Academic Dishonesty
Latest Publications
Published By Psychology Press
ley, 1999). The impetus for understanding the underlying dynamics of dishonest behavior among students stems from the conviction that, apart from assuming the role of an educational and credentialing agency, the primary focus of an academic institution is to provide an environment for personal development of our youth in the moral, cognitive, physical, social, and aesthetic spheres. An atmosphere that promotes academic honesty and integrity is a precondition for generating, evaluat-ing, and discussing ideas in the pursuit of truth, which are at the very heart of aca-demic life. Research has shown that dishonesty in college, cheating in particular, is a predic-tor of unethical behavior in subsequent professional settings (e.g., Sierles, Hendrickx, & Circel, 1980). More recently, Sims (1993) also found academic dis-honesty to be significantly related to employee theft and other forms of dishonesty at the workplace. Sim's findings suggest that people who engaged in dishonest behav-iors during their college days continue to do so in their professional careers. Further-more, Sim's findings indicate that people who engaged in dishonest behaviors during college are more likely to commit dishonest acts of greater severity at work. Existing research on academic dishonesty has largely been conducted in Eu-rope and North America. The results of these studies suggest that a large percent-age of university students indulge in some form of cheating behaviors during their undergraduate studies (e.g., Newstead, Franklyn-Stokes, & Armstead, 1996). Sur-vey findings also suggest that not only is student cheating pervasive, it is also ac-cepted by students as typical behavior (e.g., Faulkender et al., 1994). Although the research conducted in the Western context has increased our under-standing of academic dishonesty among students, the relevance of these results to the Asian context is questionable. Differences in sociocultural settings, demo-graphic composition, and specific educational policies may render some compari-sons meaningless. Different colleges also vary widely in fundamental ways, such as size, admission criteria, and learning climate. These factors render the comparabil-ity of results obtained from different campuses difficult. Cross-cultural studies con-ducted to examine students' attitudes toward academic dishonesty have found evidence that students of different nationalities and of different cultures vary signifi-cantly in their perceptions of cheating (e.g., Burns, Davis, Hoshino, & Miller, 1998; Davis, Noble, Zak, & Dreyer, 1994; Waugh, Godfrey, Evans, & Craig, 1995). For example, in their study of U.S., Japanese, and South African students, Burns et al. found evidence suggesting that the South Africans exhibited fewer cheating behav-iors than the Americans but more than the Japanese at the high school level. How-ever, at the college level, the cheating rates for South African students were lower compared to both their American and Japanese counterparts. In another cross-national study on academic dishonesty, Waugh et al. (1995) examined cheating behaviors and attitudes among students from six countries (Australia, the former East and West Germany, Costa Rica, the United States, and Austria) and found significant differences in their perceptions of cheating. Stu-
A study of 207 graduate business students found that 80% had engaged in at least one of 15 unethical academic practices as a graduate student (Brown, 1995). These students also perceived themselves as more ethical than their undergraduate counterparts, although they had similar rates of academic dishonesty. Because the research conducted among various graduate schools has been lim-ited in scope, we systematically investigated the definition, prevalence, perceived prevalence, and severity of, as well as justifications for and expected responses to, academic dishonesty at the graduate level using the same approach as LaGrange (1992). These issues were assessed and compared from the perspectives of students and faculty representing multiple disciplines within the university. Students', fac-ulty members', and administrators' ideal and realistic expectations of how cheating would be handled were also examined. Finally, the relation between academically dishonest behavior and student demographic variables was examined. METHOD Procedure A sample of students, faculty, and administrators at the graduate and professional school level was obtained from a large, private, religiously affiliated Midwestern university. All programs were invited to participate in this research, and 22 pro-grams agreed to participate. Students, faculty, and administrators all received pack-ets that contained a recruitment letter, a survey, two answer sheets, and an envelope for returning the survey via intercampus mail. Respondents were asked to return the surveys unmarked if they did not want to complete them. Surveys were placed in the campus mailboxes of 2,669 graduate students. One department did not have mailboxes and consequently 83 surveys were distributed via U.S. mail. Surveys were distributed to 387 faculty and 50 administrators via intercampus mail. Participants Survey instruments were sent to 2,752 students, with 246 students returning com-pleted surveys for a return rate of 8.9%. The student group is made up of students representing all year levels, working toward a variety of graduate degrees (MA, MS, JD, MD, and PhD), and representing the social sciences, natural sciences, hu-manities, health sciences, nursing, law, and medicine. Survey instruments were sent to 387 faculty, with 49 faculty returning com-pleted surveys for a return rate of 12.6%. The faculty sample was 61.2% men, and included 34 (69.4%) tenured faculty and 15 (30.6%) nontenure-track faculty. Sev-enty-seven percent of the faculty were either associate or full professors. The ma-
thermore, a formal code is not the only way to achieve the desired result. As sug-gested earlier, a strong culture of academic integrity can exist at an institution that has no formal code but communicates the importance the community places on in-tegrity in other ways. McCabe, Treviño, and Butterfield's (1996) study of 318 alumni of two private liberal arts colleges suggested honor codes can have long-term effects on behavior. The study focused on alumni who had graduated from their respective colleges be-tween 1962 and 1989, allowing the researchers to test hypotheses about the long-term effects of collegiate honor codes as well as the effect of codes of ethics at their current work organizations. The results supported previous work by show-ing that dishonest behavior in the workplace can be reduced by an organizational code of ethics. The results also show that dishonest behavior in the workplace var-ies inversely with the strength of implementation of an organizational code of eth-ics (i.e., the degree of managerial commitment to the code and the degree to which an organization attempts to communicate its code to employees and to ensure com-pliance) and the degree to which a code of ethics is deeply embedded in the organi-zation's culture (i.e., the degree to which the code is understood and accepted by employees and guides their day-to-day interactions and activities). The results also indicate that college honor codes can have an enduring effect: Dishonest behavior in the workplace was lowest for participants who had experienced an honor code environment in college and who currently worked in an organization that had a strongly implemented code of ethics. Overall, this work suggests that participation in multiple honor code communities can play a part in reducing dishonest behav-ior, particularly if the honor codes are well implemented and strongly embedded in the organizational culture. Faculty Views of Academic Integrity Policies Faculty members' views of academic integrity policies, and how these views differ across code and noncode schools, was the subject of McCabe's (1993) study of 800 faculty at a geographically diverse sample of 16 U.S. colleges and universities. This study showed that faculty at code schools were more likely to rate their school higher than noncode schools on factors such as students' understanding of aca-demic integrity policies, faculty support of these policies, and the overall effective-ness of the policy. Faculty at code schools were also more likely to believe that stu-dents should play a significant part in the judicial process associated with academic cheating. This study also revealed that faculty at both code and noncode schools are reluctant to report cheating and prefer to handle suspected cases of cheating on their own rather than appeal to institutional policies and procedures. Furthermore, this study confirmed student perceptions that many faculty do not treat cases of aca-demic dishonesty very harshly. For example, more than half of the noncode faculty reported that their most likely reaction to an incident of cheating would be failure
substantial numbers of students cheat not just once, but repeatedly (Hollinger & Lanza-Kaduce, 1996; McCabe & Treviño, 1995; Moffatt, 1990). Given the prevalence of academic dishonesty among college students, it is not surprising that considerable research has been conducted on its causes and corre-lates, with more than 100 studies having been published on the topic during the past 3 decades (Whitley, 1998). What is more surprising is the relative lack of at-tention that researchers have paid to gender differences in academic dishonesty given the important role gender plays in theories of in moral reasoning (e.g., Lapsley, 1996). Theorists such as Chodorow (1989) and Gilligan (1982) proposed that differential childhood socialization processes lead to different moral reason-ing orientations in men and women. These theorists proposed that gender differ-ences in moral orientation result in gender differences in behavior, with women being less likely than men to violate social norms because of the negative effects that such violations could have on other people and the potential of such violations to impair fulfillment of women's nurturant role obligations (Robbins & Martin, 1993). Thus, women are less likely than men to engage in minor criminal behavior (e.g., Tibbetts & Herz, 1996), excessive alcohol consumption (e.g., Robbins & Martin, 1993), and unprovoked aggression (e.g., Bettencourt & Miller, 1996). One would therefore expect to find similar gender differences in violations of academic integrity norms, especially given that engaging in academic dishonesty is corre-lated with engaging in other forms of minor deviance (Blankenship & Whitley, 2000; Whitley, 1998). However, in a meta-analysis of research on gender differences in cheating, Whitley, Nelson, and Jones (1999) found a mean difference of only 0.2 standard deviations between men's and women's self-reports of having cheated. Although this difference was statistically significant due to the large cumulative sample size in the meta-analysis, in absolute terms it just met Cohen's (1992) criterion for a nontrivial effect size. In contrast, Whitley et al. found a mean gender difference of about 0.5 standard deviations for attitudes toward cheating, with women reporting more negative attitudes. Thus, women hold more negative attitudes toward cheat-ing than do men but are about equally likely to cheat. Cognitive dissonance theory holds that such attitude-behavior inconsistencies lead to a negative emotional state called cognitive dissonance (Elliot & Devine, 1994; Festinger, 1957). Because, on the average, women hold more negative atti-tudes toward cheating than do men, one would expect women who cheat to experi-ence more cognitive dissonance and so to have more negative affective reactions to having cheated than would men. Although little research has been conducted on such gender differences, Smith, Ryan, and Diggins (1972) found that women re-ported experiencing more guilt over having cheated than did men. In addition, Tibbetts (1997) found that women reported more shame concerning intentions to cheat, and Cochran, Chamlin, Wood, and Sellers (1999) found that women re-ported expecting to feel more shame and embarrassment if they cheated. Further-
Among these, knowledge of institutional policy was the best predictor of cheating rates, followed by mastery motivation and attitudes about cheating. This finding is important because it reminds college administrators that having an honor system, rules about cheating, or both, and effectively administering that system to students, are not one and the same. Participants in this study who cheated reported signifi-cantly less understanding of institutional policy regarding cheating than did noncheating participants. In addition, this study advances our understanding of the role of motivation in cheating behavior. In particular, mastery and extrinsic motivation do not appear to be uniform across all courses, and this variability is related to cheating. Participants who cheated had lower mastery motivation and higher extrinsic motivation in the courses in which they cheated than in courses in which they did not cheat. Cheaters, in courses in which they cheated, also differed on these two motivation variables from noncheaters. Mastery motivation was lower for cheaters, and extrinsic motiva-tion higher, as compared to noncheaters. However, in courses in which cheaters did not cheat, cheater and noncheater scores were not reliably different. Thus, cheaters reported increases in extrinsic motivation and simultaneous decreases in mastery motivation, but only in courses in which they cheated. Anderman etal. (1998) found a similar relation between mastery and what they called performance goals with middle school students. This study confirms that motivation is an important factor in the cheating behavior of college students as well. Finally, as expected, cheating behavior was related to perceptions of the behav-ior of peers and to attitudes about cheating. Both factors were significant predic-tors of cheating rates. Cheaters believed that more students engaged in cheating behaviors than did noncheaters. Cheaters also justified cheating behavior to a greater extent than did noncheaters. In addition, the more the participants cheated, the higher their estimate of cheating on campus. These findings replicate previous research on the importance of student attitudes and peer norms for understanding, and perhaps influencing, cheating behavior (see Whitley, 1998, for a review). Of course, these results do not indicate causality. Once students begin to cheat, their motivation levels and their perceptions and experiences of others may change. Alternatively, perhaps low mastery motivation in a course increases a stu-dent's risk for cheating in that course and increases the cheater's tendency to cheat repeatedly. A student who is uninterested in a course may look for ways to com-plete the course with the least effort. In addition, high extrinsic motivation may also increase student vulnerability to temptations to cheat. If a student's purposes for taking a course have little to do with the course and more to do with extrinsic goals, such as grades or career opportunities, cheating may serve those goals. In ei-ther case, motivations appear to be course specific. With respect to perceived norms, cheaters may estimate higher rates of cheating by others, as compared to noncheaters, as a way of preserving their self-image (e.g., false consensus effect; Ross, Green, & House, 1977). They also may be more