Academic-Dishonesty-Current-Trends-and-Perceptions-

Previous Research on Perceptions of Cheating• Previous studies report varying levels of consistency among students’ perceptions of what constitutes cheating Sutton & Huba, 1995; Barnet

Anecdotal “Research”

OUR INSPIRATION…

– When you come up with a new diagnosis…

– When the professor wonders if you can

read German…

– When movie reviewers publish entire

paragraphs from your PSYC movie

assignment on their website BEFORE you

turn it in…

– When your professor rearranges questions

from last year’s homework…

– When you email the whole class asking for

homework answers…

Public Records

• Scandals, Scandals Everywhere!

– Westpoint Academy (1976) expelled >150 cadets, including

some who only failed to report cheating (part of the Honor

Code); many were later readmitted

– U.S Naval Academy (1994) expelled 24 midshipmen &

sanctioned 62 others (selling & buying engineering exams)

– Harvard University (2012) suspended 60 students with “eerily similar exam answers”

– Harvard University’s Quiz Bowl Championship trophies (2009,

2010, 2011) were revoked (accessed online QB questions)

– University of Maryland (2004) “sting” operation – 12 students submitted an answer key found online

– University of Virginia (2001) expelled 45 students after a

professor discovered they submitted the same essays over a year period

5-The Josephson Institute

• The Josephson Institute of Ethics was formed in 1987

• Mission: “to improve the ethical quality of society

by changing personal and organizational decision making and behavior”

• Conducts large-scale survey/interview studies

investigating rates of various types of unethical behaviors, including student cheating/plagiarism

– “There’s a hole in our moral ozone and it’s getting

bigger” (2008)

The Josephson Institute

• 2008 Survey of 29,760 high school students

– 30% admitted to stealing & 42% lied to save $$$

– 64% cheated on a test in the past year (60% in

2006)

• 38% cheated 2+ times (35%)

– 36% used the internet to plagiarize (33%)

– 26% lied on at least one question on

THIS survey (concealing misconduct) – 93% were “satisfied with their personal

ethics & character”

– 77% reported “when it comes to doing right,

I am better than most people I know”

The Josephson Institute

• 2009 (n=6,930): compared teens through aged adults , & investigated the link between high school attitudes/behavior and later adult conduct

middle-– Young people more likely than their elders to

believe “it is necessary to lie or cheat to succeed”

• 51% of those 17 and under

• 10% of those over 50

– those who believed this (“ cynics ”) also reported higher rates of both behaviors

• Continued…

The Josephson Institute

• Is cheating related to behaviors later in life?

• Regardless of age, those who admitted to cheating in school

were more likely to lie to a customer, inflate an insurance claim, conceal/distort information to their boss, lie to get their child into a better school, lie to a spouse about

something important, and cheat on their taxes

The Josephson Institute

• Other Findings:

– “Are kids more likely to lie, cheat, or steal today than they

were 20 years ago?”

Recent Trends

• McCabe & Treviño (1997)

– Replicated Bowers (1964) study of 5,000 students at

99 universities/colleges, which found that 75% had engaged in 1+ more instances of academic dishonesty

– 1997 :

• modest increase in overall cheating

• significant increases in most explicit forms of exam cheating ( 39% in 1964 to 64% in 1997 !)

• Increase in collaborative cheating

Recent Trends

• Jenson, Arnett, Feldman, & Cauffman (2002) cited numerous studies of college students (self-report data) ranging from the 1940s  1990s

• Stern & Havlicek (1986)

– 82% of undergraduate students admitted to “some

form of academic misconduct during their college careers”

ABC Prime Time

• A recent ABC Prime Time report (April, 2018) entitled “A

Cheating Crisis in America’s Schools”

• Students’ comments:

✓ “just doing what the rest of the world does”

✓ “cheating in school is a dress rehearsal for life”

✓ “you’re just learning to learn the system”

✓ “others are cheating and getting better grades than me”

✓ “grades can determine your future”… “everything is about

the grade… nobody looks at how you got it”

✓ “what does an [engineering major] need to know about

English literature?” (to justify cheating in SOME courses)

✓ “some professors make it easy”

• Scanlon (2010) reported that self-reports have

increased among high school students, and that both peer influences & ease of using the internet contribute

• Rimer (2003; NY Times Report based on surveys of 23

college campuses)

▪ 38% of undergraduates had engaged in

“cut-and-paste” from internet sources without citation at least once in the past year

▪ Behaviors ranged from a few sentences to

full paragraphs

▪ Almost ½ considered these behaviors

“trivial” or “not cheating at all”

• “TurnItIn” developers examined almost 40

million essays submitted in 2010-2011 and discovered these sources of matched content:

• Social Networking/Content Sharing sites (33%)

• McCabe, Treviño, & Butterfield (2001): 10-year

project reviewing 30 years of data…

increasing pressure

& competition for jobs/grad school

observations of peers cheating

many faculty avoid pursuing allegations

perception that other students are “getting ahead” and getting away with it

willingness to cheat (even those who find

it distasteful)… to

“level the playing field”

Contributing Factors

• McCabe & Treviño (1993; 1997): identified both

individual & contextual factors among >7,800 students at

> 3 dozen institutions

– Existence of an honor code

– Student understanding & acceptance of academic integrity

policy

– Perceived certainty that cheating will be reported

– Perceived severity of penalties

– Degree to which students perceive their peers cheat***

Contributing Factors

• Owunwanne, Rustagi, & Dada (2010) also had the

foresight to ask an interesting question due to peer influences (“everybody’s doing it!”)

– Validated importance of peer influences ***

– “survival of the fittest”: competitive, high-pressure society

 students equate “survival” with making good grades, graduating, getting a good job, making money

• “If everybody were to jump off a bridge, will you jump, too?”

One student responded, “Well, yes There must be a logical reason why everybody has chosen to jump off the bridge If there is something down there that I can benefit from, I would be at a clear disadvantage of receiving it.”

Contributing Factors

• Lang (2013) reported that cheating is more common

in courses

• students do not find interesting

• with infrequent, high-stakes assessments

• with warnings about difficulty level &

emphasis on competition (accolades for high scores)

• that are larger (lack of connection to the

professor)

Related Factors

• Whitley (1998) provided a review of 107 studies

published between 1970 and 1996; the following were the strongest predictors of cheating

– younger age

– poor task performance/ability

– having cheated in the past

– poor study conditions

– favorable attitudes toward cheating & belief that social norms

permit it

– perceived ability to cheat & low risk of being caught

– not having a university ‘honor code’

– perceive heavy work load & grades viewed as competitive

– higher expectation of reward for success

Previous Research on Perceptions of Cheating

• Previous studies report varying levels of

consistency among students’ perceptions of what constitutes cheating (Sutton & Huba, 1995;

Barnett & Dalton, 1981; Overbey & Guiling (1999)

• Plagiarism is “less severe” than exam cheating, or

it’s “not really cheating” at all (Payne & Nantz,

1994)

• Some behaviors that “traditionally constitute

academic dishonesty were not viewed as

dishonest by many of the participants” (e.g.,

plagiarism or helping someone else cheat) (Jurdi, Hage, & Chow, 2012)

Previous Research on Perceptions of Cheating

• Andrews, Smith, Henzi, & Demps (2007)

assessed Canadian & American Dental Schools

– 75% of students reported engaging in some

form of cheating

– Students & faculty members differed in their

• Perceptions of the severity of penalties

• Perceptions of whether or not students

understood policies

• Perceived fairness of judicial processes

• Perceived responsibility for students to

monitor & report cheating behaviors

OUR STUDY

Our Instrument…

• 31 scenarios describing classroom experiences

– rated from 1 ( definitely cheating/plagiarism ) to 7 ( definitely not

cheating/plagiarism )

– behaviors included:

• non-cheating (borrowing a friend’s class notes to study)

• relatively minor infractions (using copies of old exams from a previous

semester)

• more severe infractions (copying another students’ entire assignment

or exam answers or submitting an essay found online)

• 22 opinion statements about academic dishonesty,

potential reasons for it, and appropriate consequences, each rated from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree)

OUR STUDY

• Distributed both instruments in paper format to 58 students

enrolled in PSYC 101 in Summer, 2017 (over 80% freshmen)

• Recruited a random sample of 58 university faculty members

to complete the same two instruments in Survey Monkey in late Fall, 2017

• Reviewed descriptive statistics of students’ responses to both

assessments, looking for variations in ratings for different

types of academic dishonesty

– Cheating vs plagiarism

– In class vs outside of class

– Amount/volume of dishonesty

• Reviewed descriptive statistics of faculty members’ responses

to both assessments for similar comparisons, and then

compared faculty members’ responses to students’ responses

• SAMPLE SCENARIOS:

– Robert was unable to study last night because he had to

work until after midnight, so he sat behind his girlfriend in class and copied answers from her scantron.

– Yolanda was writing an essay and she included one

paragraph typed verbatim from a book she cited on her reference page.

– Juliette found an old essay online, typed it up with her

name on the top, and submitted it as her own work.

– Wanda called a friend in her class and asked for the

answers to two difficult questions on the take-home final exam.

Part 1: How Do Students Perceive

Academic Dishonesty?

• SAMPLE SCENARIOS:

– Vincent and Logan are roommates taking the same

class online, so they sat together on their laptops and shared answers on their final exam.

– Marcus didn’t understand a discussion forum question,

so he read other students’ and copied their ideas but changed some of the words so his wouldn’t be

identical.

– Andrea was submitting her exam in class and noticed

another student’s paper on the desk had answered

question # 3 differently, so she changed her answer.

Part 1: How Do Students Perceive

Academic Dishonesty?

Part 1: How Do Students Perceive

Academic Dishonesty?

Students Agreed About

Behaviors that are Not Dishonest

• Borrowing another student’s notes: 97%

• Using materials from a publisher’s website: 96%

Part 1: How Do Students Perceive

Academic Dishonesty?

Students Agreed on Some

Behaviors that are Dishonest

• Copying from another student’s test: 100%

• Hiring someone to take an exam: 97%

• Paying someone to write an essay: 93%

• Giving a verbatim speech found on a

Part 1: How Do Students Perceive

Academic Dishonesty?

Students were UNCERTAIN that Some

Behaviors are Dishonest

• Copying 2 answers on an assignment: 57%

• Copying a paragraph from a book but

• Asking students in another section what

Part 1: How Do Students Perceive

Academic Dishonesty?

Location Matters for Ratings of Dishonesty

In Class Behaviors Out of Class Behaviors

Copying another student’s test (100%) Using several sentences from a website

and rephrasing them (86%) Copying other students’ work in class

(95%)

Roommates sharing answers during an online final exam (81%)

Changing 3 test answers after seeing

another student’s paper (95%)

Asking a friend for answers on a home final (74%)

take-Changing 1 test answer after seeing

another student’s paper (90%)

Looked at roommates’ homework and changed 3 answers on his assignment (77%)

Part 1: How Do Students Perceive

Academic Dishonesty?

Volume Matters for Ratings of Dishonesty

• Copying another student’s test: 100%

But

• Changing 3 answers after seeing

another student’s test: 95%

And

• Changing 1 answer after seeing

another student’s homework: 90%

And

• Copying 2 answers on homework: 57%

Part 2: Students’ Responses

to Opinion Statements

• SAMPLE OPINION STATEMENTS:

– If professors give a homework assignment they should expect

students to work together and share answers.

– A student who is caught cheating (sub plagiarizing) should be

given a failing grade on the exam (sub paper)… or given a

failing grade in the course… or suspended/expelled from

school.

– Professors should take time explaining cheating and plagiarism

at the beginning of each semester.

– If previous instructors allowed students to plagiarize, an

instructor should not penalize those students for doing so in his/her class.

Part 2: Students’ Responses

to Opinion Statements

Cheating & Plagiarism

• For online quizzes, professors should expect

students to use their books

• For assignments, professors should expect

• Cheating is more acceptable if the professor

• It’s OK to copy from the textbook without citing : 41%

Part 2: Students’ Responses

to Opinion Statements

A student caught cheating should fail the

Part 2: Students’ Responses

to Opinion Statements

A student caught plagiarizing should fail

A student caught plagiarizing should get a

second chance to re-do the assignment

66% 20% 14%

Penalties for Plagiarism

Part 3: Faculty Members’

vs Students’ Responses

Comparing Faculty’s and

Students’ Responses

Faculty Members’ vs

Students’ Responses

Faculty and Students (Mostly)

Agreed on Behaviors That Are

Not Dishonest

Faculty Members’ vs

Students’ Responses

Looking at Other Students’ Work

Percentage judging behavior as NOT CHEATING

Student vs Faculty

•Borrowing a friend’s notes to study: 97% vs 100%

•Studying another student’s notes &

completed study guide: 78% vs 68%

•Looking at other students’ papers to get ideas

Faculty Members’ vs

Students’ Responses

Using Other Resources

Percentage judging behavior as NOT CHEATING

Student vs Faculty

•Asking a friend to proofread a paper: 95% vs 96%

•Using materials on a publisher’s website

•Asking a professor for help with work: 83% vs 91%

Part 3: Faculty Members’

vs Students’ Responses

Faculty and Students Agreed on

Some Behaviors That Are Dishonest

•Hiring someone to take an online exam: 97% v 100%

•Paying another student to write an essay: 93% v 95%

Theft and Fraud

• Another student’s test: 100% vs 100%

• Another student’s assignment: 95% vs 98%

• Another student’s work in class: 95% vs 98%

• An essay from a website: 92% vs 98%

• A review from a website: 93% vs 98%

• Using another student’s homework: 90% vs 98%

• Using material from a website

without citation: 96% vs 93%

• Giving a speech copied from a website: 97% vs 95%

Using Another’s Work