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Nilsson, L.-E., Eklöf, A. & Kullenberg, T. (2017). Cathegorizing student, cathegorizing texts: will plagiarism detection leave blood on the tracks?. In: Education in the crossroads of economy and politics: role of research in the advancement of public good : book of abstracts. Paper presented at 17th Biennial EARLI Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, EARLI, Finland, Tampere. Tampere: University of Tampere
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Cathegorizing student, cathegorizing texts: will plagiarism detection leave blood on the tracks?
2017 (English)In: Education in the crossroads of economy and politics: role of research in the advancement of public good : book of abstracts, Tampere: University of Tampere , 2017Conference paper, Poster (with or without abstract) (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Within research on examination cheating, a common assumption is that plagiarism in the context of examination is increasing epidemically. A uniform definition of plagiarism does not exist, but plagiarism is the category most frequently used when students at Swedish universities are notified and sanctioned for deception. Text Comparison is frequently presented as an effective technology for addressing plagiarism. Plagiarism Detection Services (PDS) are used for detecting text overlaps, particularly in higher education. While Higher Education Institutions in some countries appear to have uncritically accepted the use of text comparison technology, the reception in other countries have been ambivalent or even critical.

The present project studies consequences of the use of text comparison through teachers meaning making regarding the pedagogical task to grade students and the moral task, to report students that try to deceive. We hypothesise that teachers’ epistemological views are contingent on technology and discourses on technology. Text comparisont echnology, therefore, runs the danger of introducing consequential biases to the assessment of student performance. The material has been gathered in five focus group conversations. Focus has been introduced through the presentation of reports from a Plagiarism Detection System. A topical analysis has been performed on the transcribed conversations. From our results, we conclude that teachers’ epistemological views are contingent on technology and discourses on technology. Text comparison, therefore, runs the danger of introducing a consequential bias to the assessment of student performance leaving students open to the accusation about deception.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Tampere: University of Tampere, 2017
Keywords
Morality, Social interaction, Technology, Writing/Literacy
National Category
Educational Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hkr:diva-17478 (URN)
Conference
17th Biennial EARLI Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, EARLI, Finland, Tampere
Available from: 2017-10-15 Created: 2017-10-15 Last updated: 2017-10-16Bibliographically approved
Kullenberg, T., Eklöf, A. & Nilsson, L.-E. (2017). Independenceor interdependence?: dialogue-theoretical problems of "independent" learning. In: Education in the crossroads of economy and politics: role of research in the advancement of public good: book of abstracts. Paper presented at 17th Biennial EARLI Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, EARLI, Finland, Tampere. Tampere: University of Tampere
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Independenceor interdependence?: dialogue-theoretical problems of "independent" learning
2017 (English)In: Education in the crossroads of economy and politics: role of research in the advancement of public good: book of abstracts, Tampere: University of Tampere , 2017Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

This paper is a theoretical paper that highlights some implications of a dialogic ontology in educational research. However, for the sake of clarity we will very succinctly setting off to describe the background which is our empirical point of departure. The aim of our current empirical study is to explore how 12 adult students in a Swedish secondary school interpret the school task of doing ‘independent’ project works, addressing the questions of how students talk and reason about their own processes and values of the activity-specific task. In brief, the method is focus group conversations (three participant groups) and the result reveals the fact that the participants appreciated their common teacher, who was considered as a very successful guide. The teacher systematically provided orders, instruction, feedback and, most importantly, planning and staging in a stepwise fashion. In doing so she paradoxically also indirectly fostered her students to be even less independent, that is, more easily adapted to the institutional requirements without bothering too much about how to manage the tasks themselves. Project work is commonly described as a self-regulated form of the task; a common mode of student work in Swedish schools (Eklöf, Nilsson & Ottosson, 2014). As Bergqvist & Säljö (2004) highlight, it could further be conceived of as a disciplining, student-centered practice that is widely used to produce self-organizing learners. Although the students are supposed to work independently, they are considerably dependent on the instructional, organizational and evaluative work of the teachers (Åberg, 2015).

 

Drawing on a sociocultural perspective on learning, as we do, the notion of individualistic independency is well-known as a problematic stance (e.g., Wertsch, 1998). In the sociocultural version of dialogism social interdependence is a dialogic premise on both the epistemological and ontological level (Linell, 2009). Wegerif (2008) describes how the functional role of difference between learners’ voices is of significance to the Bakhtin-influenced take on multi-voiced dialogue (cf. Kullenberg & Pramling, 2016; Lefstein & Snell, 2014). In such a dialogic framing the teacher is not striving to overcome these differences between, for example, the student’s and the teacher’s opinions. Such recognition holds interpersonal difference seriously and moreover address a fairly uncommon approach to the educational notion of intersubjective agreements (Matusov, 1996, 2015; Wegerif, 2011).

 

This dialogic approach stresses the issue of student agency and, thus, democratic values of teaching acts. When respecting and promoting students’ own voices a genuine interaction of consciousnesses is possible to create throughout the pedagogical dialogues (cf. Bakhtin, 2004; Matusov, 2015). Hence, what constitutes a genuine interaction is the other-orientation toward the difference of the other, recognizing the learning potentials of the gap between distinct consciousnesses. Philosophically speaking, it further suggests the conceptual need to stress alterity in other-orientation (cf. Linell, 2009).

 

Recalling our examined students, they report a situated learning that is basically grounded in a “teacher-pleasing relationship” (Matusov, 2011). While working successfully they are heavily dependent on their teacher’s agency rather than developing their own. Indeed, as sociocultural scholars we might notice that there exists a considerably confined teacher agency as well; an agency which is clearly bound to pre-determined institutional goals. This contextual condition did not facilitate the student (and teacher) opportunity to learn and experience something radically unpredicted, for example, being dialogically surprised or challenged by the genuine other. The students in our study do not neither regard themselves as truly independent nor creatively personalized. Due to a Bakhtinian approach to education, independency is an illusion anyhow, but being personalized, rather than socialized, in and through education is a central dialogue theoretical issue (Lobok, 2014).

 

In our fully elaborated paper we will dwell upon the dialogue philosophical issue on other-orientation and the role of alterity, briefly described above. In addition we intend to provide a more detailed sketch of our study and the implications for dialogic pedagogy, informed by Bakhtin and educational scholars within the field.

 

 

 

 

References

 

Åberg, M. (2015). Doing project work: the interactional organization of tasks, resources, and instructions. Diss. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet.

Bakhtin, M. M. (2004). Dialogic origin and dialogic pedagogy of grammar: Stylistics in teaching Russian language in secondary school. Journal of Russian & East European Psychology, 42(6), 12-49.

Bergqvist, K. & Säljö, R. (2004). Learning to plan: A study of reflexivity and discipline in modern pedagogy. In J.V.D. Linden & P. Renshaw (Eds.) Dialogic learning: Shifting perspectives to learning, instruction and teaching (pp. 109-124). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Eklöf, A., Nilsson, L.-E., & Ottosson, T. (2014). Instructions, Independence and Uncertainty: student framing in self-regulated project work. European Educational Research Journal, 13(6), 646-660.

Kullenberg, T & Pramling, N. (2016). Learning and knowing songs: a study of children as music teachers. Instructional Science, 44(1), 1-23.

Lefstein, A., & Snell, J. (2014). Better than best practice: Developing teaching and learning through dialogue. London: Routledge.

Linell, P. (2009). Rethinking language, mind, and world dialogically : interactional and contextual theories of human sense-making. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publ.

Lobok, A. (2014). Education/obrazovanie as an experience of an encounter. Dialogic    Pedagogy: An International Online Journal, 2, S1-S5. DOI: 10.5195/dpj.2014.84.

Matusov, E. (1996). Intersubjectivity without agreement. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 3(1), 25-45.

Matusov, E. (2011). Authorial teaching and learning. In E. J. White & M. A. Peters (Eds.), Bakhtinian pedagogy: Opportunities and challenges for research, policy and practice in education across the globe (pp. 21–46). New York: Peter Lang.

Matusov, E. (2015). Comprehension: A dialogic authorial approach. Culture & Psychology,   21(3), 392-416.

Wegerif, R. (2008). Dialogic or dialectic? The significance of ontological assumptions in research on educational dialogue. British Educational Research Journal, 34(3), 347–361.

Wegerif, R. (2011). Towards a dialogic theory of how children learn to think. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 6, 179-190

Wertsch, J. V. (1998). Mind as action. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

 

 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Tampere: University of Tampere, 2017
Keywords
Cultural psychology, Learning approaches, Social aspects of learning and teaching, Teaching/instruction
National Category
Educational Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hkr:diva-17476 (URN)
Conference
17th Biennial EARLI Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, EARLI, Finland, Tampere
Available from: 2017-10-15 Created: 2017-10-15 Last updated: 2017-10-16Bibliographically approved
Eklöf, A., Kullenberg, T. & Nilsson, L.-E. (2017). "It is great she is really checking she wants us to pass": facilitating student project work. In: Education in the crossroads of economy and politics: role of research in the advancement of public good: book of abstracts. Paper presented at 17th Biennial EARLI Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, EARLI, Finland, Tampere. Tampere: University of Tampere
Open this publication in new window or tab >>"It is great she is really checking she wants us to pass": facilitating student project work
2017 (English)In: Education in the crossroads of economy and politics: role of research in the advancement of public good: book of abstracts, Tampere: University of Tampere , 2017Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

All students in Swedish upper secondary school have to do one mandatory project work course aimed at developing general skills such as independence, initiative, creativity and imagination. The students have to pass the course to receive their upper secondary diploma. Our study aims to investigate how students talk about the task of doing ‘independent’ project works in the diploma course.

Three focus group conversations of totaling twelve students are filmed and analyzed through topic analysis, an analytical approach based on dialogism as theoretical framework. The empirical material is analyzed from a perspective of how the design of the project course and the assessment regime influences the students work. Findings indicate that the students rely heavily on help and instruction from the teacher. They perceive of this help as a crucial asset in passing the diploma course. They state that the kind of help they receive are strongly focused towards the dividing line between pass and fail. Help is hardwired towards the scientific form and the content of their essays are treated as almost uninteresting. Support for independence therefore seems to be significantly restricted in practice. The teacher is in fact working as a facilitator guiding students towards dependence. This is accomplished through framing doing project work as doing template science.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Tampere: University of Tampere, 2017
Keywords
Collaborative Learning, Conversation / Discourse analysis, Social aspects of learning and teaching, Teaching/instruction
National Category
Educational Sciences Pedagogy
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hkr:diva-17477 (URN)
Conference
17th Biennial EARLI Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, EARLI, Finland, Tampere
Projects
Gymnasieelevers projektarbete
Available from: 2017-10-15 Created: 2017-10-15 Last updated: 2017-10-16Bibliographically approved
Aili, C. & Nilsson, L.-E. (2016). Preparing higher education students for the new landscape of governance. Tertiary Education and Management, 22(3), 249-265
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Preparing higher education students for the new landscape of governance
2016 (English)In: Tertiary Education and Management, ISSN 1358-3883, E-ISSN 1573-1936, Vol. 22, no 3, p. 249-265Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Studies have demonstrated that neoliberal governance dismantles professionals' will to critique, counteracting efforts to improve quality by preventing professionals in all sectors of the labour market from grounding work in their professional convictions. Managing attempts at governance has therefore become an important professional competence. This paper investigates how higher education prepares students for work under neoliberal forms of control. How are they trained to analyse and describe the effects of governance and prepared to work with the standards, manuals and documentation that influence quality in their lines of work? 'Interruptive focus group conversations' were performed with students from various professional programmes at a Swedish university. Student reasoning about governance is explored using theories of governance and subjectification. The results demonstrate that students are aware of the ways in which their professions are governed, the need to conduct discretionary work, but do not have skills to deal with governance critically. This latitude for pedagogical intervention is underutilized.

Keywords
Discretion, governance, higher education programmes, neoliberalism, Sweden
National Category
Educational Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hkr:diva-16217 (URN)10.1080/13583883.2016.1196725 (DOI)000384713900005 ()
Available from: 2016-10-27 Created: 2016-10-27 Last updated: 2017-11-29Bibliographically approved
Nilsson, L.-E. (2016). Technology as a double edged sword: a promise yet to be fulfilled or a vehicle for cheating?. In: Tracey Bretag (Ed.), Handbook of academic integrity: (pp. 607-623). Singapore: Springer
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Technology as a double edged sword: a promise yet to be fulfilled or a vehicle for cheating?
2016 (English)In: Handbook of academic integrity / [ed] Tracey Bretag, Singapore: Springer, 2016, p. 607-623Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

The purpose of the present chapter is to illustrate and discuss relationships between academic integrity, technology, plagiarism, and deception. Academic integrity raises conduct issues. A prevalent idea is that the purpose of the Academy is to educate students to become independent, critical thinkers. A promise of technology is that it can support the qualification, socialization, and subjectification of students. With the advent of digital technology however, it is the cheating, plagiarizing, and colluding student who is attracting increasing attention. He/she is considered to defeat the purpose of higher education and is often regarded as one of the consequences of digital technology. Technology may thus be considered a threat. History demonstrates that what is considered a threat today, may very well be regarded as a valuable aid tomorrow. How technology is seen today may be different tomorrow, some practices perhaps even made obsolete or replaced as a result of new technologies, among other factors. This uneven development of academic ethos and practice is bound to create tensions between the Academy’s ideas of academic integrity and its use of technology – thereby causing both to change.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Singapore: Springer, 2016
National Category
Didactics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hkr:diva-14953 (URN)10.1007/978-981-287-098-8_21 (DOI)978-981-287-098-8 (ISBN)978-981-287-097-1 (ISBN)
Available from: 2015-10-20 Created: 2015-10-20 Last updated: 2017-01-27Bibliographically approved
Aili, C. & Nilsson, L.-E. (2015). Dual learning – a challenge for higher education in the new landscape of governance. Tertiary Education and Management, 21(4), 277-292
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Dual learning – a challenge for higher education in the new landscape of governance
2015 (English)In: Tertiary Education and Management, ISSN 1358-3883, E-ISSN 1573-1936, Vol. 21, no 4, p. 277-292Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

In many countries, practice-oriented programmes have been recast as university programmes, fuelling debate on the purpose of higher education. We highlight two ways of talking about the challenges for higher education we think are already familiar to readers. We label them ?political-worry discourse? and ?academic-worry discourse?. We argue for a third position that gives due recognition to the turn in governance. Professional work today is performed in a new landscape where maintaining the conditions for autonomy and discretionary work is more important than ever. This has implications for the pedagogic focus of higher education institutions. The proposed ?dual learning? concept addresses this challenge through educating students about governance and allowing students to position themselves in relation to the governance of their professions. By discussing governance, we contribute to a previously neglected field and support the position that higher education may indeed be the best place to provide professional education.

Keywords
governance of professions, critical thinking, discretion, higher education policy, employability, Sweden
National Category
Educational Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hkr:diva-14552 (URN)10.1080/13583883.2015.1068367 (DOI)
Available from: 2015-09-08 Created: 2015-09-08 Last updated: 2017-12-04Bibliographically approved
Nilsson, L.-E. (2015). Fuska på verksamhetsförlagd utbildning. Det går väl inte?. In: : . Paper presented at ViLär 2015, Högskolan Kristianstad, 8-9 december.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Fuska på verksamhetsförlagd utbildning. Det går väl inte?
2015 (Swedish)Conference paper, Oral presentation only (Other academic)
National Category
Educational Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hkr:diva-15153 (URN)
Conference
ViLär 2015, Högskolan Kristianstad, 8-9 december
Available from: 2016-01-07 Created: 2016-01-07 Last updated: 2016-01-07Bibliographically approved
Eklöf, A. & Nilsson, L.-E. (2015). Project work and the grade perspective: a dilemma for the 21st century learner. In: : . Paper presented at 16th Biennial EARLI Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, Limasol, Cyprus, August 25-29, 2015..
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Project work and the grade perspective: a dilemma for the 21st century learner
2015 (English)Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

This paper engages in a discussion about an aspect of what it means to become a 21st century learner. Our aim is to discuss ways in which students realize their subjectivity by using a number of positions derived from the empirical material such as independent critical students, subject oriented authors and risk conscious instruction followers, all resulting from project oriented education. The empirical material consists of approximately 60 hours of filmed group interactions collected over a period of three years in a Swedish upper secondary school during a period of three years. The material are analyzed with content categorization and interaction analysis Four different positions regarding approaches towards instructions, the assessed situation and the use of different cues were identified and used to discuss how different approaches to risk forms as us citizens. In our study, positions have been derived using Goffman’s frame theory and takes a stand in Becker, Geer, & Hughes and Miller & Parlett’s classical studies on assessment. The four positions describe different types of relations towards the demands of 21st century learners. The positions have been scrutinized with the aid of Beck’s “manufactured uncertainty” and the emphasis that Biesta puts on trust and resistance in the educational relation. We conclude that today/s students cannot effort to be cue deaf and are expected to be cue choosing facing the danger of making incorrect choices.

Keywords
reflective society, competencies, social aspects of learning, social sciences, secondary education, cooperative/collaborative learning
National Category
Pedagogy
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hkr:diva-14650 (URN)
Conference
16th Biennial EARLI Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, Limasol, Cyprus, August 25-29, 2015.
Available from: 2015-09-21 Created: 2015-09-21 Last updated: 2016-04-01Bibliographically approved
Aili, C. & Nilsson, L.-E. (2015). Standardization meets practice: the case of integrating research-based work placement. In: : . Paper presented at 16th Biennial EARLI Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, Limasol, Cyprus, August 25-29, 2015..
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Standardization meets practice: the case of integrating research-based work placement
2015 (English)Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

A local reform, with the vision to educate Sweden’s most employable students was adopted by the board at a Swedish university. An important means for reaching the vision was a work placement. Students in all 28 programs at the university should be guaranteed at least five weeks supervised research based practice and learning in companies and organizations. Following the decision, activities were initiated in all Higher education programs to implement the placement reform. To document strategy work, yearly interviews were conducted with the head of the programs, course heads and teachers. Syllabi were collected and changes kept track of. Program dialogues were followed using ethnographic field work methods. University and program strategizing is explored from three questions: 1/ how did staff make sense of and turn strategy into practice? 2) what resources became important to strategy work? and 3) what kind of placement, what kind of examinations, what kind of supervision etcetera were the result. A strategy as practice-perspective is used to explore what became of the standardized model for placement envisioned in the university boards strategy. The result show that standardized placement was not possible for the programs. Instead different understandings of the reform based on the programs different conditions, led to a variation in what kind of placement they introduced.

Keywords
Case studies, ethnography, interdisciplinary, higher education
National Category
Pedagogy
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hkr:diva-14647 (URN)
Conference
16th Biennial EARLI Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, Limasol, Cyprus, August 25-29, 2015.
Available from: 2015-09-21 Created: 2015-09-21 Last updated: 2015-09-21Bibliographically approved
Aili, C. & Nilsson, L.-E. (2015). Universiteten har en viktig roll i det förändrade styrlandskapet. Universitetsläraren (6), 38-39
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Universiteten har en viktig roll i det förändrade styrlandskapet
2015 (Swedish)In: Universitetsläraren, ISSN 0282-4973, no 6, p. 38-39Article in journal (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.)) Published
National Category
Educational Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hkr:diva-14948 (URN)
Available from: 2015-10-19 Created: 2015-10-19 Last updated: 2015-10-19Bibliographically approved
Organisations
Identifiers
ORCID iD: ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0002-4589-8243

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