Academic integrity vs. academic dishonesty

Introduction

College administrators, faculty, and students in all three types of environments must do more to address the issue of academic integrity. Institutional leaders need to highlight the issue of academic integrity as an important institutional priority. In particular, this study suggests that initiatives should focus on training students to be role models of good behavior, developing a strong environment of honor (supported by some form of code), and to a lesser degree, demonstrating to students that cheating behavior caught and reported.

Discussion & Analyses

Students confront with numerous ethical decisions throughout their academic careers, and, as employees, these types of decisions will continue throughout their lifetime. As educators, we can help equip them by providing them with essential tools to help reduce academic dishonesty—cheating and Internet plagiarism. As a result, of the survey findings, the following instructional strategies recommended, and they incorporate in the redesign of my online business communication course: Include a copy of the written academic integrity policy or honor code as part of the course syllabus, with links to the student handbook highlighting the detailed steps for how the university will address academic dishonesty (Bisping, Hilde and Kenneth). Academic dishonesty policies should be explicitly written, and the student must know how each professor will handle the issue. Online students must know everything a professor considers cheating because work must get completed in a virtual environment.

Education institutions, affected by this problem, as well. We already know that moral values begin to develop in the family and in the institutions in which formal education provided. Educational institutions have important duties and responsibilities to help form an honest society and individuals with ethical principles. It got pointed out that academic dishonesty is becoming more and more common at every stage of education. The problem originally worsened with the introduction of information technologies (internet, sophisticated cell phones, wireless, etc.) into the education field, which witnessed academic dishonesty grow more easily and begin to affect every stage of education (Bisping, Hilde and Kenneth). The relevant literature defines academic dishonesty as an action that involves unethical behavior, such as behaving in a manner that opposes exam rules and arrangements, cheating, exchanging exam papers, stealing answer keys, modifying results and assaulting exam administrators verbally or physically.

Local and foreign studies conducted on academic dishonesty show that the classroom environment also has an influence on dishonesty behaviors, and that academic dishonesty observed more in students from societies with a collectivist structure than those from societies with an individualist structure and that male students inclined to display unethical behavior more than female students. Studies have also shown that there are variations depending on occupational groups and that academic dishonesty can be associated with issues such as time pressure, laziness, pressure of passing the class, personality traits, course-related factors, educational environment, study skills and assessment methods (Bisping, Hilde and Kenneth). We know that the literature pertaining to the determination of academic dishonesty in university level, in US, is already limited; moreover, this problem is quite prevalent in ...