Determinants and Implications of Academic Integrity - Coursework Example

Determinants and Implications of Academic Integrity Introduction The report focuses on academic integrity and on what factors either strengthen or weaken it. Approaches to prevent or address academic dishonesty are drawn from the pool of existing literature. The aim of the study is to discover how academic integrity may be effectively and efficiently ascertained. Overview of Literature Study Summary Caldwell, 2010 Academic dishonesty in business schools are at a critical level, with reports on cheating involving half of business students. A cultural change is required to counter the widespread acceptance of dishonest practices. De Vries, et al. 2011 Personality traits such as conscientiousness, honesty-humility/integrity are effective predictors of counterproductive academic behaviour. Jones & Spraakman 2011 Faculty member’s instigation of broad-based cheating among students caused the faculty’s dismissal, but administrators excused the students’ participation. Faulty integrity culture skewed students’ perception of ethical behaviour. Kisamore, et al., 2007 Students with poorly-adjusted personality traits are more disposed to cheat due to the influence and interaction of integrity culture. Kitahara, et al., 2009 Case study demonstrated the effectiveness of employing multifaceted, hybrid approaches to ensure academic integrity. Larkin, et al., 2012 Additional enticements to plagiarize and cheat are provided by the use of online media, due to the ease of transmitting exam questions and answers. Okoro, 2011 Plagiarism in all its forms is often difficult to communicate to students when merely stated in policy. Guided instruction strategies involving student-teacher interaction reduces incidences of unintentional plagiarism. Spain & Robles, 2011 Adoption and enforcement of a systematic Academic Integrity Policy makes adjudication of academic dishonesty cases more effective, reduces future such incidences, and establishes a culture of academic integrity. Thakkar, 2012 Articulation of academic guidelines alone is ineffective and should be backed by consequences swiftly and strictly enforced to discourage academic dishonesty. Tippitt, 2009 Academic dishonesty is the result of social and familial pressures for students to succeed. Fostering an environment of academic integrity necessitates a culture change that will take time and the cooperation of all parties in the academe. Table 1: Summary of academic journal articles Critical Comparison Determinants of academic integrity: Integrity culture and personality traits A debate exists concerning the factors that determine academic integrity, most commonly cited of which are the academic integrity culture (Tippitt, et al., 2009), and students’ or faculty members’ personal characteristics (De Vries, et al., 2011). Tippitt’s findings on integrity culture is supported by the study by Jones & Spraakman (2011), that fittingly explored the role that faculty members play in advancing academic misconduct. Faculty members’ willingness to cover up graduate students’ plagiarism or other forms of cheating to avoid public scandal, and university administrators’ tendency to overlook these infractions and not discipline faculty members to avoid embarrassment, are common. The Jones et al. study made a good case for integrity culture because it focused on a specific instance where the faculty member himself instigated student misconduct by leaking the departmental examination and quizzes to his class. The faculty member was dismissed, but the administrators decided to excuse the students and merely reduced en masse their grades instead of disciplining them. The cultural issue surfaced in the fact that most of the students interviewed felt there was nothing wrong about obtaining an unfair advantage over the other sections, and did not feel they were responsible for reporting the conduct of their instructor or their peers’ participation. Integrity culture is also central in Thakkar and Weisfeld-Spolter (2012), who determined that acts constituting cheating resulted not from a lack of awareness of academic policy guidelines, but because student and faculty indifference. It is interesting that a culture of dishonesty can thus propagate by mere omission. Caldwell (2010) recommended the adoption of a ten-step academic integrity program which included orientation and training of faculty and empowerment of students in its enforcement, as well as refinement of the ethics curriculum, to create a cultural change. On the other hand, according to De Vries, et al. (2011), personality traits such as conscientiousness and honesty-humility/integrity are effective predictors of counterproductive academic behaviour. Kisamore, Stone & Jawahar (2007) agree with De Vries, but qualify with the observation that students with poorly-adjusted personality traits are more predisposed to cheat due to the influence and interaction of integrity culture. The Kisamore conclusion effectively explains the dynamic between culture and personality in determining academic integrity. Solutions to address academic dishonesty. A number of methods were determined to be effective in minimizing academic dishonesty. Access to online media was cited by Larkin and Francis (2012) in the proliferation of cheating and the sharing of test answers with current and future students enrolled in the same courses. This case involves a simple technicality in that merely changing the question order and/or the answer choices in subsequent test items or alternating question sets may discourage cheating and enforce student integrity. The same concern for plagiarism as proliferated by online media is raised by Okoro (2011). More importantly, the author also found that merely issuing rules and guidelines on plagiarism is not sufficient to guide even graduate students to know if they are committing plagiarism or not. What is more effective is for faculty member and student to adopt guided instruction strategies. They should meet and discuss specific situations whereby plagiarism may be minimized or deterred. A more aggressive approach is suggested by Thakkar and Weisfeld-Spolter (2012). Students saw enforcement of policies as the responsibility of the faculty, and concluded that (1) faculty members must impose rules more strictly and punish swiftly where cheating is discovered, and (2) students should be made partners in detection and prevention of academic cheating. Enforcement is also espoused by Spain and Robless (2011) who proposed the adoption of a formal Academic Integrity (AI) policy. They noted that absence of formal AI regulation compels universities to handle cheating, fabrication, and plagiarism through generalized university processes, resulting in a long and roundabout process. By crafting and enforcing a systematic university-wide AI philosophy well-grounded on student and faculty feedback, the university in the case study was able to effectively and efficiently provide ‘a true safeguard of student and faculty rights (e.g., academic freedom)’ as it improved campus attitude towards academic integrity. Of 328 adjudicated academic dishonesty cases, 169 involved plagiarism, 142 involved cheating, and 17 involved fabrication. Only 10% of reported cases were committed by repeat offenders (Spain & Robles, 2011, pp.157-158). Finally, the adoption of a comprehensive perspective that includes personal and institutional factors was the focus of a study by Kitahara, et al. (2009). The study recommends the adoption of multi-faceted, hybrid strategies enables the identification of a broad range of tools, policies, and best practices to control academic dishonesty and more effectively establish a permanent culture of academic integrity. This is the most transformative of the solutions discussed in the surveyed literature, though admittedly it is the most difficult to implement. Conclusions The literature survey set out to determine factors that influence academic integrity, and approaches that may deter academic dishonesty. Factors that impact on academic integrity are dynamic interaction between the institution’s integrity culture and students’ personality traits. Changes both of a short-term technical and a long-term transformational nature may be adopted to stem the proliferation of dishonest practices in the pursuit of academic courses. Failure to address issues involving academic integrity and its reverse, academic dishonesty, undermine not only the intellectual but also the moral and ethical development of students in any university. It is therefore to the interest of both the institution and the students that an effective means of ensuring academic integrity be pursued in the duration of their academic courses. References Blum, S D 2009 My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press Caldwell, C 2010, 'A Ten-Step Model for Academic Integrity: A Positive Approach for Business Schools', Journal Of Business Ethics, 92, 1, pp. 1-13, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 22 December 2012. De Vries, A, de Vries, R, & Born, M 2011, 'Broad versus narrow traits: Conscientiousness and honesty-humility as predictors of academic criteria', European Journal Of Personality, 25, 5, pp. 336-348, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 22 December 2012. Jones, J, & Spraakman, G 2011, 'A Case of Academic Misconduct: Does Self-Interest Rule?', Accounting Perspectives, 10, 1, pp. 1-22, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 22 December 2012. Kisamore, J, Stone, T, & Jawahar, I 2007, 'Academic Integrity: The Relationship between Individual and Situational Factors on Misconduct Contemplations', Journal Of Business Ethics, 75, 4, pp. 381-394, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 22 December 2012. Kitahara, R, Westfall, F, & Mankelwicz, J 2009, 'New, multi-faceted hybrid approaches to ensuring academic integrity', Journal Of Academic & Business Ethics, 3, pp. 1-12, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 22 December 2012. Larkin, C, & Francis, A 2012, 'Academic Integrity and Plagiarism', International Journal Of Business, Humanities & Technology, 2, 1, pp. 1-7, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 22 December 2012. Northeastern University 2011 ‘Academic Integrity Policy.’ Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution. Retrieved 23 December 2012 from http://www.northeastern.edu/osccr/academicintegrity/ Okoro, EA 2011, 'Academic Integrity and Student Plagiarism: Guided Instructional Strategies for Business Communication Assignments', Business Communication Quarterly, 74, 2, pp. 173-178, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 22 December 2012. Siwei Qi, S 2008 A Descriptive Study of Plagiarism in the Writing Assignments of First-year Chinese Students in the American English Language Institute. Masteral Thesis. Stephen F. Austin State University, August 2008 Spain, J, & Robles, M 2011, 'Academic Integrity Policy: The Journey', Business Communication Quarterly, 74, 2, pp. 151-159, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 22 December 2012. Thakkar, M, & Weisfeld-Spolter, S 2012, 'A Qualitative Analysis Of College Students' Perceptions Of Academic Integrity On Campus', Academy Of Educational Leadership Journal, 16, pp. 81-88, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 22 December 2012. Tippitt, M, Ard, N, Kline, J, Tilghman, J, Chamberlain, B, & Meagher, P 2009, 'Creating Environments that FOSTER Academic Integrity', Nursing Education Perspectives, 30, 4, pp. 239-244, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 22 December 2012. University of Texas at Austin, Office of the Dean of Students, 15 August 2012 ‘What is Academic Dishonesty?’ Retrieved 23 December 2012 from ehttp://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sjs/acadint_whatis.php Glossary Academic dishonesty – All conduct that violates [the high standard of academic integrity], including any act designed to give an unfair or undeserved academic advantage, such as: cheating, plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration /collusion, falsifying academic records, misrepresenting facts, and any other acts that violate the basic standard of academic integrity (University of Texas at Austin, 2012). Academic integrity – A commitment, even in the face of adversity, to five fundamental values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. (Center for Academic Integrity, quoted in Blum, 2009, p. 153) Cheating – Intentionally using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, or study aids in an academic exercise. When completing any academic assignment, a student shall rely on his or her own mastery of the subject. (Northeastern University 2011) Fabrication – Intentional and unauthorized falsification, misrepresentation, or invention of any information, data, or citation in an academic exercise. (Northeastern University, 2011) Plagiarism – The wrongful appropriation or purloining, and publication as one’s own, of the ideas, or the expression of the ideas (literary, artistic, musical, mechanical, etc.) of another (Duke University, quoted in Siwei Qi, 2008, p. 8). Read More