NUR 6300 Module 5 Ethics in Education Paper: Incivility and Academic Integrity in an RN-to-BSN Course Example

Respect and Honesty Online: Responding to Incivility and Copied Work in an RN-to-BSN Course

Student Name

M.S. in Nursing, Nurse Educator, Thomas Edison State University

NUR-6300: Theoretical Foundations and Instructional Strategies in Nursing Education

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

Respect and Honesty Online: Responding to Incivility and Copied Work in an RN-to-BSN Course

Two Problems in One Week

The course, the students and the posts are invented. Thirty-four working registered nurses are enrolled in an online community health course for RN-to-BSN students. In week five, a discussion about vaccine hesitancy turned hostile. One student called another's post "ignorant and dangerous"; the second replied with a personal attack; several students stopped posting. In the same week, the educator found that two students had submitted papers on a community assessment with whole paragraphs nearly identical. Both students worked at the same hospital.

The course's educator, who is completing a master's in nursing education, wanted to respond in a way that was fair to everyone and that protected the course as a place where nurses could learn from disagreement.

Incivility in Nursing Education

Clark and Springer (2007) surveyed students and faculty at a school of nursing about how they define and experience incivility. Both groups described a wide range of uncivil behaviors, from disruptive classroom conduct, such as side conversations and sarcasm, to more threatening behavior. Students also reported faculty incivility, such as belittling remarks and unfair treatment. Both groups saw stress, demanding workloads and a sense of entitlement as contributing factors, and both described incivility as harmful to learning. The authors called for faculty and students to work together to define expected behavior.

Online courses add their own risks. Without tone of voice or facial expression, posts can read as harsher than intended, and students may say things in writing they would not say face to face.

Academic Dishonesty in Nursing

McCabe (2009) surveyed nursing students at schools across the United States about academic dishonesty. Many students reported having engaged in at least one form of dishonesty in classroom settings, such as copying another's work or working together on individual assignments, and many also reported dishonest behavior in clinical settings, such as recording assessments they had not done. McCabe worried that habits of dishonesty formed in school could follow students into practice, where it can affect patient safety, and argued for clear policies, education about integrity and assignments that make cheating harder and less tempting.

The Professional Code

Nurses are asked by their code of ethics (American Nurses Association, 2015) to honor the worth and dignity of every person, colleagues included, and to establish and maintain a culture of civility. The code also makes each nurse answerable for their own practice and asks for integrity in everything they do professionally. For RN-to-BSN students, these are not new rules for school; they are obligations they already carry as licensed nurses.

Responding to Incivility

The educator removed neither post but hid both from the class pending review. She contacted each student privately by phone, described the specific words used, explained the effect on the discussion and referred to the course's expectations and the code's call for civility. Both students agreed to post brief messages acknowledging that the exchange had gone too far. The educator then posted a note to the class inviting them to help write discussion norms. The class agreed on five, including "disagree with the idea, not the person" and "ask a question before assuming bad intent." The norms are pinned at the top of every discussion.

Responding to Suspected Dishonesty

The educator followed the university's academic integrity process. She met separately with each student, showed the similar passages and asked how the papers were written. One student explained that she had shared her draft with her coworker to help; the other admitted copying parts. The educator reported both to the integrity office as the policy requires, recommending an educational response for the student who shared and a grade penalty for the student who copied, with both completing an integrity module. She did not discuss the case with the class.

Preventing Problems

For future courses, the educator redesigned the community assessment so that each student uses data from their own county, includes a short interview with a local public health worker and submits a draft for feedback before the final paper, which makes copying difficult and adds value. The course opens with a short module on civility and integrity framed around the code of ethics, and discussion prompts ask students to respond to a peer's idea with a question before offering their own view.

Faculty Conduct

The research reminded the educator that faculty can be uncivil too. She reviewed her own feedback on recent assignments and found comments that could read as dismissive, such as one-word replies to student questions. She revised her approach: responding to discussion posts within two days, opening feedback with what the student did well and explaining the reason for each correction. She also told students how to raise a concern about her own conduct with the program director. Civility in a course, she concluded, depends on the educator modeling it.

Involving the Students

The educator invited two students who had stayed out of the hostile thread to help draft the integrity module for the next course, since peers often speak to integrity more persuasively than faculty. They suggested a short scenario about sharing a draft with a coworker, which they said many working nurses would see as helping rather than cheating, and a clear statement of where help ends and copying begins.

Limits

The incivility study surveyed one school, and online settings may differ. The dishonesty study relied on self-report. Redesigned assignments take more faculty time to grade.

Conclusion

Incivility and dishonesty both threaten the trust that an online course depends on. Research showed that both are common in nursing education, and the code of ethics framed civility and integrity as professional duties. Private, specific responses, a fair integrity process, shared norms and assignments that resist copying address the week's problems and make the next course stronger.

References

American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. American Nurses Association.

Clark, C. M., & Springer, P. J. (2007). Incivility in nursing education: A descriptive study of definitions and prevalence. Journal of Nursing Education, 46(1), 7-14. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20070101-03

McCabe, D. L. (2009). Academic dishonesty in nursing schools: An empirical investigation. Journal of Nursing Education, 48(11), 614-623. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20090716-07