Assessing the Big-5 Model of Personality

Introduction

This reappraisal discusses the paper presented by Karim, Zamzuri and Nor sing their work associating Internet moralss in an academic scene and the alleged theory “ Big-5 Model of Personality ” and how it helps to foretell computing machine usage behavior among pupils in Malaysia. The said survey was a research done on Malayan college pupils associating the Big-5 Model to Internet moralss and entitled, “ Researching the Relationship between Internet Ethics in University Students and the Big-5 Model of Personality ” published in Computers and Education which is a peer-reviewed academic diary ( Karim, Zamzuri & A ; Nor 2009, p. 86 ) .

It is good known that the rapid acceptance of Internet use is increasing in our mundane lives such as in the workplace, in societal networking, in commercialism, in banking and significantly in the academia. The widespread usage of the Internet in schools is furthered along because it is a really valuable tool for the educational procedure such as research for term documents, for illustration. It has been used progressively to advance squad work every bit good, such as college pupils given some assignments that require group work and close coordination among the members.

The rapid usage of the Internet has besides engendered many unethical patterns today such as duplicity, plagiarism, straight-out disproof and fudging by informations by the pupils. There is clearly a demand to joint a set of ethical behaviors to forestall such patterns going widespread and entrenched in pupil behavior. Although the survey ‘s writers had done an admirable occupation in suggesting the usage of the prognostic Big 5 Model in an academic scene, the survey has some defects which can be best addressed in future surveies to be undertaken by other similarly-inclined research workers and hopefully use the findings in other scenes as good.

Discussion

Article Summary

The survey being critiqued here concerns the consequences of a study ( self-report ) done on 5 different college sections in the International Islamic University of Malaysia ( IIUM ) . The pupils in this public university were made to reply a questionnaire that links the extent to which these pupils engaged in unethical behavior with respects to their Internet use. The entire figure of student-respondents was 270 but merely 252 returned filled-out signifiers were really utile for the intents of this survey and the balance of 18 responses discarded ( ibid. p. 88 ) .

The whole point of this survey which is rather pioneering in its novel usage of the Big 5 Model is how unethical Internet behavior can be faithfully predicted based on the five factors of personality or traits that sociologists term as amenity, conscientiousness, emotional stableness, extra-version and rational openness. The usage of this Big 5 Model is documented rather good in other surveies related to other Fieldss such as concern direction and consumer behavior purchasing forms and determination devising. This survey by Karim et Al. is an effort to make full out some identified research spreads. As of now, there is a dearth of research literature that had specifically linked the Big 5 traits to existent unethical behavior sing Internet usage. It is even more important that this survey is one of the first of its sort to associate the Big 5 Model to a few identified specific unethical behavior in a tertiary-level academic scene.

With the menace of a deadline for entry of a term paper, for illustration, pupils are at great force per unit area to bring forth some quality academic work end product. This force per unit area has frequently lead to unethical behavior like plagiarism, deceitful usage of printed stuffs and even manipulating a set of informations by either changing the consequences slightly or wholly fabricating a false set of informations. The writers of this survey set out to find the extent or prevalence ( how widespread ) are the identified unethical behavior among Malayan college pupils sing Internet usage and if there is a nexus between those and the Big 5 Model to be able to reliably foretell them.

The article reviewed here first gave some background on why unethical behavior in Internet usage has become rather common. Among grounds cited by the writers are advantages of utilizing the Internet like its easiness of usage and its widespread handiness with people and pupils now holding entree to cheaper Internet connexions. Experts consider Internet handiness as a blessing instead than a curse, particularly in an academic scene where much research work is being done. Entree to informations and other valuable beginnings of information and resource stuffs is made executable with Internet engineering ( Laurence & A ; Miller 2000, p. 110 ) .

The assorted unethical behaviors are termed by the survey writers as ITAD or Internet- triggered academic dishonesty and is considered by them as an deviant behavior. It was besides acknowledged by them that a few of these deviant behaviors had existed long before the usage of Internet resources was introduced in academe such as pupil ‘s darnel sheets or small pieces of paper smuggled into restricted suites during scrutiny periods. A few of these deviant behaviors are wholly new and others came into being as technologically-updated versions of older methods of dishonesty. In other words, Internet engineering has become an enabler of the newer rip offing methods non otherwise possible earlier ( Karim, Zamzuri & A ; Nor 2009, p. 86 ) .

Besides plagiarism, a really common wickedness among pupils is the “ copy-and-paste ” manner of composing some of their assignments which consequences in non admiting their beginnings to the full. A rampant usage of these methods had educational practicians worried because it is something rather new that came along with the Internet. Although true computing machine moralss itself is a chiseled construct in bing literature, what is non covered by current literature are those facets of computing machine usage specifically limited to Internet use particularly in academic scenes. The Internet today has acquired extra importance in instruction due to the paradigm displacement in pedagogues ‘ thought that acquisition is best experienced in a collaborative societal scene when pupils are exposed to assorted societal dialogue manners ( Ke & A ; Charr-Chellman 2006, p. 249 ) .

Internet usage moralss is discussed within the broader field of computing machine moralss which still is under the much bigger class of information engineering. Certain Internet behaviors can be considered harmless such as utilizing information beginnings without full admiting them while some Internet behaviors are peculiarly harmful such as choping e-mail histories and utilizing the Internet to prosecute in cyber-bullying activities. Many activities persisted because of the deficiency of equal Torahs and precautions sing such deviant behavior to penalize those who engage in these improper and unethical behaviors ( Harris 2005, p. 74 ) . As writer Harris points out, the namelessness afforded by the Internet lends itself to unethical behaviors.

Like other Fieldss of human enterprise where technological progresss are rapid such as in medical research and biological scientific disciplines, there is a slowdown between the development of moralss and in these new Fieldss. Example of this slowdown is in bioethics which struggled with the morality of root cell research utilizing embryo-destruction techniques ( Hug 2006, p. 111 ) and had a difficult clip specifying what constitutes a human being from the start of fertilisation, the fertilized ovum. In the same manner, Internet engineering has far outpaced the development of a set of the basic criterion codification of behavior that will hopefully steer all single Internet users.

When a deadline for entry of a important academic paper is looming, the sense of urgency and immediateness now acquires an exigency position for pupils caught in state of affairss no different from Alzheimer ‘s and Parkinson ‘s sick persons who are impatient with all blowy moral statements about the moral properness of stem-cell research ( Ponnuru 2006, p. 160 ) . Students are more than probably to prosecute in unethical behavior to be able to go through the paper on clip. It is safe to presume that the fright of penalty when caught is now instilled in pupils ‘ heads due to the usage of electronic plagiarism sensing package such as Turnitin and CopyScape. But a more distressing issue is the deficiency of a comprehensive set of “ cyber-ethics ” that will instil values and guidelines about proper usage of the Internet as an academic resource as told by the writers.

A Few Critical Issues in the Paper

The writers of this paper claimed that the most common academic wickednesss connected with Internet usage are duplicity, disproof, plagiarism, delinquency and unauthorised aid. But within the same paragraph, they besides point as a confining factor of their survey the deficiency of more comprehensive correlativity analysis between these common wickednesss and the factors that may hold facilitated their committee such as single features, equal force per unit area and institutional policies ( or the deficiency thereof which is the instance with some universities ) .

The writers should hold done a correlativity analysis on this relationship because it had someway detracted the cogency of their findings. Their failure to insulate these variable factors had impinged on whether the Big 5 Model is truly valid and replicable in other experiments with respects to the nexus between unethical Internet behavior and personality traits.

There is another determination that I found a spot upseting or to state the least, rather confounding and this pertains to the profile of the study respondents. The writers of this survey had a 70 % female composing of respondents and merely 30 % are males. A different set of demographics in which females comprise two-thirds of the respondents does non in any detract from some of their decisions. However, presuming that their usage associating the Big 5 Model is right with respect to Internet behavior, so this survey at best has some skewed consequences.

This is because it conflicts with an earlier survey done by Szabo & A ; Underwood ( 2004 ) demoing an dismaying prevalence of the deviant behavior among males alternatively of females. The writers should hold clarified on this farther to avoid confounding their readers about some of their decisions. However, viewed on decisions that agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stableness are significantly reciprocally correlated to unethical Internet behavior, so it someway makes sense because females are more fearful of acquiring caught and terrible effects of prosecuting in such deviant behavior than males.

The writers acknowledged that the Big 5 Model is correlated positively with a figure of factors such as single public presentation, civilization, ethical behavior, profoundly held values and beliefs every bit good as the sense of morality ( Rawwas & A ; Isakson 2000, p. 325 ) . These three writers further claimed in their survey that single differences sing the Big 5 Model that took into history certain fluctuations in civilization are rather stable or robust and therefore every bit valid or applicable with respects to their findings utilizing Malayan pupils.

However, about in the same vena, they besides disclaimed that this is true by saying the consequences of their survey could be rather alone to the Malayan academic environment merely. This contradicts earlier claims that the Big 5 Model is applicable across assorted civilizations. Although they clarified on it with a caution, the writers still need to do a categorical base on this.

Overall, I agree with their decision that amenity and conscientiousness are two factors that faithfully predict pupils ‘ antipathy to prosecuting in unethical Internet behavior but I find this to be a spot axiomatic. They besides stated that extra-version and rational openness are non strongly correlated which struggles with their hypotheses ( H1 and H5 in their paper ) .

Decision

Of all the wickednesss pupils are likely to perpetrate, it is likely plagiarism. This academic misdemeanor is non truly a condemnable offense but still pupils sometimes commit it accidentally or inadvertently because of the displacement in educational direction, from giving unwritten presentations of assignments to faculty and replaced by demands of written documents ( Simmons 1999, p. 41 ) . The survey writers suggest that ethical behavior is related to positive personality traits and if taken together with applied psychological science rules can be used to plan a comprehensive set of computing machine or cyber-ethics that can be integrated to the present course of study. An interesting manner to maximise the usage of Large 5 Model in Internet moralss will be to utilize a longitudinal survey that tracks the same people similar to a 4-year survey that detects a form ( Beauvais et al. 2007 ) .