High School Students' Perceptions of Their ... - ACS Publications

Research: Science and Education edited by

Chemical Education Research

Diane M. Bunce The Catholic University of America Washington, DC 20064

High School Students’ Perceptions of Their Laboratory Classroom and the Copying of Laboratory Work

Amy J. Phelps Middle Tennessee State University Murfreesboro, TN 37132

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Dawn Del Carlo* Department of Chemistry, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0423; *[email protected] Dana Mazzaro and Shanese Page Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ 07042

The need to address ethics in science has been a common topic within this Journal (1–3). Most papers discuss the development of courses or seminars with possible scenarios and what it means to be an “ethical scientist” (4–11). All have been developed for use in undergraduate (4, 5, 7, 9–11) and graduate (6, 8) curricula, with particular emphasis on the training of future scientists in research. However, there is little focus on how—if at all—this training relates to actions performed within the lab experiments assigned for their classes, a context which will be referred to throughout this paper as the “laboratory classroom” (5, 10, 11). Coppola (5) integrates the laboratory classroom in his ethics class by asking students to generate ethical dilemmas using their classroom experiences as a source of inspiration, whereas, Treichel (11) only presents students with scenarios limited to those of the laboratory classroom. However, there is evidence to suggest that students do not consider scientific research and the laboratory classroom as ethically equivalent events (10, 12). Del Carlo and Bodner (12) examined how undergraduate chemistry majors’ perceptions of academic dishonesty compared between the laboratory classroom and the “real world” experiences many of them had in either a research or industrial setting. Students described few similarities between school and the “real world”. However, several made the distinction within the classroom between fudging data, which was considered inappropriate, and copying information such as pre-lab assignments or post-lab questions, which was done with some frequency. These findings are somewhat dichotomous when compared to Lawson et al.’s (13) findings that show 81.5% of the students in an introductory chemistry class at their institution “manipulated or made up data” sometimes, often, or almost always. Lawson et. al. attribute this high percentage to the prevalence of cookbook, or verification, laboratory exercises where the “right” answer is commonly provided by the experiment and students are rewarded for obtaining it. The authors suggest that replacing verification labs with inquiry-based labs would reduce the manipulation of data because inquiry labs do not provide answers up front. There has been little exploration of academic dishonesty in the high school laboratory classroom. Because it is where our future scientists start, it is an area worth examination. Using observations and interviews of nine Australian high school students in chemistry, physics, and chemical engineer-

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ing, Rigano and Ritchie found students participated in four types of fudging behavior: (i) Making results fit the book, (ii) Checking with classmates, (iii) Excluding anomalous data, and (iv) Making up or stealing results (14). Factors they believe contributed to this behavior included the students’ perception that there was not enough time to complete the experiment, the fact that students already knew the answer, and the requirement of a written report. Rigano and Ritchie further explore these issues with physics students from the study with specific regard to the “cookbook” style experiments used, suggesting in support of Lawson et al., that implementation of open-ended research projects will help prevent data fudging (15). Only recently has academic dishonesty been examined with regard to the unique situation posed by a laboratory classroom, and the literature is limited to either a small number of high school students in Australia, or college-aged science majors who conceivably have a vested interest in the topic. In an effort to gain a more global perspective of issues pertaining to academic dishonesty in the high school chemistry class we sought to understand these two questions: 1. What are high school chemistry students’ perceptions toward their laboratory classrooms? 2. How do those perceptions relate to students’ opinions on copying?

It should be noted here that for the purposes of this study, copying was not defined as cheating or academically dishonest. The intent was not to impose a definition on the students as to where copying fell on the spectrum of morality and see where they were on that spectrum; rather, we wanted to start to understand where students placed copying on their own spectrum. These questions are fairly general since the goal of this study was to gain a basic understanding of high school students’ perceptions, which could then be used to narrow the focus for further study. Even a basic understanding of academic dishonesty from a student’s perspective has pedagogical implications. Methodology and Data Analysis Data were collected using two methods: classroom observations of a local college-prep chemistry class and student survey responses.W Information gathered and questions gen-

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Research: Science and Education

erated from the observations were used to develop surveys, which were then distributed to the students in the observed classroom, as well as to 12 volunteer chemistry teachers outside the observation school (Figure 1). It is uncertain how many surveys were distributed because some teachers made their own photocopies; nonetheless a staggering total of 694 surveys and consent forms were returned—a number much larger than anticipated. The researchers offered no compensation to students for completion of the surveys, however, some participating teachers indicated that they offered extra credit to students who completed the survey, or required students to complete the survey. Analysis of the observation notes resulted in the development of the survey instrument, therefore, results reported here focus on survey answers. Once the responses were transcribed into an electronic form and reviewed, researchers developed categories of answers through comparative analysis (16) and each student response was coded accordingly.1 Categories were then examined for connections among them and compared to the quantified survey answers to formulate the assertions we describe here.

Almost half (45%) of the students said they redo the lab or fix the procedure in order to ultimately obtain the “right answer”. The tenacity of students’ responses is most striking; they continually referred to the “right answer” or getting “the correct results”. The goal here was not to learn a technique or concept, but was instead an exercise in perseverance—doing a lab over “as many times as necessary”—to obtain the one desired result that will get them credit for their lab.3 Another common solution to a problematic lab was to “copy another’s data” (14.8%) or “fudge data” (3.0%): “Ask another lab partner the right answer for it” {230} “Make up answers or copy from someone who has the right answer” {262} “Copy the right answers from someone else” {286} “Copy someone who did it right” {301} “Get the right data and tell the teacher what went wrong” {348} “Ask someone else what was supposed to happen” {71}

Results Completed surveys were returned by 10 of 13 teachers, and students completing the survey categorized the chemistry class in which they were currently enrolled as college-prep chemistry (51.2%), honors chemistry (21.6%), general chemistry (12.5%), AP (advanced placement) chemistry (7.3%), and other (7.5%), representing a wide variety of levels and focus. After analysis of survey responses, assertions were made. The quantity of certain student responses to questions and how their answers correlate across survey questions support these assertions.

Survey of Students’ Perceptions of Chemistry Lab Please answer these questions as thoroughly as possible. 1.

What type of chemistry class are you taking right now? a. b. c. d.

AP chemistry College-prep chemistry General chemistry Other

2.

When doing a lab, what is the most important thing to you? a. Accuracy, how close you get to the correct answer b. How fast you finish c. Other

3.

If something goes wrong while you are doing the procedure, what do you do to make sure you get credit for the lab?

4.

By doing lab experiments, do you think that you get a better understanding of experimental procedures and data analysis? Yes No

5.

After a lab is finished, how much “free time” do you have? a. 5–10 min b. 20–30 min c. More than 30 min

6.

During this time, what do you do? a. Finish written work from the lab b. Finish work from another class c. Talk to other students d. Other

7.

On a scale of 1–5, with 5 being always, how often do you work in a group to answer lab report questions?

“I do the lab as many times as necessary to obtain the correct data” {109}

8.

While working in groups, have you ever copied another group member’s answers? Yes No

“Restart the lab to ensure that the outcome is correct” {131}

9.

What are your feelings toward someone copying off your laboratory work?

10.

What is your favorite thing about chemistry labs?

11.

What is one thing you wish you could change about chemistry labs in general?

First Assertion The most important goal in lab is to get the “right answer”, which is achieved primarily by repeating the experiment or copying or fudging data. When students were asked what they considered most important while performing a lab, 67% of them answered “accuracy, how close you get to the correct answer”. The steps students claim they take to ensure they get credit for a lab exercise that shows unexpected results is evidence of the importance of obtaining this “right answer”. “Redo the lab and ask my teacher for help to ensure that I get it right” {41}2 “I do it again until I get the correct results” {56} “Keep doing it until it goes right” {58} “Start it over and get it right the second time” {89}

“We do it over and over until we get it right” {247} “I would start the lab all over until I get it right so that I can get the full credit” {412} “Stop whatever you were doing, start over, and make sure you get the right answers” {544}

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Figure 1. The survey questions distributed to high school students.


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Research: Science and Education “Ask someone else to get a rough estimate of a correct answer” {117}

The last two students are more subtle in their responses, but nonetheless indicated that they rely on other students’ data to complete the lab exercise. These students did not explicitly state that they copy data, yet their answers indicate that the end result did not come from their own data set. Despite the different method of action from “redo lab/fix the procedure”, the focus of student responses is still on the “right” answer. This drive is so powerful that students turn to repeating the procedure or copying another student’s results to accomplish that goal. Students’ responses showed that although it is not their first response, “copying” is used by a significant percentage of students to earn credit for lab exercises. While it is reassuring to know that copying does not appear as prevalent in this study as prior studies have reported (13–15), responses indicate that copying occurs because of students’ perception of the existence of a “right” answer. However, simply knowing that copying occurs does not offer insight into students’ perceptions and rationale of the issue. Therefore this area was specifically addressed on the survey, leading to the second assertion.

Second Assertion Most students either do not care about copying or have conditions under which copying is an acceptable means of obtaining the “right answer”. When students were asked about their feelings toward someone copying their laboratory work, their answers fell into three categories: 1. “Don’t like it/it’s wrong” (19.6%) 2. “Don’t care/it’s ok” (38.5%) 3. “It depends” (38.2%)

The most striking feature here is that only 20% of the surveyed students felt that copying was wrong, in general. The other 80% were either apathetic or could find certain circumstances under which copying is acceptable. While most students’ answers were succinct, several contained elaborate explanations of their answer. These elaborations allowed for a fine-tuning of the reasons behind why student answers divided as they did. Don’t Like It/It’s Wrong Many of the students who claimed they “didn’t like it” also gave some sort of explanation as to why they did not approve of copying: “Don’t like it, feel like I’m doing all the work just for someone to sit around doing nothing.” {8} “I don’t like it because if I put a lot of time into it, I don’t like how someone takes my work.” {45} “I get upset because I was the one who worked hard to get the answer and someone just copies it.” {144} “I feel that it is very unfair. If you work hard preparing a lab, so should your fellow students. This means no copying.” {196}

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“I feel like the work I did doesn’t count as much. It takes away from the hard work I put into it. It also makes me mad knowing that someone who didn’t try is getting the same grade as me.” {488}

These responses have to do with a student’s ownership of his or her own work. Students who did not approve of copying felt they work hard on their labs and did not like the idea of another student getting credit for this work. Students in this category did not approve of copying because it is unfair, not because it is dishonest or unethical. In other words, students felt it was unfair to bear the burden of doing lab work while their peers reap the benefits. Interestingly, this issue of perceived fairness reappears under the “it depends” category addressed later. Don’t Care/It’s Ok On the other end of the spectrum are the 38.5% of the students who “don’t care” when copying happens in the lab classroom. In most cases, students in this category gave no further explanation, indicating they were simply indifferent. However, two justifications—“helping students” and “hurting him/herself ”—were given by a little over a quarter of the students in this category. The justification that allowing another to copy is “helping students” was used by 17% of the students who stated copying is ok: “It really does not matter to me because if someone does not understand it, I am helping them.” {175} “It’s not bad, it’s helping a fellow student.” {379} “Honestly, I don’t really care and I’d be glad that I would be helping someone with their work.” {384}

These students felt they were doing a service for their classmates by offering answers. Since it is unclear how students define “helping”, this can be interpreted in two ways. First, students already made it clear they believe the goal is to get the “right answer”, consequently offering answers to their fellow classmates can be perceived as “helping” to achieve the goal of getting the “right answer”. Alternatively, as the first quote indicates, some students felt they were helping fellow students to understand the lab by allowing another student to copy. This is in direct opposition to the other justification used by students who “don’t care” and feel the copier is “hurting him/herself ”. Of the students who were indifferent to copying, 10.2% said it did not matter to them because the copier was “hurting him/herself ”: “I really don’t care. They are only hurting themselves.” {504} “It’s their loss because they aren’t learning anything from it.” {522}

This justification, unlike the previous one, seems to demonstrate that some students believe there is something to be learned from performing lab exercises. They believe copying down an answer will not lead to an understanding of the concepts or procedures and that there is more to an experiment than just the “right answer”. Students who used this reason to justify allowing others to copy felt that if a student does not care about the sacrifice to his/her learning by copying, then neither should they. Responses in this category contra-


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dict the reasoning behind responses given in the “helping students” category where help was extended because the copier did not understand the lab. It is quite intriguing that there are two such opposing views on allowing others to copy, and both views held by students who say that it does not matter to them if copying occurs. It Depends Nearly as many students as those who claimed they “didn’t care” about copying said their actions depend on the situation (38%), and gave a variety of examples of when it would be acceptable or not to copy. However, most responses fell into one of three acceptable copying categories: if the copier were a lab partner or group member (30%),4 if the copier contributed in some way (15%), or if the copier “understood” the lab (13%). Students who did not mind allowing group members and partners to copy often did not view this behavior as wrong because the data were gathered as a group. “I do not like when people copy off me unless we’ve worked together as lab partners at which point it wouldn’t really be copying because we discussed everything together.” {88} “I feel that if you were working in a group then it’s ok to copy or use a partner’s answer. For the most part you are obtaining the same data and writing down the same answers.” {91}

“I don’t care as long as that person helps me with the lab.” {427} “Truthfully I do not mind at all, as long as they work with me on other questions that I might have trouble with.” {536} “I don’t mind, as long as they did some work. I will share my answers, but they should show some effort too.”{539} “I don’t mind as long as I know they have done some work with me.” {615}

These students were not against copying, they were against the idea of easy answers. Similar to students who “don’t like” copying, this rationale relates to students’ perception of fairness in the amount of work each student exerts. The difference is that students in the “don’t like it” category never felt the copier contributed, whereas students who claimed “it depends” were willing to see the efforts of their peers as equivalent to their own and allow some copying. This difference seems to stem from the amount of perceived work or ownership of a particular lab exercise. In fact, six students explained that they do not allow other students to copy if they had worked especially hard on that lab themselves: “If it is something easy then I don’t care but if it is something I worked hard at I get annoyed.” {143}

“Cheating is wrong, but when working together copying is ok because you’ve done the same experiment.” {95}

“I don’t mind unless it’s something I really worked hard and long on.”{287}

“If we worked as a group, other members and I should have similar answers, so copying isn’t necessarily bad if the other person missed some observations or other like data.” {261}

“If it is something that took me long to do I would not let them copy.” {637}

“As long as we’re in the same group, we’re doing the same work anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.” {290}

Students whose responses fell into this category viewed copying not as a dishonest behavior but as collaboration amongst their peers. One student’s response above states explicitly, “Cheating is wrong, but…”, indicating that copying between lab partners or group members is not considered equivalent to copying another person’s data with whom they have not worked. The latter is defined by this student as “cheating”, whereas the former is not. This begins to illustrate how students define what is right and wrong within their laboratory classroom. In fact, the student of the first quotation perceives copying as wrong unless it is considered as “working together”. Obviously, one problem that can arise from this type of attitude is the apathy of some group members while others do the bulk of the lab exercise. This issue ultimately points back to the concern of “fairness”, which is illustrated further in the next stipulation. The second-most common condition students put on allowing other students to copy their work is that the copier must have contributed to the work or offered some help in return: “I don’t mind if they’ve done an equal amount of work or if they’ve shared some data with me.” {104}

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This raises the question of why some students feel such ownership for their work as to never allow copying, while some allowed copying as long as they did not have to do a significant amount of work themselves. Student responses imply a relationship between the difficulty of a lab and their willingness to allow copying. Still, in all cases, students were not opposed to copying from the standpoint of honesty; rather, students were concerned about fairness. Finally, some students (13%) claimed they let another copy only if the other person “understood” the lab or how the answers were obtained: “As long as the person completed the lab and understands it, I don’t see a problem.” {116} “I don’t care just as long as they understand why the answer is that.” {217} “As long as they know what they were supposed to do and understand the procedure, I truly don’t mind.” {397} “I don’t mind as long as they understand the concept.” {517}

These students indicated that copying was inherently wrong, while at the same time they appeared to be concerned about how copying would affect their peer’s learning. Similar to the students who “don’t care” about copying because they’re “helping”, these students wanted to help their fellow classmates, although not if it would ultimately harm the other


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DON'T LIKE IT Figure 2. Network view illustrating the connection between the subcategories of the three main feelings students had about copying (shown in uppercase at the top). Note how “not fair” and “as long as they understand” are connected to several subcategories under different feelings, indicating that the same rationale is used to justify very different feelings.

IT DEPENDS

is cause of

not fair

DON'T CARE/IT'S OK

depends on is associated with

is associated with

is cause of

contribute is part of

helping fellow students is associated with

lab partner/ groups as long as they understand

student’s understanding of the material. Unlike the students in the “I don’t care—it’s helping a fellow student” response group, this group appreciated the fact that allowing others to copy is detrimental to the student copiers if they did not already have a grasp of the concepts or lab procedures underlying the exercise. Implications One of the most intriguing aspects of the survey responses is the fact that despite how students felt toward copying, their rationale revolved around two basic themes: fairness and understanding. Figure 2 illustrates how each of the subcategories describing students’ rationales connects between the categories of how they felt overall about copying. Both of these themes have direct implications for teaching. Most responses that involved the issue of fairness also mentioned the amount of work undertaken. Students did not like working hard on a laboratory only to see others get credit for much less work. Accountability is a big issue for these students and can be seen within examples of the “contributes” category. Students want others to be held accountable for their efforts or the lack thereof. If students are working in groups, there is a perception of personal responsibility toward the group to contribute a fair share. It is not clear from the surveys how individual students are graded, yet it is clear that students want to know that their efforts will pay off in the form of grades. This further supports studies on the effect of individual accountability or “reward interdependence” within group work (17) and should be integrated into classrooms where group work is prevalent. The role of understanding is a bit less clear. Copying is justifiable both when the copier does and does not understand the concept at hand, although the actual number of responses is much greater for when understanding is present. Perhaps students believe that if the copier understands, then he or she must have already done some of the work, consequently making it “fair”, and copying becomes justified. However, for those students who do not understand, copying is considered acceptable because it is deemed as being “helpful”. This is directly connected to the students’ perceptions of the goal in lab. Since students seek the “right answer” to

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is associated with

they're hurting themselves

gain credit for their lab, they perceive they are being “helpful” by simply providing the “right answer” for their fellow students. This is supported by the fact that only 13% of participating students claim they note errors in the write-up of their lab as a solution to a problematic lab, showing that most students feel only one correct result is possible when doing the lab and only this result will earn them full credit for their work. The majority of students find one way or another to come up with the “right answer”. While most of them rely on perseverance to achieve their goal (i.e., redoing or fixing the procedure), many take the alternative route of copying or manipulating data. Any other purpose we may have as educators for students performing a lab exercise is overshadowed by the students’ need to “get it right” and earn credit. Consequently, a de-emphasis on this “right” answer and a shift in focus toward processes should curb this perception and type of copying behavior. This suggests that the style of classroom lab (e.g., “cookbook” vs inquiry) is not the only factor to play a role in student perceptions of the goals of lab (13, 15). Instead, because students are focused on obtaining the “right answer” to ensure they get credit for the lab, the style of assessment also plays a large role in shaping student behavior. With the shift in pedagogy toward an inquiry-based learning environment, alternative assessment strategies such as authentic assessment, performance assessment, and portfolios become key in creating an environment that fosters and assesses learning rather than task completion (18). Students focus on what they need to do to earn the grade they want. We as educators need to ensure that nothing short of learning concepts will earn them their grade. Future Work As mentioned earlier, the original focus of this study was intentionally open-ended and broad, asking questions regarding several different aspects of the student lab experience, including feelings toward copying, issues of time management, and student likes and dislikes. Consequently, several questions require further attention. First, details pertaining to the logistics of the individual classrooms, such as the length of the class period, the style


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of laboratory instruction, and what written work was required of the students need to be examined further. It became evident in student responses that some teachers required students to write full formal reports, whereas others required students to simply fill out a data sheet or answer a variety of questions pertaining to the lab (as was done in the observation classroom). These variations conceivably affect the amount of effort students must put forth in a laboratory exercise and also the perception of “fair” copying. Also, in light of students’ solid and widespread belief that full credit in lab is awarded only when the “right” answer is obtained, the assessment of students’ written work must be examined. The second point to be clarified must address what students are copying. Student responses that discuss copying refer to “procedures”, “data”, “calculations”, “answers”, “concepts”, and “work”, all of which have very different connotations. In some cases, students made the distinction in their responses, although most did not. According to Del Carlo and Bodner’s study (12), college students held different perceptions toward copying for each of these items. It is conceivable that high school students also make a distinction based on their preconceived notions of what a scientist is (19)—despite having no lab experience outside the classroom— and would consequently feel differently towards the copying of each of these items. Lastly, since students use fairness as the basis of their moral belief system, we need to better understand what it is students deem to be “fair” in group settings. Closely related to this is an understanding of the social dynamics of group interactions. How groups divide responsibilities and how individuals within the group are held accountable for their efforts will greatly affect a student’s definition of “fair” and consequently shape the student’s behavior and perceptions. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the participating teachers and students in northern New Jersey, and Herman and Margaret Sokol for their support through the Faculty/ Student Research Award at Montclair State University. Notes 1. Due to the variety of student responses resulting from the open-ended questions, several responses were coded under more than one category. Therefore, it should be noted that reported percentages sometimes exceed 100%. 2. Numbers in the braces indicate the specific survey on which the response was made. Spelling errors within quotations have been corrected. 3. The next-most common solution (32.0%) to an experiment gone wrong was to “tell the teacher”. However, of those, most (63%) gave little information as to what actions were taken after the teacher

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had been consulted, which is not very informative since we seek to understand the way in which the student resolved the problem at hand. The response “telling the teacher” alone gives no further information regarding how the student handles the remainder of the lab exercise, and consequently adds little insight into how the issue was ultimately resolved. However, it does indicate that the teacher, not themselves, other students, or even a textbook, is considered to be the focus of learning. Student responses that did indicate an action taken after telling the teacher were coded in both the “tell the teacher” category and the respective action category, for example, “redo the lab/ fix procedure”, and are counted as such. 4. When asked to rate their frequency of group work in the lab, 84% of the students rated it as 3 or above (using a 5-point scale with 5 being “always”), indicating that group work was commonplace in most of the laboratory classrooms surveyed. W

Supplemental Material

A complete description of the study’s methodology for data collection and data analysis is available in this issue of JCE Online. Literature Cited 1. Coppola, B. P.; Smith, D. H. J. Chem. Educ. 1996, 73, 33– 34. 2. Kovac, J. J. Chem. Educ. 1996, 73, 926–928. 3. Moore, J. W. J. Chem. Educ. 2002, 79, 1391. 4. Bruton, S. V. J. Chem. Educ. 2003, 80, 503–506. 5. Coppola, B. P. J. Chem. Educ. 2000, 77, 1506–1511. 6. Mabrouk, P. A. J. Chem. Educ. 2001, 78, 1628–1631. 7. Moody, A. E.; Freeman, R. G. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 1224– 1225. 8. Rytting, J. H.; Schowen, R. J. Chem. Educ. 1998, 75, 1317– 1319. 9. Shachter, A. M. J. Chem. Educ. 2003, 80, 507–512. 10. Sweeting, L. W. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 369–372. 11. Treichel, P. M. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 1327–1329. 12. Del Carlo, D. I.; Bodner, G. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 2004, 41, 47–64. 13. Lawson, A. E.; Lewis, C. M., Jr.; Birk, J. P. Journal of College Science Teaching 1999, 29, 191–198. 14. Rigano, D. L.; Ritchie, S. M. Research in Science Education 1995, 25, 353–363. 15. Ritchie, S. M.; Rigano, D. L. Australian Science Teachers Journal 1996, 42, 13–16. 16. Patton, M. Q. Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods, 2nd ed.; Sage: Newbury Park, CA, 1990. 17. Cohen, E. G. Review of Educational Research 1994, 64, 1–35. 18. Reeves, T. C.; Okey, J. In Constructivist Learning Environments: Case Studies in Instructional Design; Wilson, B., Ed.; Educational Technology Publications: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1996; pp 191–202. 19. Mead, M.; Metraux, R. Science 1957, 126, 384–390.


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