Hi all, this is my first time posting on these forums. I'm a 2nd year HIM student at a large tech school in south carolina. I'm looking for advice on how to best approach a situation I find myself in where the instructors, department chair of HIM program and the Dean of the nursing and health sciences department presumably are actively colluding to avoid accountability in delivering fallacious disease process content to students in the online HIM program. I am unfamiliar with the administrative workings of colleges and I have pursued the only recourse that I am aware of, the student grievance process, to no avail. I was hoping someone on this forum might know how best to proceed with my problem following reading my version of events.
While taking a Human Pathology test, I took issue with the answer choice provided for the true/false question "All tapeworms are acquired by eating uncooked or inadequately cooked meat." The instructor had the correct answer choice being true and stood by the answer choice even after I brought it to the attention of the instructor that this was a factual error due to the fact that tape worm infestations are not all acquired through the ingestion of undercooked meat. As an example, tape worms infestations can be acquired through products contaminated with feces or directly consuming eggs or larvae, and even included medical literature (of which there is a considerable amount on the topic) supporting the claim. The instructor response was less than ideal, stating that "according to the book" there was nothing there to support altering the test answer choice. I had hoped that the instructor of human pathology would have known about disease processes of one of the most common types of morbidity in the world without having to "look it up" or at the very least, have knowledge from experiences in the field subject matter therefore I responded stating my concern over the quality of instruction given. Instead of responding directly to the issue of contention to support why she continued to support her position without factual evidence, the instructor passed me off to the department chair who then proceeded to not take my concern about the quality of instruction seriously. I asked basic questions that any customer would want to know about an individual performing a service: "What qualifications do this person have to teach this particular class?" which were responded to with dis-contempt and left unanswered.
I then filed an official complaint with the department chair. I contested that particular test question should be altered or stricken from student grades based on principles of adhering to academic integrity and truthfulness in instruction. I proposed that the test question be rephrased in the future to be more in line with the medical literature and that future students be given appropriate instruction to counter the vagueness of the textbook on the matter. I even went further to continue linking government and credible literary sources to the department chair on the topic, however the department chair denied the request stating that the question was appropriate and supported by medical literature, of course without including the "vast" literature that she claimed supported it. I requested clarification, and she stated that the issue was not serious enough to be concerned about as pathology is not a main concern of Health Information Management duties. I was left with no impression that there had been any investigation either by the instructor or the department chair into the subject matter.
I protested this issue with the dean and explained the issue and how this was of importance to the academic integrity of the program for instructors to always give truthful information to students and how I felt that the academic integrity of the program was being put in jeopardy by instructors failing to self-correct or properly investigate and vett instructional content. I was met with a carbon copy response that the department chair made, and my concerns were dismissed. I then asked the dean to explain how she could come to a rational conclusion that "All tapeworms are acquired by eating uncooked or inadequately cooked meat." and under what factual basis she used to determine that the department chair and the instructor were correct in allowing students to believe this to be true through affirmation of the test content. Instead of offering a supporting rationale for her decision to dismiss my concern about the factual basis of the course content, Her response was "I'm not going to argue content related to tapeworms. I appreciate your knowledge however, find your accusations of the faculty as unethical and lacking academic integrity unfounded. I am not discussing this further with you" and sent me further into the bureaucracy of the administrative chain. I suppose the hope here is that my concerns will continue to be dismissed.
For me the experience utilizing the complaint resolution process at the school has been a nightmare and completely unsatisfactory. Furthermore this incident has shattered my trust at obtaining a quality education at the school's HIM department and has also cause me to be more distrustful of HIM instructional content and the administrative oversight coming from the dean and higher levels of the institution. As a consequence I now put extra scrutiny on assignments and essentially "teach myself." As a paying customer of instruction, I expected more. If I cannot trust the instructional content given by professors at the school or the quality control process to make sure that instructional content is valid then why should I be paying the tuition costs incurred to support their salaries and administrative processes? Unfortunately transferring at this point is not an option as there are certain costs and articulation problems involved that prevent me from simply jumping ship to another institution, else I would definitely seek instruction elsewhere.
There are other unsettling and concurrent issues. I have been bringing up the my academic integrity concerns about the HIM department in classroom discussions and including additional issues that I've noticed. For instance, almost all the subjective grading assignments such as short answer or discussion questions are assigned grades of 100. It seems statistically impossible for that many assignments to be marked "perfect." I believe that instructors are not going through assignments rigorously enough to challenge students or check student's mastery of the material. A fellow student brought up concerns that the courses were not including enough relevant practical training assignments to meet the job descriptions posted, and when I tied in my concerns about the integrity of the program to that discussion, the HIM department chair promptly deleted my post and sent me a threatening e-mail informing me "you should consider this an official request" to end my personal grievances with her and stop posting comments about the HIM program integrity, which I am interpreting to mean that she is going to try to take action against me in some manner, possibly attempting to trump up charges to warrant removal from the program, or expulsion from the school..
While taking a Human Pathology test, I took issue with the answer choice provided for the true/false question "All tapeworms are acquired by eating uncooked or inadequately cooked meat." The instructor had the correct answer choice being true and stood by the answer choice even after I brought it to the attention of the instructor that this was a factual error due to the fact that tape worm infestations are not all acquired through the ingestion of undercooked meat. As an example, tape worms infestations can be acquired through products contaminated with feces or directly consuming eggs or larvae, and even included medical literature (of which there is a considerable amount on the topic) supporting the claim. The instructor response was less than ideal, stating that "according to the book" there was nothing there to support altering the test answer choice. I had hoped that the instructor of human pathology would have known about disease processes of one of the most common types of morbidity in the world without having to "look it up" or at the very least, have knowledge from experiences in the field subject matter therefore I responded stating my concern over the quality of instruction given. Instead of responding directly to the issue of contention to support why she continued to support her position without factual evidence, the instructor passed me off to the department chair who then proceeded to not take my concern about the quality of instruction seriously. I asked basic questions that any customer would want to know about an individual performing a service: "What qualifications do this person have to teach this particular class?" which were responded to with dis-contempt and left unanswered.
I then filed an official complaint with the department chair. I contested that particular test question should be altered or stricken from student grades based on principles of adhering to academic integrity and truthfulness in instruction. I proposed that the test question be rephrased in the future to be more in line with the medical literature and that future students be given appropriate instruction to counter the vagueness of the textbook on the matter. I even went further to continue linking government and credible literary sources to the department chair on the topic, however the department chair denied the request stating that the question was appropriate and supported by medical literature, of course without including the "vast" literature that she claimed supported it. I requested clarification, and she stated that the issue was not serious enough to be concerned about as pathology is not a main concern of Health Information Management duties. I was left with no impression that there had been any investigation either by the instructor or the department chair into the subject matter.
I protested this issue with the dean and explained the issue and how this was of importance to the academic integrity of the program for instructors to always give truthful information to students and how I felt that the academic integrity of the program was being put in jeopardy by instructors failing to self-correct or properly investigate and vett instructional content. I was met with a carbon copy response that the department chair made, and my concerns were dismissed. I then asked the dean to explain how she could come to a rational conclusion that "All tapeworms are acquired by eating uncooked or inadequately cooked meat." and under what factual basis she used to determine that the department chair and the instructor were correct in allowing students to believe this to be true through affirmation of the test content. Instead of offering a supporting rationale for her decision to dismiss my concern about the factual basis of the course content, Her response was "I'm not going to argue content related to tapeworms. I appreciate your knowledge however, find your accusations of the faculty as unethical and lacking academic integrity unfounded. I am not discussing this further with you" and sent me further into the bureaucracy of the administrative chain. I suppose the hope here is that my concerns will continue to be dismissed.
For me the experience utilizing the complaint resolution process at the school has been a nightmare and completely unsatisfactory. Furthermore this incident has shattered my trust at obtaining a quality education at the school's HIM department and has also cause me to be more distrustful of HIM instructional content and the administrative oversight coming from the dean and higher levels of the institution. As a consequence I now put extra scrutiny on assignments and essentially "teach myself." As a paying customer of instruction, I expected more. If I cannot trust the instructional content given by professors at the school or the quality control process to make sure that instructional content is valid then why should I be paying the tuition costs incurred to support their salaries and administrative processes? Unfortunately transferring at this point is not an option as there are certain costs and articulation problems involved that prevent me from simply jumping ship to another institution, else I would definitely seek instruction elsewhere.
There are other unsettling and concurrent issues. I have been bringing up the my academic integrity concerns about the HIM department in classroom discussions and including additional issues that I've noticed. For instance, almost all the subjective grading assignments such as short answer or discussion questions are assigned grades of 100. It seems statistically impossible for that many assignments to be marked "perfect." I believe that instructors are not going through assignments rigorously enough to challenge students or check student's mastery of the material. A fellow student brought up concerns that the courses were not including enough relevant practical training assignments to meet the job descriptions posted, and when I tied in my concerns about the integrity of the program to that discussion, the HIM department chair promptly deleted my post and sent me a threatening e-mail informing me "you should consider this an official request" to end my personal grievances with her and stop posting comments about the HIM program integrity, which I am interpreting to mean that she is going to try to take action against me in some manner, possibly attempting to trump up charges to warrant removal from the program, or expulsion from the school..
