The general question to be considered in this paper points to the nature of the world described by chemistry: what is macro-chemical ontology like? In particular, we want to identify the ontological categories that underlie chemical discourse and chemical practice. This is not an easy task, because modern Western metaphysics was strongly modeled by theoretical physics. For this reason, we attempt to answer our question by contrasting macro-chemical ontology with the mainstream ontology of physics and of traditional metaphysics. In particular, (...) we introduce the distinction between stuff-ontology, proper of chemistry, and individual-ontology, proper of physics. These two ontologies differ from each other in the basic categories of their own structures. On this basis, we characterize individual-ontology in such a way that the features of stuff-ontology will arise by contrast with it. (shrink)

In this paper, part of the ideas developed in Lewowicz (2000) will be reconsidered in the light of Pandora's Hope (1999a) - one of the latest publications of Bruno Latour. We will ponder the significance of these ideas and some of the incidental advances or retreats of the views of this author in the last 20 years. Although we still believe that, from the ontological point of view, Latour's philosophy is materialistic - then eliminativist - and not ontological relativist (...) (contrary to the opinion of his colleague philosophers), some of the symmetries developed in that text show outstanding ontological-epistemological and even methodological deficiencies which we try to show here; especially the symmetry between 'human and nonhuman actors' (Latour 1999a) and his very singular (but not without a fair amount of antecedents) concept of history of the things whose neologism is that of pragmatogony. Andrew Pickering (The mangle of practice, 1999a) proposed and developed the concept of temporary emergency. In view of this concept, he succeeds in criticising Latour's exact symmetries making use primarily of the concept of intentionality to account for the asymmetry (by no means radical, according to the latter) between 'the human and nonhuman collective'. In this paper we will try to reinforce (and inevitably to question) the notion of temporal emergency by giving it a less local aspect than the one given by this author. We will not only hold the asymmetry of certain dichotomies - presumably avoided by and avoidable according to Latour - but we will also claim the historical impossibility of such an avoidance: the concept of historialised emergency and not just temporalised, precludes this. It is concluded, firstly, that only an eliminativist materialism (within the range of materialisms) is able to avoid and even 'overcome' such pairs like nature/society and some of its derivatives like subject/object and individual/collective. Secondly, the decisive character of some dichotomies will be defended and lastly it will be attempted to account for the almost only ontological possibility of constructivism: the eliminativist materialism. (shrink)

We show that a new interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which the notion of event is defined without reference to measurement or observers, allows to construct a quantum general ontology based on systems, states and events. Unlike the Copenhagen interpretation, it does not resort to elements of a classical ontology. The quantum ontology in turn allows us to recognize that a typical behavior of quantum systems exhibits strong emergence and ontological non-reducibility. Such phenomena are not exceptional but natural, and are (...) rooted in the basic mathematical structure of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

resumo: Este artigo pretende mostrar que sem a influência de uma filosofia construtivista que eu denomino boa, representada principalmente por Bruno Latour, a elucidação das substâncias químicas teria sido virtualmente impossível. Sem a noção de materiais “artefatuais” cunhada por eles, a Química Moderna seria impensável a partir dos metaparadigmas em uso no campo atual da história e da filosofia da ciência. A tese central que defendo aqui é a de que o construtivismo, tal como definido pelos antropológos da ciência, é (...) uma maneira disfarçada de colocar a histórica filosofia materialista na trilha da discussão histórica e filosófica das ciências e tecnologias e que isso restaura o papel desempenhado pelos materiais usados pelos cientistas para que sejam exatamente o que são. abstract: This paper aims to show that without the influence of a constructivist philosophy I call good, mainly represented by Bruno Latour, the ontological elucidation of the chemical substances would have been virtually impossible. Without the notion of artifactual materials given by them, would be Modern Chemistry unthinkable from the metaparadigms in use in the present field of history and philosophy of science. The central thesis I defended here is that constructivism as defined by the anthropologists of science is a disguised way of sliding historical materialist philosophy into the mainline of philosophical and historical discussion of the sciences and technologies and that those restore the role played by the materials used by sciences to be exactly what they are. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo se pone de relieve una tesis del último Kuhn que ha sido, y aún es, desatendida: el carácter no universal del lenguaje. Luego de ubicarla en los textos y contextos teóricos donde aparece, se intenta aclararla a partir de algunos de sus textos posteriores. En este afán, el trabajo presente en primer lugar muestra, cómo, deben ser modificadas algunas de las propuestas filosóficas atribuidas al Kuhn clásico para poder comprender esta tesis y en segundo lugar, intenta (...) dar cuenta muy brevemente de ciertas innovaciones filosóficas del último Kuhn. Además, se comparan algunas de esas nuevas tesis de Kuhn con sus posibles -aunque nunca explicitados- interlocutores, a saber: N. Chomsky y J. Fodor. This paper draws attention to one of the theses of the Later Kuhn, which has been ignored: the non-universal character of language. After locating the thesis in the texts and theoretical contexts in which it appears, it is attempted to be clarified in view of some of his later texts. In regard of this, the paper firstly shows, how some of the philosophical proposals attributed to the Early Kuhn must be modified in order to understand it. Secondly, a very brief account for certain philosophical innovations in the Later Kuhn is attempted to be given. In addition, some of Kuhn's new theses are compared with his most likely, even if never explicit, interlocutors, namely N. Chomsky and J. Fodor. (shrink)

In this paper, I challenge the long-established view that the term phlogiston fails to refer. After a close examination of the reference of phlogiston during Lavoisier’s Chemical Revolution, I show that it referred throughout to a natural substance, fire matter. I state that Lavoisier eliminated the term but not its referent, which he renamed caloric, and I claim that it is in the historical and cultural context of the Chemical Revolution that the Lavoisier’s intentions can be understood.

Finding out which terms – scientific or otherwise— fail to refer is an extremely complex business since both felicitous reference and failure to refer must be negotiated. Causal theories of reference –even so-called hybrid theories – posit that in order to refer to something, we need the regulative idea of an ontological reference, which operates even when we refer to impossibilia or inconceivable objects. Evidently, this is not the case of the referent of phlogiston, which is neither inconceivable nor impossible, (...) nor, alas, does it exist. In the antipodes, from a representational-physicalist point of departure, a term fails to refer if it has no actual ontological grounds: phlogiston fails to refer because it has no physical existence. Phlogiston can even be considered to be a fictional entity, and referring to a fictional entity is not the same as a reference in a fiction or a fictional reference Salmon : a fictional entity is an object in the same sense as an abstract object, and therefore we can genuinely refer to it. The question is: who claims that phlogiston does not exist? Nowadays, everyone does, fundamentally and primarily because science has established it as a fact. The process that led to this result is extremely complex, lengthy and multi-dimensional. It involved factors of several kinds: cognitive, social, political, historical, as well as ontological, and this last factor has been neglected. I do not claim that phlogiston once existed and then ceased to exist -- science only allows us a sneak-peek into what exists and what, sometimes mistakenly, is supposed to exist. Paraphrasing Latour, this inquiry is about following the journey of the referents, even when they do not end up being physical-existent or existing objects. I believe with Bach that the notion of reference is essentially pragmatic; that the difference between alluding to something and referring to or denoting something must be established; that to achieve this the semantic properties of terms are not sufficient, and finally that references are not semantic but cognitive properties that relate thoughts and objects of any kind. My assumption is that to refer to something one must be capable of having thoughts about it and that the propositions one attempts to communicate in the course of referring to it are singular with respect to it. Being in a position to have a thought about a particular thing requires being connected to that thing, via perception, memory, communication and/ or education. Therefore, only in an exceedingly narrow realist theory of reference does phlogiston fail to refer. Unless a theory of reference of scientific terms is based on the study of the actual linguistic communicative practices among scientists, it will inevitably pose serious epistemological difficulties. (shrink)

El riesgo que ha corrido Tecnos al publicar este libro no es menor y por ello vaya nuestra felicitación. Las recensiones de libros han sido concebidas como un género menor de la literatura filosófica. No obstante, ese género implica asuntos que no necesariamente se exigen en los “géneros mayores”: un compromiso con lo leído; un juicio de lo leído; y así un riesgo asumido. Además, si las recensiones están bien hechas, se puede conocer en pocas páginas, el compromiso general que (...) los autores que recensionan tienen con su disciplina. La selección de los libros a reseñar, cuando es autónoma, implica la estética del autor que escoge, sus intereses y sus convicciones. Y entonces, nobleza obliga, sería bueno preguntarse si es lícito considerar las reseñas como un “género menor”. (shrink)

This paper describes a practice innovation: the addition of formal weekly discussions of patients with prolonged PICU stay to reduce healthcare providers’ moral distress and decrease length of stay for patients with life-threatening illnesses. We evaluated the innovation using a pre/post intervention design measuring provider moral distress and comparing patient outcomes using retrospective historical controls. Physicians and nurses on staff in our pediatric intensive care unit in a quaternary care children's hospital participated in the evaluation. There were 60 patients in (...) the interventional group and 66 patients in the historical control group. We evaluated the impact of weekly meetings to establish goals of care for patients with longer than 10 days length of stay in the ICU for a year. Moral distress was measured intermittently and reported moral distress thermometer scores fluctuated. "Clinical situations" represented the most frequent contributing factor to moral distress. Post intervention, overall moral distress scores, measured on the moral distress scale revised, were lower for respondents in all categories, and on three specific items. Patient outcomes before and after PEACE intervention showed a statistically significant decrease in PRISM indexed LOS, a statistically significant increase in both code status changes DNR, and in-hospital death, with no change in patient 30 or 365 day mortality. The addition of a clinical ethicist and senior intensivist to weekly inter-professional team meetings facilitated difficult conversations regarding realistic goals of care. The study demonstrated that the PEACE intervention had a positive impact on some factors that contribute to moral distress and can shorten PICU length of stay for some patients. (shrink)

Self-medication behaviour is the use of natural materials or chemical substances to manipulate behaviour or alter the body’s response to parasites or pathogens. Self-medication can be preventive, performed before an individual becomes infected or diseased, and/or therapeutic, performed after an individual becomes infected or diseased. We summarized all available reports of self-medication in mammals and reconstructed its evolution. We found that reports of self-medication were restricted to eutherian mammals and evolved at least four times independently. Self-medication was most commonly reported (...) in primates. Detailed analyses of primates suggest that self-medication is a life-history trait associated with body size, absolute brain size and longevity, but we found no support for the hypothesis that self-medication evolved to reduce the costs of social living. Large, longer-lived species might thus benefit uniquely from self-medication. (shrink)

This book explores when, and using what means, global political actors are morally justified in promoting their own ideas of justice in foreign societies. It develops ethical principles we can use to judge when such activities (“reform interventions”) are justified. In so doing, it re-conceives the traditional boundaries of politics and lays the foundation for a politically-engaged cosmopolitanism.

In late February and early March 2020, Italy became the European epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite increasingly stringent containment measures enforced by the government, the health system faced an enormous pressure, and extraordinary efforts were made in order to increase overall hospital beds’ availability and especially ICU capacity. Nevertheless, the hardest-hit hospitals in Northern Italy experienced a shortage of ICU beds and resources that led to hard allocating choices. At the beginning of March 2020, the Italian Society of Anesthesia, (...) Analgesia, Resuscitation, and Intensive Care issued recommendations aimed at supporting physicians in prioritizing patients when the number of critically ill patients overwhelm the capacity of ICUs. One motivating concern for the SIAARTI guidance was that, if no balanced and consistent allocation procedures were applied to prioritize patients, there would be a concrete risk for unfair choices, and that the prevalent “first come, first served” principle would lead to many avoidable deaths. Among the drivers of decision for admission to ICUs, age, comorbidities, and preexisting functional status were included. The recommendations were criticized as ageist and potentially discriminatory against elderly patients. Looking forward to the next steps, the Italian experience can be relevant to other parts of the world that are yet to see a significant surge of COVID-19: the need for transparent triage criteria and commonly shared values give the Italian recommendations even greater legitimacy. (shrink)

Modern humans are probably a product of social and anatomical preadaptations on the part of our Miocene australopithecine ancestors combined with the increasingly high amplitude, high frequency climate variation of the Pleistocene. The genus Homo first appeared in the early Pleistocene as ice age climates began to grip the earth. We hypothesize that this co-occurrence is causal. The human ability to adapt by cultural means is, in theory, an adaptation to highly variable environments because cultural evolution can better track rapidly (...) changing environments than can genes. High resolution ice and sediment cores published in the early 1990s showed the last ice age was characterized by high amplitude millennial and submillenial scale variation, exactly the sort of variation mathematical models suggest should favor a costly capacity for culture. More recent cores suggest that over the last several 100 thousand year glacial cycles the amount of millennial scale variation has increased rather dramatically in parallel with increases in hominin brain size and sophistication of the artifacts they made. (shrink)

Moral distress is a well-documented phenomenon for health care providers (HCPs). Exploring HCPs’ perceptions of participation in moral distress interventions using qualitative and quantitative methods enhances understanding of intervention effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to measure and describe the impact of a two-phased intervention on participants’ moral distress. Using a cross-over design, the project aimed to determine if the intervention would decrease moral distress, enhance moral agency, and improve perceptions about the work environment. We used quantitative instruments and (...) explored participants’ perceptions of the intervention using semi-structured interviews. Participants were from inpatient settings, within three major hospitals of a large, urban healthcare system in the Midwest, United States. Participants included nurses (80.6%) and other clinical care providers. Using generalized linear mixed modeling we assessed the change in each of the outcome variables over time controlling for groups. Interviews were audiotaped and professionally transcribed. The written narratives were coded into themes. The change in scores on study instruments trended in the desired direction however did not meet statistical significance. Qualitative interviews revealed that intervention effectiveness was derived from a combination of learning benefits, psychological benefits, and building community that promoted moral agency. Findings demonstrate a clear link between moral distress and moral agency and suggest that Facilitated Ethics Conversations can enhance the work environment. Findings provide insight for developing evidenced-based approaches to address moral distress of hospital nurses. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo intentará contribuir a la discusión teórica y filosófica política sobre la emancipación y la democracia en base a la producción intelectual reciente de Étienne Balibar y Jacques Rancière. Las nociones con las que ambos autores acompañan la idea de emancipación, por una parte, iluminan sobre otros modos posibles de pensar la política, las luchas y la transformación, y, por otra parte, permiten re-significar la filosofía y la política, así como la inclusión de la igualdad radical entre los (...) seres hablantes en el centro de la disputa teórica y política.This article will attempt to contribute to the theoretical and philosophical political discussion on emancipation and democracy based on the recent intellectual production of Étienne Balibar and Jacques Rancière. The notions with which both authors accompany the idea of emancipation, on the one hand, illuminate on other possible ways of thinking about politics, struggles and transformation, and, on the other hand, allow us to re-signify philosophy and politics, thus as the inclusion of radical equality between speaking beings at the center of the theoretical and political dispute. (shrink)

Humans are social beings. However, we are not alone in the realm of social reality; we share this space with diverse entities, including more than just animals. The term "social" has recently been applied to describe the collective behaviors of microorganisms and plants, as well as interactions among parts and groups of organisms. Therefore, there is a need to develop a framework that enables the study of social phenomena in a clearer and less restrictive manner. In this thesis, I lay (...) the groundwork for such a framework by describing the basic building blocks of social systems and their implications in the study of social behavior. This project necessitates breaking down disciplinary boundaries between the biological, cognitive, and social sciences to provide a more comprehensive perspective on the social phenomenon. In Part I, I review recent proposals that describe social systems based on interactions. I argue that these models can be extended to other interactive systems beyond animals, questioning the limits of the standard view of social systems. Also, by challenging an argument that supports a gap between humans and nature, I advocate for a broader understanding of social reality that includes both human and nonhuman beings. In Part II, I present a new framework for studying social systems consisting of three fundamental building blocks: interactions, relationships, and social units. I argue that interactions are vital components of social systems, highlighting their dynamic and entwined nature. Relationships, arising from distinctive patterns of interactions sensitive to the identity of the individuals, play a crucial role in these systems and encompass both objective and subjective components. Lastly, I develop an account of social units as cognitively autonomous individuals, drawing on biogenic approaches to cognition. Thus, I propose that a social system emerges when cognitively autonomous individuals (social units) engage in repeated interactions and form relationships. In Part III, I apply this framework to two entities that are subjects of contemporary debate: groups and plants. I argue that both groups and plants are potential social units. Specifically, plants interact repeatedly and demonstrate the ability to differentiate between individuals, providing evidence of their capacity to form social relationships. This framework serves as a guide for studying the social behavior of these entities and offers valuable insights into their interactive systems. Overall, this expanded framework establishes connections between social phenomena across different taxa and levels of organization, facilitating comparative investigations. It introduces new perspectives on social behavior, encourages interdisciplinary collaboration, and broadens our understanding of multi-species interactions. (shrink)

In the book The Insect Societies, Wilson proposed categories of sociality that were presented as a landmark unification of terminology in the study of social behavior. Since then, many new behavioral patterns have been described, but they could not be fitted into any of the available categories, undermining the consensus around that well-established classification. New general classifications tried to circumvent the limitations shown by Wilson’s categorization, but with little success. Among the proposals, some maintain the form of discrete categorization, while (...) others advance a quantitative model to characterize sociality. These proposals have failed to clarify the use of the categories of sociality, and none of them has become widely accepted or overcome the problems faced by the classification of social behaviors. Here we explore whether an analysis of types of concepts proposed by Carnap can help to move forward in this discussion. His distinction between qualitative concepts and quantitative concepts is used here as an epistemological basis for analyzing the development of the proposed conceptual changes and classifications of sociality. Recently, social behavior has come to be considered a complex phenomenon, and quantitative concepts could bring a lot of informative data to understanding its development and perhaps its evolution. We conclude that a new metric of sociality should be built, using characteristics that are nonarbitrary, evolutionarily meaningful, and amenable to comparing all social animals. Finally, we advocate for an integrative view of social complexity based on individuals’ interactions as a useful metric of sociality. This approach still needs further development. (shrink)

The non-random occupation of habitats is termed habitat selection. Some species of whip spiders select trees with burrows at their base, while others use substrates such as rocks. Here, we investigated the habitat use by Charinus asturius Pinto-da-Rocha, Machado & Weygoldt, 2002, an endemic species of Ilhabela Island in Brazil. We found that C. asturius is more likely to be found under rocks that cover larger areas of substrate. Our results also suggest the existence of territorialism in C. asturius and (...) show that C. asturius adults may be found again on the same rock a week later. Additionally, our data show that C. asturius is present in a greater area of Ilhabela than previously documented. (shrink)

Oftentimes, reality seems to us a chaos that we try to control with our theories. This article starts from the antithetic standpoint, inspired by Antonio Rosmini’s works: reality is intelligible, and originates our thinking. From this perspective, any research that tries to reach the truth is determined by the real, not the contrary. Moreover, interdisciplinarity, far from being a solipsistic enterprise, aims at achieving truth and guaranteeing scientific advancement. Here, we analyze the distinctive character of Rosminian encyclopedism and his principles (...) for preventing human errors. We then clarify why it is impossible to achieve perfection, and why such an impossibility is not problematic for the interdisciplinary dialogue. (shrink)

Some recent uses of artificial intelligence for facial recognition, evaluating resumes, and sorting photographs by subject matter have revealed troubling disparities in performance or impact based on the demographic traits of subject populations. These disparities raise pressing questions about how using artificial intelligence can work to promote justice or entrench injustice. Political theorists and philosophers have developed nuanced vocabularies and theoretical frameworks for understanding and adjudicating disputes about what justice requires and what constitutes injustice. The interdisciplinary community committed to understanding (...) and conscientiously using big data could benefit from this work. Thus, in the spirit of encouraging cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaboration, this piece examines contemporary scholarship in political theory and philosophy to illustrate some of the vocabularies and frameworks political theorists and philosophers have developed for thinking about justice and injustice. It then draws on these frameworks to illuminate how the use of artificial intelligence can implicate questions of justice, with a focus on institutional discrimination, structural injustice, and epistemic injustice. Ultimately, the piece argues that the use of artificial intelligence—far from representing a decision to take power out of human hands—represents a novel way of harnessing human power, making questions of justice central to its conscientious undertaking. (shrink)

This article develops a philosophical hermeneusis of the “Valladolid Debate” centered on the notion of “universality”, highlighting the universalist elements present both in the foundation of a praxis of colonial domination developed by Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and in the recognition of the cultural diversity held by Bartolomé de las Casas. First, the historical-ideological context of the conquest is presented. Subsequently the article analyzes de Sepulveda’s arguments about barbarism, cultural superiority and the right of domination, which established a “logic of (...) cultural domination”. In this context, de Sepúlveda intended to establish a fracture between “civilized” and “barbaric” cultures, in which the human essence revealed itself deficiently. Finally, the contribution considers the objections to the “colonial fracture” presented by de las Casas, who composes an alternative position resignifying the concept of “universality” that inhabited de Sepúlveda’s differentialist arguments. (shrink)

The aim of our study was to investigate the effects of a small therapeutic animal on the social behavior of nine autistic children. The social contacts of the autistic children were evaluated by a descriptive method of direct observation that was performed without and with the presence of a TA. In period one, contacts with an unfamiliar person and acquaintances were registered; in period two, contacts with the acquaintances and the TA were registered. The frequency of contacts of autistic children (...) with their acquaintances significantly increased in the presence of the TA . The frequency of contacts with the TA was significantly higher than the frequency of contacts with the UP . The form of the autistic children’s contacts with A, with the UP, and with the TA was individually dependent, and the presence of the TA changed the characteristics of contacts with A. Our results indicate that the presence of a small TA can positively influence the quantity and quality of the social behavior of autistic children and that the characteristics of social contacts were dependent on the individual. (shrink)

Although the literature on corporate social responsibility has discussed the scope and meaning of CSR extensively, confusion still exists regarding how to define the concept. One controversial issue deals with the changing legal status of CSR. Based on a review of CSR definitions and meta-studies on CSR definitions, we find that the majority of definitions leans toward voluntary CSR. However, some recent regulatory amendments toward mandatory CSR have called into question the established idea of CSR as merely a managerial tool (...) of self-regulation. In this paper, we juxtapose the evolution of CSR in India against the scholarly literature discussing voluntary-versus-mandatory CSR to understand the recent shift toward a new conceptualization of CSR as a form of co-regulation that includes elements of both voluntary and mandatory regulation. The Indian Companies Act 2013 is a remarkable example in that it replaced an older version from 1956, taking a bold step toward the integration of voluntary and mandatory aspects in the application of CSR. We present practical implications of the Indian case for businesses and discuss implications for CSR theory development; we particularly consider the evolution of the business and society relationship from a voluntary soft law approach to CSR to an increasingly hard law approach and transitory hybrid forms in-between like soft–hard law and hard–soft law. (shrink)

The aim of the study was to explore the experiences of night nurses. An interpretative phenomenological study was undertaken, and 35 nurses working in Italian medical, surgical and intensive care units were purposely recruited. Data were gathered in 2010 by semi‐structured interviews, collecting nurses' narratives, memorable cases and metaphors, aimed at summarising the essence of work as a nurse during the night. The experience of night nursing is based on four interconnected themes: (i) working in a state of alert, (ii) (...) growing by expanding autonomy and responsibility, (iii) assuring sensitive surveillance and (iv) experiencing deep intimacy. Memorable episodes were polarised along (i) expected/unexpected events; (ii) positive/negative epilogues; and (iii) life/death issues. Many of the emergent metaphors described working during the night as being in the middle of a space where an apparent calm scene takes place, but unpredictable factors may suddenly change the order of events and the outcomes, creating chaos. Working during the night alerts nurses, who increase autonomy, expanding their role and assuming more responsibility with respect to that assumed during daily shifts. The nurses' clinical reasoning is based on data they carefully listen to, and on the meaning that nurses give time by time to different noises and silence. While in the past a sense of companionships was reported, a loneliness or a ‘neutral’ experience concerning the relationships with colleagues seems to prevail during night nursing. Working night shifts is a complex task, and specific training must be assured to students/novices. (shrink)

Political theorists have written a great deal about the ethics of “intervention,” defined as states using coercion or force to interfere in foreign societies’ politics. But this work leaves much of global politics un-analyzed—both because non-state actors play an increasingly significant role in it and because its practitioners use many tactics besides force and coercion.We need an ethics of foreign influence to help us navigate the global political arena in all its complexity. Here, I begin to develop a unified theory (...) of the ethics of deliberate attempts to promote justice in foreign societies, whether undertaken by state or non-state actors, and whatever tactics they employ. I identify two important but under-appreciated dimensions along which instances of foreign influence can differ and argue that, once we appreciate the full range of forms foreign influence can take, we’ll see it’s often immune to the common moral objections against intervention. (shrink)

This study investigated students’ perceptions following a prepared, common presentation regarding academic integrity provided by their residence dons. This peer instruction study utilized both quantitative and qualitative analyses of survey data within a pre-test post-test design. Overall, students reported gains in knowledge, as well as confidence in their knowledge of academic integrity. Notably, students reported increases in their personal value for academic integrity after participating in the presentations. Overall, the quality and content of the presentations were judged positively, and participants’ (...) ratings of the presentation were predictive of increases in personal value of academic integrity, as well as self-reported knowledge and confidence gains. Qualitative analyses supported that the key ideas in the presentation served as the focal material for discussion, but also introduced specific topics that students wanted to explore in greater depth. (shrink)

Campbell, Ulrich, and Grady (2016) should be commended for attempting to contribute to the discussion of what many believe is currently a messy concept. They propose that a broader definition of mo...