Abstract
While the increased incidence of academic integrity violations in university classrooms has been well documented over the past several decades, inconsistent attention has been given to small liberal arts colleges in terms of both cheating practices and attitudes towards cheating. This study aims to address this disparity by focusing on academic integrity at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota; a small undergraduate institution with a strong church affiliation. We hypothesise that institutional practices and the small-college culture that are unique to smaller colleges like Concordia act to limit the incidence of academic integrity violations. Our case study makes use of data collected from two student surveys - one conducted in 2008, and a follow-up survey conducted in 2010. Variables representing a range of internal and external factors that contribute to cheating were incorporated into a regression model designed to measure the impact of contextual influences that are potentially unique to students at a small, church-affiliated liberal arts college. Given our findings, we conclude that the college would be wise to consider adopting a traditional honour code system.
Highlights
While the increased incidence of academic integrity violations in university classrooms has been well documented over the past several decades (Bowers, 1964; Murphy, 2002; Tibbets,1998), inconsistent attention has been given to small liberal arts colleges in terms of both cheating practices and attitudes towards cheating
Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, as one such college, serves as a potentially strong test case for the contention that institutional practices and the small-college culture of strong community ties might act to limit the prevalence of academic integrity violations
The picture that emerges from the data suggests that Concordia’s small-college culture is only partially effective in discouraging academic dishonesty
Summary
While the increased incidence of academic integrity violations in university classrooms has been well documented over the past several decades (Bowers, 1964; Murphy, 2002; Tibbets,1998), inconsistent attention has been given to small liberal arts colleges in terms of both cheating practices and attitudes towards cheating. McCabe et al (2000) found younger students to cheat more In contrast to these findings, research compiled at two mid-size public universities found the effect of age on moral reasoning in general (Knotts et al, 2000), and academic integrity in particular (Lambert et al, 2003), to be negligible. Some work argues that being involved takes time away from course work and studying, which makes students more inclined to cheat This appears to be the case with athletes (McCabe & Trevino, 1997; Diekhoff et al, 1999) in particular, as well as with members of fraternities and sororities (Lambert et al, 2003; McCabe & Bowers, 1995). Others contest such findings finding the effect of religiosity on cheating to be inconsistent (Brown & Choong, 2005; Faulkner & De Jong, 1968), or non-existent (Michaels & Miethe, 1989; Smith, Ryan, & Digging, 1972; Wilhelm, 2004)
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