Abstract
There is a paucity of research into the prevalence of academic dishonesty within Canada compared to other countries. Recently, there has been a call for a better understanding of the particular characteristics of educational integrity in Canada so that Canada can more meaningfully contribute to current discussions surrounding academic integrity. Here, we present findings from student (N = 1142) and faculty (N = 130) surveys conducted within a medium-sized (~ 8700 students) Canadian university. These surveys probed perceptions towards, and experiences with, academic dishonesty, in which we aimed to understand how students and faculty regarded academically dishonest practices during their postsecondary careers. We also aimed to understand how often students engaged in, and faculty had witnessed, academic dishonesty, whether or not witnessing incidents of academic dishonesty corresponded with gender, year of experience, highest level of educational attainment, discipline, or their personal perceptions towards the importance of academic honesty, and whether students had been adequately taught what constitutes academic dishonesty. We found that an overwhelming majority of students viewed academic honesty as important, and that most students reported not engaging in academic dishonesty themselves despite 45.8% reporting that they had witnessed others engage in academic dishonesty. We also found that students were more likely to witness cheating as their postsecondary experience increased, that witnessing varied across disciplines and educational attainment, and that witnessing varied with student perceptions. However, we found no such patterns in faculty responses, but found that faculty are split on whether or not they believe incidents of academic honesty are increasing.
Highlights
We conducted an institutional self-study of student and faculty perceptions of, and experiences with academic dishonesty
While these findings appear to be in contrast to earlier work pointing to much higher incidents of academic dishonesty (e.g., Christensen Hughes and McCabe 2006), many of the themes of student and faculty responses to our survey have been discussed across the academic literature and are linked to specific outcomes
We found that most students and faculty felt that academic integrity is important, and that they believed that they had been adequately taught university policies surrounding academic dishonesty
Summary
We conducted an institutional self-study of student and faculty perceptions of, and experiences with academic dishonesty. Our second reason was to add to the Canadian literature, which has experienced a paucity of research into academic integrity (Eaton and Edino 2018), concerning contract cheating (Eaton et al 2019; Lancaster 2019). Of particular concern recently is the rise in contract cheating, defined as work submitted to educators by students who present it as their own work when, the work was completed by a third party We prefer this “inclusive” definition (Eaton et al 2019) because it is useful for investigations interested in the teaching and learning perspective of contract cheating and emphasizes that the student has actively opted out of the learning process, rather than requiring some monetary transaction to have occurred, as in some definitions that are more-so interested in the market components of contract cheating (e.g., students use of businesses such as assignment completing services, Rigby et al 2015).
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
