Academic Integrity in a Digital Age

Research misconduct is defined as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results (Theart & Smit, 2012; Wong, Lim & Quinlan, 2016; Farnesea, Tramontanob,  Fidaa &  Pacielloc, 2011)  . Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them. The falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record. Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit. Research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion.

What do you think are the reasons for students to engage themselves in dishonest cases in academia?  There are a number of reasons that cause academic dishonesty, some causes are within the individual, institutions and the environment in which one is placed. Some of the causes of academic dishonesty include devaluing the intrinsic worth of higher education (to get a university award); and society and family and academic expectations.

There are also causes related to desire to excel; pressure of getting high grades and pressure of getting a good job or getting into graduate University. Some students attribute causes of academic dishonest to include high level of stress; highly competitive environment; pressure to support a team member or friend; laziness or apathy and our lack of preparation. Other causes are related to immaturity, alienation, excuse making, inability to manage the demands of student life, pressure from parents, having job that leaves no time to study, over dependence of some financial Aids in GPA, overly harsh grading, unfair tests designed to fail students, unreasonable workload in a course, lack of effort, unfamiliality with what constitutes academic dishonesty, and lack of understanding about the consequences (Dagiene, 2014; Ahmed & Ullah, 2015).

According to Ahmed and Ullah (2015) causes of dishonesty include: peer pressure, performance anxiety, excuse making, inability to manage the demands of academic life, availability of situations that encourage dishonesty, self-justification habits, unfamiliar of what constitutes academic dishonesty, and lack of understanding about consequences of academic dishonesty. The question is why academic dishonesty continues? Are there no strategies to curb the situation? One answer can be that this area has not been well developed as a research agenda. As such, according to Wong, Lim and  Quinlan (2016), students feel that cheating is normal; everyone cheats; the adage ‘cheaters never win’ may not be applicable in case of academic cheating; and that cheating is higher compared to detection strategies. The most common type of cheating includes: cheating in examinations and tests; copying notes from another student; helping another student; used crib notes; plagiarised; falsify a bibliography; turned in work done by another; and collaborated on assignment requiring individual work. The one with high percentage is to collaborate on assignments requiring individuals work, followed by copying notes from another student and helping another student.

Researchers Rathore et al. (2015) assert that factors leading to cheating include external and personal factors. The external factors include: seating order in examinations; importance of the test; level of test-difficulty; unfair test; scheduling; supervision; overcrowd; large classes; multiple choice questions; economic benefits and badly organised course. The personal factors include: laziness; awareness of performance of fellow students; low grades; previous experience of failure; a certain expectation of success; wish to help a friend; aversion to teacher and to gain social acceptance or liking. In this case cheaters are the ones who believe that schooling is about competition and to show how smart one is. Some tend to believe cheating results in less homework and fewer academic demands. On the other hand non-cheating students express interest in learning and developing concepts related to the subject through practicing various problem solving methods and connecting ideas. 

It is important to note that not all who cheat are aware they are cheating. Some students lack skills to determine at what time they are cheating. For example, there are those who do not know the difference between quoting and paraphrasing. There are some who believe that paraphrased work need not be acknowledged. There are those who find themselves in a situation that encourage cheating: Instructor left the room during examination, the instructor wasn’t watching carefully and some teachers did not cover their course content.  Violation of academic integrity is related to academic dishonesty which in most cases is related to the “cheating culture” in academic circles.  This section describes various ways in which the principles of academic integrity can be violated. Examples of each type of violation are given, but neither the types of violations nor the lists of examples are exhaustive.