek out the collaboration of their students. They must offer students the time and the space to find their own voices, to create their own selves, and to envision previously uncharted paths on which we might walk together.

An exploration of students’ perceptions and attitudes towards creativity in engineering education

This study used a mixed methods approach to develop a broad and deep understanding of students’ perceptions towards creativity in engineering education. Studies have shown that students’ attitudes can have an impact on their motivation to engage in creative behavior. Using an ex-post facto independent factorial design, attitudes of value towards creativity, time for creativity, and creativity stereotypes were measured and compared across gender, year of study, engineering discipline, preference for open-ended problem solving, and confidence in creative abilities. Participants were undergraduate engineering students at Queen’s University from all years of study. A qualitative phenomenological methodology was adopted to study students’ understandings and experiences with engineering creativity. Eleven students participated in oneon- one interviews that provided depth and insight into how students experience and define engineering creativity, and the survey included open-ended items developed using the 10 Maxims of Creativity in Education as a guiding framework. The findings from the survey suggested that students had high value for creativity, however students in fourth year or higher had less value than those in other years. Those with preference for open-ended problem solving and high confidence valued creative more than their counterparts. Students who preferred open-ended problem solving and students with high confidence reported that time was less of a hindrance to their creativity. Males identified more with creativity stereotypes than females, however overall they were both low. Open-ended survey and interview results indicated that students felt they experienced creativity in engineering design activities. Engineering creativity definitions had two elements: creative action and creative characteristic. Creative actions were associated with designing, and creative characteristics were predominantly associated with novelty. Other barriers that emerged from the qualitative analysis were lack of opportunity, lack of assessment, and discomfort with creativity. It was concluded that a universal definition is required to establish clear and aligned understandings of engineering creativity. Instructors may want to consider demonstrating value by assessing creativity and establishing clear criteria in design projects. It is recommended that students be given more opportunities for practice through design activities and that they be introduced to design and creative thinking concepts early in their engineering education.