| dc.description.abstract | The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, fundamentally changed the focus of education in the United States from that of providing an opportunity for all to learn to mandating that all do learn. Central to this Act are the measures of school accountability established through assessment of learning policies. The development of these policies initiate with federal, state, and local governance bodies, but implementation takes place by individual teachers. Therefore, the failure of individual teachers to implement assessment policies with fidelity creates a fissure at the core of institutional credibility. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between teachers’ values and ethical frames and behavior with respect to academic misconduct. Findings offer clues as to how academic dishonesty might be reduced.
There exists a large body of research that has probed academic dishonesty, values and ethical frames; however, there appears to be a void in research that distinctly connects the three. Utilizing a survey instrument, data were collected from elementary teachers (N=155) in one suburban school district. The collected data were then analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistical tests to inform six research questions.
In some incidents, the small sample size produced violations of the assumptions of nonparametric statistical tests, thus hindering deeper analysis of selected data. However, the results in general appeared to support the hypothesis that elementary teachers appeared to engage in academic misconduct. The findings also appeared to suggest misconduct was influenced by social adaptation theory (R2N = .32); organizational socialization (Wald (1) =5.79, p < .05), values (Wald (1) =5.16, p < .05), and ethical frames (Wald (4) =25.22, p < .001). Thus, this study concluded that factors such as collaboration and professional development can possibly be utilized to reduce policy violations. | en |
