Academic Dishonesty

Abstract

Research and media reports have established continued pervasiveness of academic dishonesty among students on America's college campuses [12, 13, 22, 25, 26, 33, 46]. While some colleges have responded with academic integrity classes and increased efforts to convince reluctant faculty members to report student cheaters [13], there is a renewed interest in concept of as an effective foundation for campus governance. For example, Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching's special report, Campus Life: In Search of Community, concludes, What is needed, we believe, is a larger, more integrative vision of community in higher education. . . . a place where individuals accept their obligations to group and where well-defined governance procedures guide behavior for common good [10, p. 7]. Derek Bok, in Universities and Future of American, echoes this theme: [U]niversities need to consider larger campus environment beyond classroom. An obvious step in this direction is to have rules tha t prohibit lying, cheating, stealing, violent behavior, interference with free expression, or other acts that break fundamental norms. Such rules not only protect rights of everyone in community; they also signal importance of basic moral obligations and strengthen habits of ethical behavior [5, pp. 84-85]. Bok offers honor code as perhaps most effective approach in matters of academic integrity, but acknowledges that, the pervasive competition for grades; size, diversity, and impersonal nature of many large universities; their lack of any honor code traditon; and wide-spread distaste for accusing one's classmates combine to work against such an approach [5, p. 87]. Although honor code traditon dates back over a century, viability of such codes on today's campuses is open to some question [12]. Small, relatively homogeneous campuses have generally given way to large, culturally diverse institutions which lack any apparent sense of community or common purpose among students other than getting a credential and a job. Despite fundamental nature of this question, there is a surprising paucity of empirical research which addresses effectiveness of honor codes. study discussed here attempts to help fill this gap by comparing academic dishonesty in colleges that have honor codes and those that do not. The few studies that have addressed effectiveness of honor codes [7, 9] have generally considered code effectiveness independent of context. We believe that it is important to acknowledge and understand complexity of social systems within which honor codes are embedded and fact that other contextual factors may be as important or more important than existence of an honor code by itself. Thus this study extends beyond previous work by studying effectiveness of honor codes within a more complex social context. Honor Codes in Context Academic Dishonesty Depending on one's definition of academic dishonesty, data collection methods employed, and other variables, prior studies report that anywhere from 13 to 95 percent of college students engage in some form of academic dishonesty [12, 17, 20, 21, 26, 30, 31, 42]. A major dichotomy that separates these prior studies is level of analysis. One stream of research has focused on though to be predictive of cheating behavior, such as gender [45], grade point average [1, 22,], work ethic [15], Type A behavior, competitive achievement-striving [35], and self-esteem [44]. In contrast, other studies have concentrated on institutional level of analysis and examined such contextual factors as honor codes [7, 8, 9], faculty responses to cheating [26], sanction threats [33, 42], and social learning [33]. Although individual differences approach helps to understand individuals' predispositions to cheat, findings are not particularly useful to university administrator searching for effective institutional responses to issues of academic dishonesty. …