The last week of February the INTEGRITY tools for high schools were put to the test for the first time. Nearly 30 students, from different high schools across Ireland were brought together in an on-line event facilitated by Science Gallery Dublin, and also involving the INTEGRITY partners involved in the development of these teaching modules. The aim was to see how well the tools met the aim to provide an interactive and informal learning experience, including critical discussions about the importance of acting responsibly and with honesty in schoolwork and in daily life.

One of the highlights of the week was students learning and debating about plagiarism, data use and collaborative work in the Technology module. In groups, students shared thoughts on the use of smart devices (e.g. Alexa from Amazon) to do their own homework, as opposed of asking their parents for help. “I would say I would rather ask Alexa for help on a schoolwork than asking my parents. Alexa is not a real person!”. Social media platforms are increasingly used by teenagers, so students also discussed the role of social media influencers for collaborative work and whether data shared in social media platforms are reliable to be used in schoolwork assignments. While some students discussed that data shared by social media influencers can be trusted, others argued that most social media influencers only say what they are paid to say, which might not be reliable or from trusting sources.  All in all, the discussion exercise allowed us not only to collect key feedback on students’ perceptions of plagiarism, collaborative work and data use, but also to think about how to improve the practical discussion exercises for higher level of students’ engagement and learning.

In the Data Transmission module, students had a first-hand experience on the distortion of information, the importance of relying on the source of data and collaborative work. This activity was based on the traditional children’s game “Broken Telephone” or “Chinese Whispers”, where a student first heard a story and then passed on the story to a student, then to another student and so on, until the last student, who heard the story, repeated what s/he heard. The original story and final version were compared, to illustrate how propagating one’s own interpretations will distort information. This activity was another highlight of the week, with students mentioning that they really enjoyed the experience of passing on the information and seeing it being distorted. Also, students found the opportunity of searching online for the origin of the story useful and relevant to learn about the reliability of the source of information.

The Animal Experimentation module was mentioned by some students as the most enjoying moment of the day. “I really enjoyed learning about a topic that was mostly new to me”, “It was interesting to hear about the topic from a researcher working on the field” and “I really enjoyed the group discussion of the dilemma cases” were some of the feedback students made about the module. This module combined an introductory lecture with group discussion of academic integrity dilemma cases, related with students’ own schoolwork practices. The introductory lecture was presented in collaboration between Science Gallery Dublin and an INTEGRITY researcher that answered students’ questions and clarified doubts about some ethical aspects of animal experimentation. During the practical activity, students worked in individual groups on a particular dilemma case, to share their views on how they would best approach such situation, and then shared their views in a class debate. Some students mentioned the dilemma cases to be hard to share views on and that the level of content information, in the introductory lecture, was high. These are key feedback to us as we work on how to present this module in the future.

On the last day of the week, students presented their groupwork assignments about strategies to promote academic integrity in their own high schools. Brilliant ideas were presented, such as teaser phrases, sticking post-it notes on a wall, among others, which allowed us to understand that during this 4-days event, students overall comprehended the importance of academic integrity and of acting responsibly in their own studies and life.

The testing and feedback from students about the modules were key, allowing us now to think about how to further improve the modules for student engagement, before we start the next round of tests, in Denmark, Slovenia and Portugal. There we will work directly with schools and teachers, so that we can collect feedback in the context for which the modules will ultimately be used. These modules will be available freely from the INTEGRITY website before the end of 2021 and will also be promoted in several information events during the second half of the year. Any high school teacher will be able to use these modules in their class to teach academic integrity. Follow this blog to read the latest developments on our modules!

Feature image author – @pressfoto