anthroma
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« on: August 30, 2008, 07:41:34 PM » |
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I am so full of questions, and so grateful to have a group that can answer *smile* My next question is:
Is it unethical to have students do your work? I mean is it wrong to assign a semester project that centers around your own research thereby having your students do your grunt work (i.e. data entry) for a project you are working on and they receive a grade for it?
Just curious where people stand on this issue... it is something that has crossed my mind as an effective way of accomplishing both teaching a full load and doing research. Just don't want to cross any unethical boundaries...
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elsie
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« Reply #1 on: August 30, 2008, 08:15:29 PM » |
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I had a MA-level course in Robert Browning that was essentially the students doing the professor's research. He was working on the circular structure in Browning's poetry, so he assigned us poems and papers in which that was the only thing for us to look at. All other topics/approaches were off the table. I felt gypped, and that class is still top of the list of courses I wish I'd never taken.
What would the students actually learn by doing this project? What learning objective might you associate with this project? In short, what's in it for them?
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"People assume that time is a strict progression from cause to effect. But actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff." - the Doctor
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octoprof
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« Reply #2 on: August 30, 2008, 08:18:11 PM » |
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What would the students actually learn by doing this project? What learning objective might you associate with this project? In short, what's in it for them?
If you can answer those questions in a positive, it's good for them, they'll get loads out of it like X, Y and Z, and it meets the learning objectives... then fine, otherwise, nope. |
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Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things... Mark Twain
It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. Professor Dumbledore
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new_bus_prof
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« Reply #3 on: August 31, 2008, 10:15:51 AM » |
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Depends.
Level of students: undergraduate or graduate
Course: required or elective
Project relevance skills: no or yes
I would only do this with a graduate level, elective course, where there are several substantial project relevant skills the students can get from the project.
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_touchedbyanoodle_
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« Reply #4 on: August 31, 2008, 10:19:16 AM » |
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Data entry?
No. That is not ethical.
I mean this as tactfully as possible, but your various threads have left me wondering what type of background you have in pedagogy. Have you had training in best teaching practices?
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"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist." -George Carlin
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acrimone
The Red Queen's Court Assassin
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Posts: 4,049
I am not a professor at all, despite what I say.
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« Reply #5 on: August 31, 2008, 10:25:09 AM » |
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No.
But there are a few things that are unethical that you could run into along the way:
1) Not letting them know what's up at the outset so that they can make an informed decision about whether to tell you to go piss up a rope or not.
2) Not giving them credit for helping you in a footnote or acknowledgements somewhere. This need not be by name, but can be something like, "And thank you to my COMP184 class from Spring 2006, whose efforts in the area of xxxx really helped with Chapter 7's data analysis algorithms..."
Either of these would qualify you for rat-bastardom. #1 is particularly nasty, and would keep you from ever being invited to my parties if I ever found out about it.
(But what would I really know about ethics, anyway?)
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"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
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anthroma
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Posts: 40
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« Reply #6 on: August 31, 2008, 11:15:56 AM » |
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Data entry?
No. That is not ethical.
I mean this as tactfully as possible, but your various threads have left me wondering what type of background you have in pedagogy. Have you had training in best teaching practices?
Fair question... I have not had training in best teaching practices. I came out of a professional field and begin teaching. I have never been offered the opportunity to take any training in teaching practices... but I wouldn't be opposed to it! I only pose this bc as a college student I remember quite vividly doing work to benefit my professors research... it never bother me as I enjoyed to being involved in practical hands on work related to the class and my professors interest. However, as an professor myself, would never want to do anything unethical (hence me asking for opinions). By data entry, I meant that would be the only thing used of the students (not their research or writings). They would be asked to look at a specific area, input data for it and compare this data to an area of their choice... which is pretty standard in semester projects (the instructor assigns a specific area to look at)... the only difference is I would assign one of the areas to be an area I am interested in looking at the data from and applying it to other purposes... Of course with recognition and a huge thank you to the class... Once again, just a question... |
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msparticularity
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« Reply #7 on: August 31, 2008, 12:39:43 PM » |
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Okay, here's my take on the situation, looking at it from a Kuhnian perspective. Kuhn proposed that scientific progress in general (and thus effective science education) occurs based upon future scientists' immersion in a medieval workshop-type environment. That is, students begin by working in highly-structured roles to replicate earlier experiments, learning the basic rules for conducting research along the way, and studying earlier successful inquiries. This is the apprentice stage. They then progress to a journeyman's role, still working under the direction of a leader (the lab director), but allowed to branch out a little in the direction of their own interests. Finally, they advance to become lab directors themselves.
In the sciences, in other words, it is normal and routine for one's students to do "grunt work" under the professor's supervision. The thing is, when scientific research is published, everyone in this scenario gets authorship credit - down to the "apprentice" who washed the test tubes in the lab. Further, this generally doesn't occur in a regular introductory-level class, but either as part of a job, or as part of a "directed research" course of some kind. In other words, the science students have been informed of and consented to the process.
I would argue that it is quite appropriate to use this model in other areas as well. However, we need to preserve the advise-and-consent model, as Acrimone has advocated, and also by giving them credit for the work in the form of shared authorship or acknowledgments in the paper (done in whatever way is usual in one's field) - not just in the form of course credit.
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"Once admit that the sole verifiable or fruitful object of knowledge is the particular set of changes that generate the object of study...and no intelligible question can be asked about what, by assumption, lies outside." John Dewey
"Be particular." Jill Conner Browne
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akimbo
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« Reply #8 on: August 31, 2008, 01:17:58 PM » |
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« Last Edit: August 31, 2008, 01:18:27 PM by akimbo »
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akimbo
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« Reply #9 on: August 31, 2008, 01:30:02 PM » |
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Is it unethical to have students do your work?
If that's your chief motivation, and their educational experience is secondary, then, yes, it's unethical. At the very least, its a breach of an implied contract with the school, which is paying you to teach - not do research. |
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anthroma
New member
Posts: 40
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« Reply #10 on: August 31, 2008, 01:46:52 PM » |
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Is it unethical to have students do your work?
If that's your chief motivation, and their educational experience is secondary, then, yes, it's unethical. At the very least, its a breach of an implied contract with the school, which is paying you to teach - not do research. Makes sense! Rest assured that that would not be my chief motivation... The students would be assigned a similar project whether it was tailored to my research or not, because I am a proponent of hands on learning... I just assumed two birds could be killed with one stone... |
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larryc
Hu hatin'
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Eschew the hu.
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« Reply #11 on: August 31, 2008, 02:23:10 PM » |
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I think it is fine, so long as it is an integral part of a larger student project designed to meet the goals of the course.
Put together a plan and go see your new chair about this. Her opinion is the one that counts here.
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figee
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« Reply #12 on: August 31, 2008, 05:40:22 PM » |
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If you decide to go ahead with it (and it isn't something I'd do myself), I'd be careful to check the data entry for mistakes, which seems to me to add a whole other dimension to work which is already tedious.
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"Eating at the Italian restaurant was a mistake." - student explaining how food poisoning was contracted while on fieldwork in Orissa.
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jerseyjay
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« Reply #13 on: August 31, 2008, 08:39:20 PM » |
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I think it depends on whether you mean "do your work" or "involve them in your research".
For example, if I am researching Thomas Jefferson:
I think it would be fine to have the students write a research paper on some aspect of Jeffersonian America. Then when you are working on your own research, you can use their papers as a starting point. Of course you should credit their work.
On the other hand, it would be wrong to have them do "grunt work", e.g., assign them to count the number of times that Jefferson writes "God" in his notes on the state of Virginia.
The bottom line, in my mind is, are you using your own research as a tool to help them understand what scholars do, or are you just trying to get free labor. The first is a great idea, the second is pretty sleazy. I think that this sort of involvement works better with upper level classes or graduate classes.
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zuzu_
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« Reply #14 on: September 03, 2008, 01:49:58 PM » |
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I had a MA-level course in Robert Browning that was essentially the students doing the professor's research. He was working on the circular structure in Browning's poetry, so he assigned us poems and papers in which that was the only thing for us to look at. All other topics/approaches were off the table. I felt gypped, and that class is still top of the list of courses I wish I'd never taken.
This was my experience. Except it was a research methods course. And the guy was a Byron fan. I still hate Byron. |
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