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Using Research to Identify Academic Dishonesty Deterrents Among Engineering Undergraduates
Abstract
The E3 Research Team, lead by the authors, has conducted several major investigations and has surveyed and/or interviewed over 1500 engineering and non-engineering undergraduates at 23 institutions [http://www.engin.umich.edu/research/e3/]. The team is motivated by decades of work showing engineering students are among the most frequent cheaters as well as by studies indicating a correlation between cheating and unethical professional behavior. The team???s research suggests that the explanation for higher rates of cheating among engineering students may lie in curricular or engineering program cultural differences rather than in differences in opportunities to cheat or in the nature of students entering these disciplines. The team has also identified a willingness of students to engage in dishonest behaviors that have significant punitive consequences, a clear relationship between students??? attitude toward a behavior and their propensity to engage in that behavior, and a strong correspondence between cheating in high school and college and engaging in unethical behaviors in the workplace. As such, to promote integrity it is important to identify key pedagogical interventions. This paper will summarize some of the team???s important research findings and will discuss psychological and physical deterrents to cheating and their apparent effectiveness. The paper translates these findings into practical suggestions for educators and professionals interested in promoting integrity in the curriculum and the classroom.
... Throughout institutions of higher education and other academic contexts, there is a lack of consensus on what constitutes cheating among both students and faculty members (Beasley, 2014;Burrus, McGoldrick, & Schuhmann, 2007;Carpenter, Harding, & Finelli, 2010;McCabe, Trevino, & Butterfield, 1999). As noted earlier in the Bower (1964) study, the rates of cheating MORAL REMINDERS AND CHEATING 4 changed depending on how many cheating behaviors were listed (4 versus 13); students acknowledged more cheating once a clearer set of cheating behaviors was established. ...
... Not only does a lack of understanding of cheating influence the likelihood of academic dishonesty, it also leads to rationalizing cheating behaviors. If students do not understand that their behaviors are considered cheating, they are more likely to dismiss them as just unethical as opposed to labeling them as cheating (Carpenter et al., 2010). There are many additional ways students cheat and factors that affect students' cheating behaviors. ...
... Rather than cheating on an exam, which is almost universally agreed upon as an unacceptable behavior, students may cheat primarily on assignments, which they perceive to be unethical but not cheating and therefore more acceptable to cheat on. For instance, Carpenter et al. (2010) surveyed engineering students and found a wide variation of acceptable academically dishonest behaviors: 91.6% of students believed using unauthorized materials on a test was cheating, but that number dropped to 60.7% of students when asked about copying papers or exams from previous terms as cheating. Students who cheated on assignments they considered less serious or unethical allow themselves to more readily prevent future MORAL REMINDERS AND CHEATING 7 cognitive dissonance. ...
Moral reminders are statements that prime people of ethical standards and can reduce cheating (Mazar et al., 2008). The present study compared two types of moral reminders: verbal and written. Data were collected at two small colleges with honor codes. Participants (n = 48) were placed into one of three conditions: no reminder, verbal reminder, or a signed written reminder. Participants then completed a timed matrix task (Mazar et al., 2008) with an opportunity to cheat to win raffle tickets. Participants self-reported the number of matrices they completed and recycled their answer sheets. To measure cheating, participants’ individual number of reported matrices were subtracted by the group’s average completed matrices. A one-way ANOVA showed no significant differences between groups; however, there was an underreporting of matrices in the written reminder condition. Implications of the use of moral reminders are discussed.
... Some cross-disciplinary studies indicate that students in science and engineering may be more prone to cheating than students in other disciplines. For example, through interviews and surveys, Carpenter et al. (2010) found that engineering students were twice as likely to cheat on exams and problem sets as students from other disciplines. Newstead et al. (1996) surveyed 943 students at an English university and inquired about whether students had engaged in any of 20 behaviors identified as "cheating" (e.g., copying another students' coursework, fabricating references, lying about medical issues to take an exam at a later date, etc.). ...
... However, to be effective, honor codes require students to take responsibility for their own learning as well as for reporting violations. Unfortunately, Carpenter et al. (2010) found that only 22 % of students felt obligated to challenge or report cheating if they observed it. Thus, establishing a culture of responsibility and integrity and enforcement of those standards is necessary for honor codes to be effective. ...
... Dishonesty during one's undergraduate studies is predictive of dishonesty in later employment (Carpenter et al. 2010;Sims 2010), and studies reviewed in this chapter indicate that academic integrity violations are common among STEM students. Although frequency of cheating varies across studies, as Newstead et al. (1996) note, variation could partly reflect how cheating is measured. ...
Although work in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields underlies the
innovations that characterize living in the age of information, some research points to a public distrust of
science and technologists. While distrust may partly result from larger social trends, the public’s trust in
science also relies on the integrity of individuals in STEM fields. Most often academic integrity is
discussed in terms of cheating and plagiarism violations. However, given the need for STEM profes-
sionals to act ethically, any definition of academic integrity in STEM should reflect professional standards
for ethical practice. This chapter reviews these standards and discusses how they can inform conceptu-
alizations of and policies around academic integrity in STEM education. The chapter also explores the
prevalence of and causes underlying academic integrity violations in STEM and examines the methods
for promoting academic integrity among STEM students. The chapter concludes by identifying research
directions that may inform efforts to promote integrity among STEM students and professionals.
... In addition to the sub-issues of academic ethics, academic ethics is also an important area of research because many empirical studies show that the vast majority of students are affected by, and therefore act against, academic ethics (e.g. Harris, 2004;De Lambert et al., 2006;Carpenter et al., 2010;Toprak, 2017). There are many ways to improve the situation, but the academic evidence so far suggests that these methods and tools have not been very successful. ...
... Fischer & Zigmond, 2011;Choi, 2019) This negative trend is supported by the extensive use of the internet and its ever-expanding offers, sometimes poor English skills, the burden of difficult tasks and the fear of failure (e.g. Carpenter et al., 2010;Alnajjar & Hashish, 2021;Blau et al., 2021). The reasons may include what Brimble (2016) refers to as the neutralizing effect, which refers to the fact that although students feel that their behavior was wrong, they deny it, blaming external factors or other people. ...
The intensive ethical dilemmas characterize the contemporary world, so ethics as a scientific discipline is even more present in the scientific world and the educational system. Numerous universities offer their students the opportunity to study ethics as a scientific field. That enables young people to become more familiar with her and the application of her theories in everyday decision-making. At the faculties of business and management, business ethics is receiving more and more attention after numerous scandals, the center of which were the most famous multinational companies. In addition to family, friends, and national culture, education is important in creating, adopting, and disseminating ethics. Higher education institutions should not be singled out in this, even though, as a rule, they do not deal with an educational role. Professors should be a model for creating morally responsible future generations. This research aimed to determine students' perception of ethical issues in the University environment. The authors examined how demographic characteristics influence their ethical attitudes and tried to define the ethical dimensions in their perception of the faculty's role in the individual's ethics. In order to achieve this goal, a survey was conducted among students from Hungary and Serbia. ANOVA and factor analysis processed the obtained data set. The results indicate that students consider the faculty an important factor in shaping individual ethics. Conversely, students are sometimes held to different ethical standards than other constituents.
... In addition to the sub-issues of academic ethics, academic ethics is also an important area of research because many empirical studies show that the vast majority of students are affected by, and therefore act against, academic ethics (e.g. Harris, 2004;De Lambert et al., 2006;Carpenter et al., 2010;Toprak, 2017). There are many ways to improve the situation, but the academic evidence so far suggests that these methods and tools have not been very successful. ...
... Fischer & Zigmond, 2011;Choi, 2019) This negative trend is supported by the extensive use of the internet and its ever-expanding offers, sometimes poor English skills, the burden of difficult tasks and the fear of failure (e.g. Carpenter et al., 2010;Alnajjar & Hashish, 2021;Blau et al., 2021). The reasons may include what Brimble (2016) refers to as the neutralizing effect, which refers to the fact that although students feel that their behavior was wrong, they deny it, blaming external factors or other people. ...
After examining the theoretical aspects of corruption, it can be said that corruption is the abuse of authority (office) for personal gain and includes bribery, embezzlement, favoritism, etc. Corruption can also undermine income distribution and lead to neglect of environmental protection in the Green Deal. Decreasing resources due to corrupt actions can
have negative consequences for social protection and public services, as it reduces the available budget and disrupts equal access to public services, as well as creating negative
conditions for ensuring sustainability and protecting the environment. The purpose of the article is to analyse various concepts of corruption and present its impact on economy and national budget’s revenue. Methods used in the research: analysis of legal acts, scientific comparative analysis of literature.
... According to research, university students frequently indicate a lack of knowledge or understanding of academic dishonesty (McCabe et al., 2012). Furthermore, university students dispute about what acts constitute academic misconduct, how heinous such behaviours are, and how to respond to them (Burrus et al. 2007;Carpenter et al. 2010;Keener et al. 2019). ...
... The students in this study showed an overall positive perception although some students perceived some academically dishonest acts as mild to moderate cheating. This goes in line with reports that students dispute about what acts constitute academic misconduct (Burrus et al. 2007;Carpenter et al. 2010;Keener et al. 2019). Acts such as marking attendance sheet for absent friends, making false entries in practical logbooks, copying an assignment from another student were perceived as mild cheating while allowing a fellow student to copy during a test or exam, and telling a fellow student answer during a test or exam were perceived as moderate cheating by the students. ...
This study aimed to assess the knowledge, perception, infuencing factors as well as
suggested strategies to reduce academic dishonesty among healthcare students.
A cross-sectional design that employed a self-administered online questionnaire was
used to collect data among healthcare students in Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti,
Nigeria. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used in selecting the
respondents. Knowledge was categorised into poor (<50% of total score), fair (50–69%
of total score) and good (≥70% of total score) while perception was classifed as posi-
tive (≥50% of total score) and negative (<50% of total score). Association between
student demographics, and perception of academic dishonesty was analysed using
Chi-Square and Fisher Exact tests. Diferences in knowledge between demographics
was analysed using independent sample T-test and One way Analysis of variance.
Three hundred thirty-fve students were enrolled in this study of which 83.3% were
female and the mean age of the respondents was 19.33 years. 29.8% and 94.9% of the
students showed good knowledge and positive perception of academic dishonesty
respectively. There was a signifcant diference in knowledge based on students’ level
of study (p<0.001) and departments (p<0.001). Fear of failure (77.0%), social stigma
and peer pressure (37.0%) were commonly identifed reasons for academic dishonesty
among students while strict punishment (18.3%) and proper invigilation (16.2%) were the
most suggested strategies (n=178) to control academic dishonesty among students.
Poor to fair knowledge and positive perception towards academic dishonesty was shown
by majority of the students. Educational intervention in form of training and proper
implementation of suggested strategies is warranted to improve knowledge, reduce
misconceptions and ultimately reduce academic dishonest behaviours among students.
... 3 In addition, engineering students may believe that cheating is not unethical or that it is not really wrong. As Carpenter et al. (2010) assert: ''61.1 % of engineering undergraduates indicated that faculty and students had either little or no understanding of the academic policies of their institution and nearly half of them thought faculty did not support those policies.'' If students believe that their professors do not support academic dishonesty policies, they may come to believe that these policies are not a true reflection of what is wrong or unethical. ...
... If students believe that their professors do not support academic dishonesty policies, they may come to believe that these policies are not a true reflection of what is wrong or unethical. 4 Carpenter et al. (2010) assert that students are ''more apt to cheat if they perceive they would feel no shame or embarrassment if discovered. Likewise, students who see little threat of being caught by their institution are also more likely to cheat.'' ...
In this essay I discuss a novel engineering ethics class that has the potential to significantly decrease the likelihood that students (and professionals) will inadvertently or unintentionally act unethically in the future. This class is different from standard engineering ethics classes in that it focuses on the issue of why people act unethically and how students (and professionals) can avoid a variety of hurdles to ethical behavior. I do not deny that it is important for students to develop cogent moral reasoning and ethical decision-making as taught in traditional college-level ethics classes, but as an educator, I aim to help students apply moral reasoning in specific, real-life situations so they are able to make ethical decisions and act ethically in their academic careers and after they graduate. Research in moral psychology provides evidence that many seemingly irrelevant situational factors affect the moral judgment of most moral agents and frequently lead agents to unintentionally or inadvertently act wrongly. I argue that, in addition to teaching college students moral reasoning and ethical decision-making, it is important to: 1. Teach students about psychological and situational factors that affect people's ethical judgments/behaviors in the sometimes stressful, emotion-laden environment of the workplace; 2. Guide students to engage in critical reflection about the sorts of situations they personally might find ethically challenging before they encounter those situations; and 3. Provide students with strategies to help them avoid future unethical behavior when they encounter these situations in school and in the workplace.
... It is widely recognized that the problem of academic dishonesty is a widespread issue at both medium and high educational levels [19][20][21]. However, according to Carpenter et al. [22], engineering students are among the most frequent cheaters. Specifically, these authors reported that engineering undergraduates cheat almost twice on exams and homework than students from social sciences. ...
... Reduction of cheating and plagiarism has become a fundamental and challenging issue [23]. Numerous studies that focus on academic dishonesty incorporate recommendations to reduce cheating rates (see [22,[24][25][26] for example). Most of these studies point out the design of assessment tasks that reduce opportunities for cheating as an important issue in the prevention of academic dishonesty. ...
This paper describes two new Moodle modules that were developed to enhance a problem-based learning approach. One of
the modules offers the possibility to easily customize student assessment. In particular, it enables the creation of questions
containing random numeric variables, either scalar or vectorial, and whose answers are automatically computed regardless
of the complex combination of numerical and logical operations involved in their calculation. The other module facilitates
the subdivision of a problem into a common statement and a set of questions which are successively displayed in the
browser. By combining these two modules, instructors can easily offer their students the opportunity to practice answering
individualized quizzes anywhere and anytime. The analysis of the effect of the use of these two modules on students’
performance revealed the existence of a strong link between the amount of online problems answered by students and their
final grades. Typically, higher final grades were associated to higher regularity in answering individualized online
problems. Moreover, it was shown that the use of individualized assessment quizzes tends to reduce academic dishonesty.
... It is quite possible that without a strong, prior commitment to academic honor or a thorough understanding of the honor systems' specific standards, students struggle to assimilate. Though students at traditional honor system institutions report having a better understanding of their institution's policies compared to students at modified honor system institutions and non-honor system institutions (Schwartz et al., 2013), many students remain confused about what constitutes cheating at their particular institutions despite an overall understanding that cheating is wrong (Carpenter et al., 2010;Tatum & Schwartz, 2017). Thus, some students may experience trouble adhering to an honor code and become averse to it. ...
In higher education in the United States, the language of honor is prevalent in academic settings. For the purposes of creating a fair educational environment and aiding in students’ personal character development, many universities and colleges implement honor systems that require students to adhere to honor codes. Most of these honor systems penalize forms of academic dishonesty, with some extending to include inappropriate social behaviors such as discrimination and harassment. We argue that the focus of academic honor systems on sanctioning honor violations overemphasizes the extrinsic motivation for compliance and detracts from the intended goal to nurture personal character development and the intrinsic motivation to act honorably. Despite this divergence from their intended goal, academic honor systems should be preserved because, if modified to align with the psychological principles underlying intrinsic motivation and the internalization of and adherence to moral norms, they can serve the significant goal, especially in an educational setting, of shaping individuals and a society that value honor and integrity.
... With respect to 1b and 2b hypotheses, inferential estimates further convey that such skewed distributions swell or shrink across the level of specific college membership. The results corroborate prior empirical research that has pointed to undeveloped AM knowledge among university students [3,9,10,34,36,53]. And the results implicate how a throughline of haphazard secondary experiences on AM carries over at the start of university studies despite raised standards and consequences around AM ( [15,15,24], Jensen et al. [33,45,63,69], Waltzer et al. [70]). ...
Student academic misconduct continues to vex higher education institutions in the United States and internationally. The COVID pandemic learning environment yielded more rather than less reports of student academic misconduct. Substantial empirical research has considered the nature of academic misconduct in higher education institutions by identifying its antecedents and correlates. But given the reproducibility crisis in social research, the quality of knowledge that students have on academic misconduct warrants further empirical corroboration. With the intent to replicate, this study used Quantitative Content Analysis to examine 2631 written responses from first-year undergraduate students as they participated in academic misconduct programming implemented by a public university in the United States. Results reported a staggering proportion of first-year students possess piecemeal (at best) or non-existent (at worst) knowledge over citations/references and cheating. Furthermore, such proportions are uneven according to specific college membership. Results corroborate prior research that first-year undergraduate students hold limited understanding of academic misconduct in its premises, patterns, and processes. In turn, results support the design and use of systematic preventive mechanisms to address academic misconduct among higher education institutions.
... There is evidence that anticipating emotions such as shame and embarrassment may deter some forms of cheating behaviours (Carpenter et al., 2010;Curtis, 2023b;Finelli et al., 2003). Moral emotions, sometimes called self-conscious emotions, such as pride, shame, guilt, and gratitude, are what guide individuals to act in prosocial ways which, in turn, maintain society's norms and values. ...
This chapter explores the role that emotions play in students’ decisions to cheat and their responses to cheating after it has occurred. We outline a model showing the potential connections between emotions and cheating. Next, we provide an overview of the literature on emotions, both anticipated and experienced, and academic dishonesty. The literature review covers anticipated moral emotions, fear of failure, positive and negative emotions, self-control, and emotional reactions to cheating. We connect the empirical findings from research on emotions and cheating to five strategies that instructors and practitioners can implement to deter academic misconduct and promote academic integrity. Finally, we suggest areas for future research into connections between emotions and cheating.
... Such a disconnect leads some engineers to operate without considering the context in which their work exists (Cech 2014). Further, when ethical concerns are considered in engineering education, there is often a disproportionate emphasis on microethics, including cheating on tests (Bairaktarova and Woodcock 2017; Carpenter et al. 2010), and responsible conduct of research (DuBois et al. 2010;Mitcham and Englehardt 2016). While these are important ethical issues for engineering students, they omit macroethical concerns, and thus neglect social systems and the interaction of engineered systems with people and society (Herkert 2005). ...
... Mostafa (2011) argues that creative disciplines such architecture require discipline specific approaches to address plagiarism in education and this should assist in promoting ethical behaviour in their later years when in professional practice. Carpenter et al. (2010) found that engineering students selfreported higher rates of academically dishonest behaviours compared to their peers in other programs of study. This is not because of their innate characters but probably due to the contributory factors of the nature of the curriculum and course design. ...
Plagiarism is a growing issue in higher education institutions world-wide. If left unchallenged, it represents a threat to genuine academic scholarship and integrity. This paper examines the current state of knowledge based on published research with a specific focus on plagiarism in engineering education. The overall aim of the study is to identify major factors that contribute to plagiaristic behaviour and to develop evidence-based tools, resources and interventions to assist students, faculty and higher education institutions to avoid plagiarism. Furthermore, the study seeks to provide policy recommendations that can be implemented at institutional level. It is found that plagiarism occurs at all levels of academic practice in teaching and research. The reasons why students plagiarise include ease of access to materials on the internet, time constraints, pressures to achieve good grades, lack of academic support and failure to integrate students into the university community. Faculty and universities have a role to play in training students to be ethical users of information. Students should be trained to be able to identify their requirements, to source and paraphrase text, cite references properly and attribute all sources of information. Faculty should also develop authentic instruments of assessments. This will motivate students to develop creative solutions. Plagiarism is however a complex aspect of human behaviour and further research is required to understand it better and to find potential solutions.
... The students in this study showed an overall positive perception although some students perceived some academically dishonest acts as mild to moderate cheating. This goes in line with reports that students dispute about what acts constitute academic misconduct (Burrus et al., 2007;Carpenter et al., 2010;Keener et al. 2019). Acts such as marking attendance sheet for absent friends, making false entries in practical logbooks, copying an assignment from another student were perceived as mild cheating while allowing a fellow student to copy during a test or exam, and telling a fellow student answer during a test or exam were perceived as moderate cheating by the students. ...
This study aimed to assess the knowledge, perception, influencing factors as well as suggested strategies to reduce academic dishonesty among healthcare students.
A cross-sectional design that employed a self-administered online questionnaire was used to collect data among healthcare students in Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used in selecting the respondents. Knowledge was categorised into poor (< 50%), fair (50–69%) and good (≥ 70%) while perception was classified as positive (≥ 50%) and negative (< 50%). Association between student demographics, and perception of academic dishonesty was analysed using Chi-Square and Fisher Exact tests. Differences in knowledge between demographics was analysed using independent sample T-test and One way Analysis of variance.
335 students were enrolled in this study of which 83.3% were female and the mean age of the respondents was 19.33 years. 29.8% and 94.9% of the students showed good knowledge and positive perception of academic dishonesty respectively. There was a significant difference in knowledge based on students’ level of study (p < 0.001) and departments (p < 0.001). Fear of failure (77.0%), social stigma and peer pressure (37.0%) were commonly identified reasons for academic dishonesty among students while strict punishment (18.3%) and proper invigilation (16.2%) were the most suggested strategies (n = 178) to control academic dishonesty among students.
Poor to fair knowledge and positive perception towards academic dishonesty was shown by majority of the students. Educational intervention in form of training and proper implementation of suggested strategies is warranted to improve knowledge, reduce misconceptions and ultimately reduce academic dishonest behaviours among students.
... Alternatively, many engineering ethics studies evaluate the motivations behind academic dishonesty at both the high school (Sisti 2007) and college levels. The studies focused on cheating at the college level span many disciplines, including business (Simkin and McLeod 2010), humanities , and engineering (Carpenter et al. 2010). ...
While the technical aspects of engineering are emphasized in education and industry, the ethical aspects are, in some ways, just as vital. Engineering instructors should teach undergraduates about their ethical responsibilities in the realm of engineering. Students would then be more likely to grasp their responsibilities as professionals. For many students, undergraduate study is a time of growth and change, with their ethical development just beginning to take shape. In this study, we aim to understand the progression of ethical development for engineering undergraduate students and identify key factors that may contribute to their development. To help us assess ethical development, we deployed in Fall 2020 a survey to undergraduate engineering students at two universities; the survey entailed the Defining Issues Test-2 (DIT-2). The DIT-2 evaluates ethical development based on Kohlberg’s theory of moral development; the test recognizes three levels of morality—preconventional, conventional, and postconventional. This study evaluates the associations between students’ university and class year and their Personal Interest, Maintaining Norms, and N2 scores. We utilized the results of a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to address the following research question: Is a student’s ethical development associated with their university and class year? The results of the analysis reveal that students’ ethical development appear to differ between universities and to lie along a continuum, changing from first-year students to seniors of engineering undergraduate study.
... • Undergraduate engineering programs are well-positioned to design assessments and assignments to encourage moral development. • I. Background: AI in Engineering Carpenter, D., Harding, T., & Finelli, C. (2010). Using research to identify academic dishonesty deterrents among engineering undergraduates. ...
Purpose: This report documents research and related materials concerning plagiarism in STEM and engineering programs to inform and guide future work in the field. It provides an overview of the literature up to and including 2019 related to plagiarism in STEM and engineering programs.
Methods: Two research questions guided this literature review: 1. What scholarly, research, and professional literature explores and examines plagiarism in STEM and engineering programs? 2. What major themes emerge from scholarly and research literature about plagiarism in engineering? To this end, a methodical research of databases was undertaken, relevant research was compiled, and articles were summarized and categorized.
Results: Our review and search of the literature resulted in more than 30 sources, which we organized into 7 categories: (a) Background: AI in engineering; (b) student perceptions and attitudes; (c) faculty perceptions and attitudes; (d) cheating and collusion; (e) text-matching software and plagiarism detection; (f) international students and (g) interventions and reparations.
We found that plagiarism in STEM and engineering, as in other fields, is widespread among students and faculty, while policies and their implementation are often inconsistent. Calls for clearer guidelines and greater support for students and faculty resound as a consistent theme in the literature.
Implications: Plagiarism in STEM and engineering research has been slow to develop, but is a continuing field of growth. As more stakeholders become aware of the scope and complexities of plagiarism, many researchers are making recommendations for policy, policy implementation, and support through technology, education, and intervention programs.
Additional materials: 36 References
Keywords: Academic integrity, academic dishonesty, academic misconduct, plagiarism, cheating, engineering
... which is a suite of online software tools used to assess teamwork; here, our SO-5 ("teamwork") committee utilizes the online peer-assessment tool to survey senior-design teams in their last semester of the capstone-design project. As another example, the SO-4 ("profession ethics") committee devised a variant of a survey described in Carpenter et al (2010) [1] to gauge student attitudes towards cheating; this survey is conducted in the first semester of our three-semester capstone-design course sequence. ...
... While several recent studies have examined the academic integrity of engineering undergraduates (copying on exams and in research papers), 33,34,35,36,37 as well as copying of proprietary software code, 38 there are relatively few studies that have focused on engineering graduate students or their writings, with most centered around surveys of students or faculty. Brown 39 found that 18.2% of graduate engineering students surveyed admitted engaging in plagiarism "more than infrequently." ...
... Research has found that university students often report little awareness or understanding of not just AM overall, but AM as it relates to HEI policies and procedures (McCabe et al. 2012). Furthermore, university students disagree on what behaviors constitute AM the egregiousness of such behaviors, and the correct response to such behaviors (Ashworth et al. 1997;Burrus et al. 2007;Carpenter et al. 2010;Jordan 2001;Keener et al. 2019). ...
Academic misconduct (AM) runs rampant across higher education institutions in the US and internationally. Ample empirical research has identified myriad student variables that predict AM. However, two variables have been unexamined: the quality of conceptual knowledge university students have on AM and the relation between goals for going to university and reception to intervention on AM. Quantitative content analysis on written responses by 356 first-year university students reported surface-level knowledge of AM, frequent citation of extrinsic goals, and a lack of association between goals and receptiveness to intervention. Results corroborate prior research on university students' limited understanding of AM. Results suggest that efforts to address AM do not need to tailor intervention components to match students' goals for attending university.
... VAI have been found to be prevalent in different countries, among students from different academic fields, and at different educational levels. For example, a study of 1500 undergraduates from a variety of American universities and colleges (Carpenter et al. 2010) indicated that 80% of the participants had conducted at least one of the VAI cases that were presented to them. An additional study focused on the academic misconduct of plagiarism (Teixeira and Rocha 2008) and found that among approximately seven thousand economics and business students from a variety of universities in 21 different countries across the globe, the majority admitted having copied at least once. ...
This study aimed to address the gap in the literature through a comprehensive comparison of different types of violations of academic integrity (VAI), cheating, plagiarism, fabrication and facilitation (Pavela in J College Univ Law 24(1):1–22, 1997), conducted in analog versus digital settings, as well as students’ and faculty members’ perceptions regarding their severity. The study explored differences in perceptions regarding students’ VAI and penalties for VAI among 1482 students and 42 faculty members. Furthermore, we explored the impact of socio-demographic characteristics (ethnic majority vs. minority students), gender, and academic degree on the perceived severity of VAI. Presented with a battery of scenarios, participants assessed the severity of penalties imposed by a university disciplinary committee. Furthermore, participants selected the penalties they deemed appropriate for violations engaged in by students, including: reprimanding, financial, academic, and accessibility penalties. All participants tended to suggest more severe penalties for VAI conducted in traditional analog environments than for the same offenses in digital settings. Students perceived all four types of penalties imposed by the disciplinary committee to be significantly more severe than faculty members. Moreover, findings demonstrated a significant difference between faculty and students in both perceptions of the severity of VAI and in relation to suggested punishments. Consistent with the Self-Concept Maintenance Model (Mazar et al. in J Mark Res 45(6):633–644, 2008) and Neutralizing Effect (Brimble, in: Bretag (ed) Handbook of academic integrity, SpringerNature, Singapore, pp 365–382, 2016), ethnic minority students estimated cheating, plagiarism, and facilitation violations as more severe than majority students. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
... Previous studies on the subject have indicated that academic dishonesty is more common among students majoring in engineering than others (Todd-Mancillas and Sisson, 1986;McCabe and Trevino, 1997;Mattei, 2008;Carpenter et al., 2010;Bullard and Melvin, 2011). Perceptions by students and faculty in the major do not always agree on what constitutes a breach in academic dishonesty. ...
Purpose
Students and faculty from the College of Engineering at an American university in the United Arab Emirates were surveyed about their perception on different issues related to academic dishonesty. Opinions were sought on plagiarism, inappropriate collaboration, cheating on exams, copyright violations, and complicity in academic dishonesty. Reasons for students to commit dishonest acts and ways to reduce academic misconduct were also included.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey involving 11 questions with multiple choice answers was developed and distributed to engineering students and faculty at the institution to get their perception of the considered issues.
Findings
Results of the study showed that while faculty and students were generally in agreement in their perception of the frequency of academic dishonesty among students, they greatly differed on the courses of action needed to reduce them. Most faculty members favored applying tougher penalties and using more proctors in exams. On the other hand, students preferred softer approaches such as educating them on academic integrity issues, applying lenient deadlines for assignments, and reducing the difficulty of exams.
Research limitations/implications
The conclusions and recommendations of the study are applicable to colleges of higher education having similar characteristics and culture to the surveyed institution.
Practical implications
The findings can be used to understand students’ behavior and faculty’s attitude towards academic dishonesty, and to assess the effectiveness of current strategies addressing the issue at similar universities in the region.
Originality/value
The conducted literature review indicated that this work is believed to be a pioneering case study in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
... However, the mode of delivery and effectiveness of these approaches vary widely, and the extent to which they promote ethical reasoning ability may be lacking. Further, based on high rates of cheating and unethical workplace behaviors among engineering undergraduates, students do not universally exhibit ethical behavior (Carpenter et al. 2010; Finelli et al. 2012). The results for the ethics items on the Fundamentals of Engineering exam are a common measure of whether students are meeting ABET Outcome f, which is " an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility " (Barry 2009). ...
Developing engineers must be aware that technological development and emerging global issues will require a keen sense of ethical responsibility. Therefore, they must be prepared to reason through and act appropriately on the ethical dilemmas they will experience as professionals. From a civil engineering professional perspective, graduates need to conform to the ASCE Body of Knowledge as they prepare for the Vision of 2025. This investigation evaluated different institutional approaches for ethics education with a goal of better preparing students to be ethical professionals. The project included visiting 19 diverse partner institutions and collecting data from nearly 150 faculty and administrators and more than 4,000 engineering undergraduates including 567 civil engineering undergraduates who completed the survey. Findings suggest that co-curricular experiences have an important influence on ethical development, that quality of instruction is more important than quantity of curricular experiences, that students are less likely to be satisfied with ethics instruction when they have higher ethical reasoning skills, and that the institutional culture makes affects how students behave and how they articulate concepts of ethics. Overall, regression analysis indicates that civil engineering student responses were consistent with the overall engineering undergraduate population. Finally, the research suggests the curricular foundation is in place, but that institutions need to improve their curricular and co-curricular offerings to facilitate ethical development of students and fulfill ASCE Body of Knowledge outcomes.
In 1993, McCabe and Treviño published a seminal paper in which they proposed that honor codes reduced academic misconduct among college students. I review the research on honor codes that has emerged in the last 30 years. The extant body of literature demonstrates the efficacy of honor codes in creating and maintaining a culture of academic honesty and integrity in institutions of higher education. Although the findings are nuanced, honor codes appear to work by educating students about academic integrity and holding them accountable through social norms, expectations, attitudes, reminders, and clear policies for addressing academic misconduct. Directions for future research are proposed.
This purpose of this paper is to outline how values theory can be incorporated into a business ethics curriculum and how academic integrity can be recruited in doing so. The paper presents a pedagogical approach that allows students to reflect on their values, articulate their values stances, and learn how values influence both ethical and unethical behavior. The paper also demonstrates how academic dishonesty is an effective means by which to teach students the pathway from values, to attitudes, to behavior, while also teaching students the long-term ramifications of behaving unethically during their time spent in higher education.
College students (n = 928) from small, medium, and large institutions with either a modified or no honor code were presented with cheating scenarios and asked to rate how dishonest they perceive the behavior to be and the likelihood that they would report it. No main effects were found for institution size or type of honor code. Student-faculty ratio was not correlated with responses to the cheating scenarios. Students from modified honor code schools perceived more severe punishments for cheating and understood the reporting process better than students from non-honor code schools. Implications for modified honor code systems are discussed.
Although there is evidence of cheating at all levels of education, institutions often do not implement or design integrity policies, such as honor codes, to prevent and adjudicate academic dishonesty. Further, faculty rarely discuss academic integrity expectations or policies with their students. When cheating does occur, faculty often ignore it or do not penalize students. In this article, we will discuss the predictors of cheating and how honor codes can provide the structure needed to reduce both the perception and prevalence of cheating. We will include a discussion of honor codes and their effectiveness. We will provide evidence-based strategies to administrators and faculty to improve academic integrity across campus and in the classroom.
Cheating in examinations transpires in every-country of the world, and it is a fraudulent-behavior that involves some-form of deception, in which a candidate's efforts, or the efforts of other-candidates, are altered; it has negative educational, social and psychological-effects. Even though cheating is widespread, it has been observed that some-faculties rarely-discuss rules and consequences of academic-dishonesty with their-students. The main-objective of this-study is to comprehend, cheating-phenomena, on a deeper-level, by evaluating perception of the-trend from the faculty' perspective, so that ways could be proposed for preventing it from happening. This-study is a fraction of a larger-research on cheating at the School of Engineering (SOE). The study-design used a descriptive-survey-approach and a document-analysis. A designed confidential self-report-questioner was used as the main-instrument for this-study, with the sample-size of 25-subjects and response-rate of 84%. The tool was pre-tested to ensure its validity and reliability. The study focused on the Attribution-Theory and Constructivist-paradigm of research that view knowledge as socially-constructed from the context of cheating in examinations. The data collection-instrument was subjected to the statistical-analysis to determine its reliability via Cronbach's alpha-coefficient, and found high inter-item consistency (a > 0.9). The results of the survey, where 81% of the respondents agreed that students frequently indulge in examination-malpractice, clearly revealed that cheating, indeed, is a significant-problem in the SOE. The challenge for the school is, therefore, to tailor effective-strategies to prevent cheating-opportunities, and to establish and enforce valuable-means of dealing with particular-patterns and types of cheating. Specific-recommendations on how to deal with cheating in examinations are also highlighted.
Although work in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields underlies the innovations that characterize living in the age of information, some research points to a public distrust of science and technology. While distrust may partly result from larger social trends, the public’s trust in science also relies on the integrity of individuals in STEM fields. Most often academic integrity is discussed in terms of cheating and plagiarism violations. However, given the need for STEM professionals to act ethically, any definition of academic integrity in STEM should reflect professional standards for ethical practice. This chapter reviews these standards and discusses how they can inform conceptualizations of and policies around academic integrity in STEM education. The chapter also explores the prevalence of and causes underlying academic integrity violations in STEM and examines the methods for promoting academic integrity among STEM students. The chapter concludes by identifying research directions that may inform efforts to promote integrity among STEM students and professionals.
Several measures need to be taken to reduce the number of cheating cases in the campuses. One of the experts, Carpenter, listed a number of questionable actions and asked students which ones they would regard as cheating. The results include copying from another student on an in-class exam (96%), copying from a crib sheet on a closed-book test (92%), copying another student's homework (73%), and unauthorized collaboration on web-based quizzes (41%) and take-home exams (39%). Most survey respondents felt that instructors (79%) and the institution (73%) are responsible for preventing cheating, but only 22% thought students had any obligation to challenge or report it if they saw it. Lisa Bullard, a faculty member who frequently teaches CHE 205, and Adam Melvin, a graduate student who has taught it several times, have developed an effective system for reducing cheating in the course. The syllabus provides detailed descriptions of the activities that are considered as cheating and the procedure followed when students are caught at them.
Research dealing with various aspects of* the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985,
1987) is reviewed, and some unresolved issues are discussed. In broad terms, the theory is
found to be well supported by empirical evidence. Intentions to perform behaviors of different
kinds can be predicted with high accuracy from attitudes toward the behavior, subjective
norms, and perceived behavioral control; and these intentions, together with perceptions of
behavioral control, account for considerable variance in actual behavior. Attitudes, subjective
norms, and perceived behavioral control are shown to be related to appropriate sets of salient
behavioral, normative, and control beliefs about the behavior, but the exact nature of these
relations is still uncertain. Expectancy value formulations are found to be only partly
successful in dealing with these relations. Optimal rescaling of expectancy and value
measures is offered as a means of dealing with measurement limitations. Finally, inclusion of
past behavior in the prediction equation is shown to provide a means of testing the theory*s
sufficiency, another issue that remains unresolved. The limited available evidence concerning
this question shows that the theory is predicting behavior quite well in comparison to the
ceiling imposed by behavioral reliability.
Following the lead of Grasmick and Bursik (1990), we propose that significant others and conscience both function as agents of social control to deter illicit behavior in a manner similar to that provided by the law and more formal, bureaucratic organizations. All three–conscience, significant others, and formal organizations–entail potential threats and costs (i.e., shame, embarrassment, and formal sanctions). Actors consider these potential threats and costs, and assess the certainty and severity of them, in deciding whether or not to engage in criminal or deviant behavior. In the research reported here, data from a sample of undergraduate students are employed to examine the effects of perceived certainty and severity of shame, embarrassment, and formal sanction threats of the self-reported prevalence of involvement in a variety of forms of academic dishonesty. The results suggest rather limited support for the deterrence/rational choice model, nearly all of which is due to the influence of conscience (shame).
Academic dishonesty (cheating) has been prevalent on college campuses for decades, and the percentage of students reporting cheating varies by college major. This study, based on a survey of 643 undergraduate engineering majors at 11 institutions, used two parallel hierarchical multiple regression analyses to predict the frequency of cheating on exams and the frequency of cheating on homework based on eight blocks of independent variables: demographics, pre-college cheating behavior, co-curricular participation, plus five blocks organized around Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior (moral obligation not to cheat, attitudes about cheating, evaluation of the costs and benefits of cheating, perceived social pressures to cheat or not to cheat, and perceived effectiveness of academic dishonesty policies). The final models significantly predict 36% of the variance in “frequency of cheating on exams” and 14% of the variance in “frequency of cheating on homework”. Students don’t see cheating as a single construct and their decisions to cheat or not to cheat are influenced differently depending on the type of assessment. Secondary findings are that a student’s conviction that cheating is wrong no matter what the circumstances is a strong deterrent to cheating across types of assessment and that a student who agrees that he/she would cheat in order to alleviate stressful situations is more likely to cheat on both exams and homework.
BACKGROUND: Although there have been a number of studies of cheating in universities, surprisingly little has appeared recently in the literature regarding academic dishonesty among medical students. METHOD: To assess the prevalence of cheating in medical schools across the country, class officers at 31 of 40 schools contacted distributed a survey in the spring of 1991 to their second-year classmates. The survey consisted of questions about the students' attitudes toward cheating, their observations of cheating among their classmates, and whether they had themselves cheated. The results were analyzed using contingency tables, t-tests, Pearson correlations, and one-way analysis of variance. RESULTS: Of the 3,975 students attending the 31 schools, 2,459 (62%) responded. Thirty-nine percent of the respondents reported witnessing some type of cheating among classmates during the first two years of medical education, while 66.5% reported having heard about such cheating. When reporting about themselves, 31.4% admitted cheating in junior high school, 40.5% in high school, 16.5% in college, and only 4.7% in medical school. Reports of cheating varied across medical schools, but no relationship was found between rates of cheating and medical school characteristics. Men were more likely to report having cheated than were women. The best predictor of whether someone was likely to cheat in medical school was whether they had cheated before, although the data strongly support the role of environmental factors. Medical school honor codes exercised some effect on cheating behavior, but the effect was not large. CONCLUSION: About 5% of the medical students surveyed reported cheating during the first two years of medical school. The students appeared resigned to the fact that cheating is impossible to eliminate, but they lacked any clear consensus about how to proceed when they became aware of cheating by others. The guidance students appear to need concerns not so much their own ethical behaviors as how and when to intervene to address the ethical conduct of their peers.
A content analysis of student survey data from 4,285 respondents in thirty-one institutions found that students at schools with academic honor codes view the issue of academic integrity in a fundamentally different way than students at non-honor code institutions. This difference seems to stem from the presence of an honor code and the influence such codes have on the way students think about academic honesty and dishonesty.
Conceptual and methodological ambiguities surrounding the concept of perceived behavioral
control are clarified. It is shown that perceived control over performance of a behavior,
though comprised of separable components that reflect beliefs about self-efficacy and
about controllability, can nevertheless be considered a unitary latent variable in a hierarchical
factor model. It is further argued that there is no necessary correspondence between
self-efficacy and internal control factors, or between controllability and external control
factors. Self-efficacy and controllability can reflect internal as well as external factors and
the extent to which they reflect one or the other is an empirical question. Finally, a case is
made that measures of perceived behavioral control need to incorporate self-efficacy as
well as controllability items that are carefully selected to ensure high internal consistency.
Students at nine medium to large state universities were surveyed in this comprehensive investigation of the influences of individual and contextual factors on self-reported academic dishonesty. Results suggested that cheating was influenced by a number of characteristics of individuals including age, gender, and grade-point average, as well as a number of contextual factors including the level of cheating among peers, peer disapproval of cheating, fraternity/sorority membership, and the perceived severity of penalties for cheating. Peer disapproval was the strongest influential factor.
Academic behavior on college campuses may be a precursor to professional behavior. This study used a scenario involving questionable academic behavior to determine (a) if students perceived the behavior as ethical or not, (b) whom they perceived to be the most culpable, and (c) whether they believed a relationship existed between campus behavior and professional behavior. A test to determine if any of the differences in perception could be attributed to gender showed that gender was not a significant factor in the students' perceptions. A majority of the students did believe, however, that the behavior was unethical and that academic behavior is related to business behavior.
This article addresses academic integrity in both the classroom and the work environment. The authors distributed an in-class questionnaire to a sample of business students from 6 different campuses (N = 1,051). The study was an attempt to bridge the gap between findings related to academic dishonesty and those regarding dishonesty in the workplace. The authors found that students who believed that cheating, or dishonest acts, are acceptable were more likely to engage in these dishonest behaviors. Additionally, students who engaged in dishonest acts in college classes were more likely to engage in dishonest acts in the workplace. The authors suggest some techniques to discourage dishonesty in the classroom.
The purpose of this paper is to validate the use of a modified Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) for predicting undergraduate student cheating. Specifically, we administered a survey assessing how the TPB relates to cheating along with a measure of moral reasoning (DIT- 2) to 527 undergraduate students across three institutions; and analyzed the data using structural equation modeling. Results confirmed using the modified TPB as a model for predicting student cheating and the importance of understanding how cheating varies for students in different periods of moral reasoning development, namely moral consolidation and moral transition.
Through the use of a 49-item questionnaire administered to 380 university students, we investigated student cheating on exams, quizzes, and homework assignments. More than half the students reported cheating during the academic year on at least one of the above. The purpose of this paper was to uncover fundamental factors underlying cheating behavior. Through the use of correlational and factor analysis, three primary factors were identified: student immaturity, lack of commitment to academics, and neutralization. We offer interpretations of these factors and suggestions for testing these and other factors in future research.
The topic of cheating among college students has received considerable attention in the education and psychology literatures.
But most of this research has been conducted with relatively small samples and individual projects have generally focused
on students from a single campus. These studies have improved our understanding of cheating in college, but it is difficult
to generalize their findings and it is also difficult to develop a good understanding of the differences that exist among
different academic majors. Understanding such differences may be important in developing improved strategies for combating
college cheating. The objective of this paper is to examine the relation between cheating and the choice of academic major
with a particular focus on natural science and engineering majors. The data source for this analysis is a study of over 4,000
students from 31 campuses which was conducted in the 1995–1996 academic year.
A study was conducted to determine the incidence of unethical classroom and clinical behaviors among nursing students, to find out their opinions about the unethical nature of these behaviors, and to investigate the relationships among demographic data, unethical classroom behaviors, unethical clinical behaviors, and opinions about the behaviors. A questionnaire listing 11 unethical classroom and 11 unethical clinical behaviors was completed by 101 senior nursing students. Findings indicated a lower incidence of unethical classroom behaviors and a higher percentage of students who thought these behaviors unethical than had been reported in comparable previous studies. Total unethical classroom behaviors were significantly higher for female than for male students. The opinion that a behavior was unethical was significantly related to the incidence of six items on the scale. Total unethical classroom behaviors were significantly positively related to total unethical clinical behaviors (p < 0.001). Recommendations are made to faculty members for dealing with each of the factors that appear to contribute to unethical behaviors. It is suggested that future studies investigate a multifactoral model of unethical behavior and include nonnursing students and nursing students from other settings.