Student Cheating

I have been reading a lot lately about plagiarism and student cheating and the extent to which campuses and faculty are going to identify and stop cheating.  Interestingly, some campuses and some faculty have come out against the routine use of programs that search submitted work of plagiarism, such as turn-it-in, on the basis that the use of these programs presumes that cheating is going on and treats the student as someone who can't be trusted.

First of all, over 60 percent of students admit to plagiarism at some point in their academic careers.  So, students are cheating!  To not look for it on the basis that doing so suggests that students can't be trusted is to deny reality.  Doing nothing also encourages the activity.  It's a wink and a nod.

I have previously pointed out that some of my local institutions that use on-line coursework do nothing to ensure that the students taking on-line tests are actually the students registered for the course or are not being helped my a battery of friends siting behind them as they take the test.

We need to recognize that our failure to ensure the quality of our product diminished the value of that product.  Ensuring the value of our course grades and degrees will cost us money, and may mean that not everyone gets a college degree, but having over half the students cheating also has a cost.  Can we accept the cost of lower productivity or incompetent action by people who passed classes and got degrees without having to master their field of study.  I think not.

T.S. Hall

Degree Economics

A colleague was lamenting today about the dearth of freshmen at new student orientation who have any interest in chemistry or biochemistry.  I am not talking about the entire university freshmen class.  I am talking about the chemistry and biochemistry majors.

Yes, when asked to raise their hands if they were interested in a career in chemistry or biochemistry, none of the future majors aired an armpit.  Digging deeper my colleague discovered that the students are not interested in science or a life of the mind.  They indicated that what they are interested in is MONEY.  They are only chemistry and biochemistry majors in order to gain access to pharmacy school, medical school, etc.

I don't blame them in this economic climate for being concerned about jobs and career security.  The lesson here is one for our political and scientific leaders.  If we believe that we will need more graduates in the sciences un order to remain competitive as an economy, we need to recognize that the current economics in our society don't send this message to our young scholars.

T.S. Hall

Thesis Reading: MS vs PhD

Recently I was reading thesis/dissertation chapters from both my own MS candidates and a PhD candidate from a local RO1.  The RO1 thesis chapter had previously been approved by the PhD mentor and the candidate was asking me to proofread and make sure the science was clear.  The differences between the two readings may say more about the individuals involved than the general differences between MCU's and RO1's, but they may be worth exploring.

The most striking thing I noted was a general tendency in masters thesis to place emphasis on how the study fits into the larger picture of the science, while the PhD dissertation writing assumed that the context within the field need not the elaborated upon and that the relevance would be clear to the reader.

Being in the midst of inviting speakers for the Fall seminar series on my campus this dichotomy in presentation style reminded me of the differences in presentations given by RO1 faculty and MCU and PUI faculty who come through my department.  Many RO1 faculty, including those coming through specifically on graduate student recruiting trips, blow the undergraduate and masters students away early in their presentations by not making the contextual issues clear or by coming back to the context during the lecture.  MCU and PUI folks generally show less of this tendency.  One could make the case that such differences owe something to the much greater focus on undergraduates that MCU and PUI faculty have in their day-to-day work.  These faculty have a better knowledge of were the audience is intellectually coming from.

I wonder if the difference may also owe something to the stage of science most MCU and PUI faculty are forced to practice by the resources at their disposal.  Given the difficulty in competing at the basis research level we tend to move toward application to justify our work in grants and to attract students into the lab.  Once indoctrinated into this way of thinking about our scholarship it begins to color all our output from how we present our own work to how we train our students to present their thesis.  I suppose that in a sense we are back to the hammer problem where our thinking becomes focused by the environment we are in, for good or ill.

As we extend and accept seminar invitations to/from our colleagues it would be good to keep in mind the environment in which the talk will be presented and the our goals in hearing or giving the talk.

T.S. Hall

Note from the ODA

As noted in my Defense of Marriage post, in my opinion bad arguments are the bane of good science and should be exposed to the light of day as part of creating a scientifically literate society.  At the same time I am hesitant to get on a soapbox that diverts attention from the purposes of this blog.  But, hey, it's my blog!  So, I will warn readers with the label "Office of the Devil's Advocate" when I venture into this territory.

What does the Devil's Advocate have to write about today?

In the last couple of weeks folks effected by the Gulf Coast oil spill have become more vocal about the perceived unfairness of the way BP funds will be distributed to compensate for lost income.  Specifically, these folks have noted that they have been deriving a large part of their incomes from cash business transaction for which they keep no records to avoid taxes.  There is even some talk about having congress change tax law so that these folks can get an amnesty from their tax law violation and make claim on the oil spill funds.

Lets see, people working in an underground economy, not paying taxes, demanding and getting government services, and asking for an amnesty from their illegal acts because "those were in the past" as one person stated in a radio interview I heard yesterday.

Does this mean that the Gulf Coast communities universally support immigration reforms that would give amnesty to all illegal immigrants currently in the country?  There certainly appear to be parallels.  I am sure the tea party movement and libertarian and conservative media will be all over this demanding these scofflaws be dealt with the same fervor they show for Arizona's ID check law.

We would all be well served to remember that our own illegal, immoral, or ethically questionable actions that we justify by saying that we are just ensuring that our families or businesses are able to make do are no more legal, moral, or ethical than those actions of others.  BP and company cut corners to save money or effort, which they thought was justifiable.  Fishermen and an apparent entire Gulf Coast community used a cash economy to avoid taxes to take care of their families and businesses.  Illegal immigrants cross the border for their families and quality of life.

T.S. Hall

Catfish a jumpin

Veteran academics, particularly we scientists at PUI/MCU institutions, know that it is best to avoid the neighbors during the summer.  I have even thought about having a red, white, and blue, flag emblazoned t-shirt made for the neighborhood 4th of July picnic that would carry the logo;

No! I work every day, all year! I just don't get paid in the summer.
Yes! I will take another beer!

The neighbors think that we have the summers off and envy our long "vacations".  We PUI/MCU faculty know that summer can be the best time to get research accomplished.  In synthetic labs where technique training is key, the summer with long uninterrupted days are ideal.  Since the new students need to be trained, it frequently falls to the faculty member to do this.  Since I am rebuilding my group, this summer is full of new students and devoid of continuing students to help out.  This means that all the training falls to me.  The month of June has been filled with twelve hour lab days, and evenings of SOP writing and analysis of data.  This explains why my blog prompts list is the longest it has ever been and the number of posting in June the lowest since starting this blog.

June may be the hardest summer month because the new students don't start getting results until the end of the month when their technique skills start to click.  With any luck July will bring armloads of data and a publication or two.

Since a research experience is central to the education of today's undergraduates perhaps colleges and universities should allow faculty and students to bank for use in the fall or spring semester of the following academic year three units of undergraduate research course training for every student working through ten or twelve 40 hour weeks.  At least then the students and faculty would get some credit/pay for their labor.

T.S. Hall

You Call That a Defense of Marriage?

Anyone how has taken a class from me knows that their arguments for anything will be parsed for quality.  Sloppy arguments come from sloppy thinking and sloppy thinkers make poor scientists, politicians, and citizens.  Sometimes I wonder where my students learned such sloppy thinking.

Today I heard a news report about the arguments being put forward before the court looking into the constitutionality of California's proposition 8 which is supposed to "defend marriage" by defining marriage as being between one man and one woman only.  My position on the issue does not matter as the point of today's blog is ineffectual (and unintentionally humorous) arguments.

It appears from the radio news piece that the argument by the "defense of marriage" lawyers is that the purpose of marriage is to create children and raise them in a household containing a mother and father.  Ignoring the circular argument, this view also allows for the invalidation of numerous marriages between heterosexuals.

Based on this argument, people how can't have children for medical reasons can't married or are not married.  If one partner or the other has rendered themselves incapable of having children, they dissolved the marriage, with potential legal liability for breaking the marriage up.

Hey guys, wife reaches menopause and kids out of the house, you don't need to divorce.  If she can't have kids the "defense of marriage" folks have just dissolved your marriage.  Marry that 23-year old without alimony to the former wife.  You will be defending marriage because you can now start family 2.0.

Be it our national dialogues or our teaching of the next generation such obviously flawed arguments should not be allowed to stand, and should be ridiculed publicly.  If I were the judge I would have to find against the "defense of marriage" argument with the admonition that gay marriage has nothing to do with the decision.  If the "making babies" argument is the best argument they can come up with they should pay all the court costs for wasting the time and money involved in the case.

Getting back to the pedagogical point, in class this means that my students get one point for making an argument but don't get the rest, for making a logically invalid argument.

T.S. Hall

It's better to never leave

With the start of the summer many PUI and MCU faculty are welcoming new research students into the fold.  In my case, just as my new students are starting I need to go out of town to a conference.  This leaves me with a half-dozen new faces and only a couple of students with less than a year's experience to oversee them.  This will require that I organize and write out in detail everyone's training and research plan for the week before I go.  It's a bit daunting when the new students have not had technique training yet.  It is hard to do research this way.

I am not bringing this up to instigate a pity party.  I am lucky to have six new research students.  When discussing the issue of not wanting to leave so I can stay a train my students my RO1 friends laugh.  In general they have not worked in the lab in years.  The current PhD students and postdocs train the new students.  Leaving town has almost nothing to do with the schedules or training of student workers.  While there new students are being trained they are writing papers and grants.

I find that when the summer comes my days are no less busy that during the academic year.  In some ways they are more busy.  Maybe this is why I wanted to punch my neighbor in the nose yesterday when they asked me what I was going to do now that I am on vacation for the summer.

Thankfully, with skype and e-mail i can at least touch base with the students each day.

T.S. Hall