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Phenomenology. Research Question. How do students in a freshman engineering fundamentals class describe the experience of “academic cheating”? Context bound Personal experience based Structure or ‘essence’ of term. Data Collection. Most common: depth interviews
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Research Question • How do students in a freshman engineering fundamentals class describe the experience of “academic cheating”? • Context bound • Personal experience based • Structure or ‘essence’ of term
Data Collection • Most common: depth interviews • Other possible approaches: reflective essays, open-ended survey items, projective techniques such as posing scenarios, showing videotape clips to elicit responses
Sampling • All students in class • If sample, based on applicable strategy • Students who are “information rich” cases (students who have cheated) • Maximum variation (gender, GPA, etc.) • Snowball or other strategy • Purposeful • Small Ns
Analysis • Search for patterns in statements across cases that lead to characteristics that are not part of the phenomenon and those that are, distinctions with other related terms • Recursive coding until essence is captured across cases • Specialized text analysis software: Nvivo or others
Question • What happened in • the case of Mickey Mouse’s plagiarized term paper? • the cases of the Seven Dwarfs’ plagiarized term papers? • Specific instance(s) or context • Multiple lenses, holistic view
Data Collection • Variety of choices, including • Document analysis (Disney U policies on cheating, drafts of papers turned in, etc.) • Interviews (with Mickey, the Dwarfs, their teachers, administrators at Disney U, etc.) • Observation -if event has not occurred yet- • (go to Disneyworld and watch as Mickey and the Dwarfs compose their term papers) • All focus on as many aspects of the case, or cases, that will give the story
Sampling • Those documents, people, places, etc. that are likely to be relevant to the question
Data Analysis • Pattern analysis, usually first by organizer such as chronology, viewpoint of specific actors, etc.; then by theme • Single case(s) (Dopey, Sneezy, etc.) • Also, cross-case analysis, if multiple (Patterns across the Dwarfs)
Question • Is there a relationship between characteristics of the instructional activities in our curriculum and the amount and kind of cheating that occurs? • Relationship between variables • Operational definition of terms
Data Collection • Thick description of instances of cheating • Thick description of instructional activities that were associated with them • Obtained from documents, interviews, observation
Sampling • Cases that had been reported to Student Misconduct last year • Or, other cases that can be accessed • Within Engineering School • Related to instructional activities of school (as opposed to external exams, parking tickets, etc.)
Data Analysis • Open coding (data that answer, “What is this about?”) • Axial coding: relationships between codes • Search for characteristics that are associated across cases • Selection of core category and testing of patterns and refining to accommodate data • Statement that captures cases and describes context