The image of academic dishonesty through the eyes of students: an analysis of videos

Abstract

Introduction. Academic dishonesty impedes the achievement of the goals of education, depriving the meaning of the procedure for monitoring the knowledge and skills of students. The purpose of the article is to identify the place of cheating in the life of a student, its features and specifics. Materials and methods. The study involved 225 1-2 year students of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University who created their own videos on academic dishonesty. Research methods: semiotic and pedagogical-phenomenological analysis, video ethnography and pedagogical interpretation. Research results. Almost all the videos are so-called "sketches from nature", where the main character is a cheater himself. The plot of most of the videos is a classic semiotic scheme of overcoming obstacles with the help of a magical artifact. Analysis of the content of the videos shows that there are opportunities for academic cheating in the school and university environment. It is a social norm. Cheating appears as a logical consequence of an insufficient level of training, which happens out of having difficulties or not willing to spend a lot of time on it. The condemnation of academic dishonesty, which is present in most videos, does not reflect the ethical side of the issue. It instead demonstrates the consequences of cheating as a problem in the learning process or later life due to lack of knowledge. Conclusion. Analysis of the content of the videos shows that academic dishonesty is a common phenomenon in the school and university environment. The authors demonstrate excellent knowledge of the existing forms and methods of cheating, sometimes offering unusual creative forms of it. They also demonstrate the social approval of cheating from fellow students. Moreover, students are always ready to help in cheating and sometimes they can oppose the teacher in an organized way. Academic dishonesty is considered utilitarian. It seems to be a routine solution to the current problem. The analysis of the video shows that students consider incentive element as the key reason for the behaviour leading to academic dishonesty. And there is potential for solving the problem in the cooperation of teachers and students.