Attitudes of Students towards Violations of Academic Integrity in Online English Courses

Abstract

Online education became widespread during the Covid pandemic and is likely to continue to have an important role in our education into the future. A notable aspect of the shift from traditional classroom to virtual teaching has been the collegiate challenge of extending a learning environment founded on mutual trust and academic endeavor, remotely. This study examines the attitudes of students towards violations of academic integrity in online English courses, as attitude can be a trigger for behavior. Student attitudes concerning cheating were assessed for exams, assignments and online sessions. To this end, a questionnaire was implemented with faculty and vocational school students located in the west of Turkey. The participants were two groups of students who attended online English courses and delivered online assignments. One of the groups was comprised of faculty students who attended traditional exams while the other group was tested online. The attitudes of both groups were compared and the results indicated similarity in the most and the least frequently preferred behaviors in general. The most frequently acknowledged violations were using a dictionary during online exams, getting help from translation websites for online assignments and pretending to attend online courses with the camera or microphone turned off. On the other hand, students didn’t show willingness to use remote connection software or give account details to a friend to get help in online courses. Although, students in both groups had similar attitudes towards academic misconduct, some item-based differences were revealed that may influence the delivery of language courses in the online setting.