essay about academic dishonesty

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Academic dishonesty among university students: The roles of the psychopathy, motivation, and self-efficacy

Lidia baran.

1 Institute of Psychology, University of Silesia in Katowice, Katowice, Poland

Peter K. Jonason

2 Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy

3 Institute of Psychology, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

Associated Data

The database was uploaded to Open Science Framework and is available under the following address: https://osf.io/frq9v/ .

Academic dishonesty is a common problem at universities around the world, leading to undesirable consequences for both students and the education system. To effectively address this problem, it is necessary to identify specific predispositions that promote cheating. In Polish undergraduate students ( N = 390), we examined the role of psychopathy, achievement goals, and self-efficacy as predictors of academic dishonesty. We found that the disinhibition aspect of psychopathy and mastery-goal orientation predicted the frequency of students’ academic dishonesty and mastery-goal orientation mediated the relationship between the disinhibition and meanness aspects of psychopathy and dishonesty. Furthermore, general self-efficacy moderated the indirect effect of disinhibition on academic dishonesty through mastery-goal orientation. The practical implications of the study include the identification of risk factors and potential mechanisms leading to students’ dishonest behavior that can be used to plan personalized interventions to prevent or deal with academic dishonesty.

Introduction

Academic dishonesty refers to behaviors aimed at giving or receiving information from others, using unauthorized materials, and circumventing the sanctioned assessment process in an academic context [ 1 ]. The frequency of academic dishonesty reported in research indicates the global nature of this phenomenon. For example, in a study by Ternes, Babin, Woodworth, and Stephens [ 2 ] 57.3% of post-secondary students in Canada allowed another student to copy their work. Similarly, 61% of undergraduate students in Sweden copied material for coursework from a book or other publication without acknowledging the source [ 3 ]. Working together on an assignment when it should be completed as an individual was reported by 53% of students from four different Australian universities [ 4 ], and copying from someone’s paper in exams at least once was done by 36% of students from four German universities [ 5 ]. Research shows that academic dishonesty is also a major problem at Polish universities. In the study by Lupton, Chapman, and Weiss [ 6 ] 59% of the students admitted to cheating in the current class, and 83.7% to cheating at some point during college. According to a report on the plagiarism in Poland, prepared by IPPHEAE Project Consortium, 31% of students reported plagiarizing accidentally or deliberately during their studies [ 7 ].

Existing academic dishonesty prevention systems include using punishments and supervision [ 8 ], informing students about differences between honest and dishonest academic actions [ 9 ], adopting university honor codes [ 10 ], and educating students on how to write papers and conduct research correctly [ 11 ]. Although these methods lead to a reduction of academic dishonesty (see [ 12 ]), their problematic aspects include the possibility of achieving only a temporary change in behavior, limited impact on students' attitudes towards cheating, and a long implementation period [ 13 , 14 ]. Possible reasons for these difficulties include the fact that conventional prevention methods rarely address differences in students’ personality and academic motivations, which may be associated with a tendency to cheat. For example, previous studies have reported that negative emotionality was associated with positive attitudes toward plagiarism [ 15 ]; intrinsic motivation was associated with lower self-reported cheating [ 16 ]; and socially orientated human values were negatively, while personally focused values were positively correlated with academic dishonesty [ 17 ].

It is also important to remember that implementing the aforementioned methods of prevention will not lead to a reduction in academic dishonesty if faculty members do not follow and apply the established rules [ 18 ]. Faculty members often prefer not to take formal actions against dishonest students [ 19 ], and in many cases do not use the methods available to them to detect and prevent cheating [ 20 ]. However, when they do respond to academic dishonesty it is often in inconsistent ways [ 21 ]. This might suggest that, while dealing with students’ dishonesty, faculty members prefer to choose their own punitive and preventative methods, which may differ depending on the particular student and professor. If that is the case, then examining the role of individual differences in academic dishonesty could be useful not only to better understand the nature of academic transgressions but also to address faculty's informal ways of dealing with students' cheating.

The aim of the current study was to investigate relationships between personality, motivation, and academic dishonesty to understand the likelihood of cheating in academia more effectively and potentially inform faculty's personalized interventions. Of all the personality traits under investigation, psychopathy appears to be useful for this purpose, because it includes a tendency to be impulsive, to engage in sensation-seeking, and resistance to stress, all of which are associated with academic dishonesty [ 2 ]. Indeed, psychopathy is the strongest—albeit moderate in size ( r = .27)—predictor of academic dishonesty according to a recent meta-analysis of 89 effects and 50 studies [ 22 ]. In the present study, we wanted to further examine the relationship between academic dishonesty and psychopathy by using the triarchic model of psychopathy distinguishing its three phenotypic facets: boldness, meanness, and disinhibition [ 23 ] which may reveal added nuance to how this personality trait relates to academic dishonesty.

Within the triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy, boldness represents self-assurance, fearlessness, and a high tolerance for stress and unfamiliarity; meanness captures interpersonal deficits such as lack of empathy, callousness and exploitativeness; and disinhibition represents the tendency towards impulsivity, poor self-regulation and focus on immediate gratification. Because of the different neurobiological mechanisms leading to the shaping of those aspects [ 24 ], it seems likely that the tendency towards academic dishonesty may have a different etiology depending on their levels. For students with high disinhibition, cheating may result from low self-control; for those with high meanness from rebelliousness with propensity to use others; and for bold ones from emotional resiliency and sensation-seeking [ 25 – 27 ]. However, because boldness constitutes fearlessness without failed socialization [ 28 ], breaking academic rules might not be the preferred way to look for excitement among bold students. Thus, our first goal was to examine the predictive power of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition in academic dishonesty.

Furthermore, we were interested if the relationships between the psychopathy facets and academic dishonesty would be mediated by individual differences in motivations for mastery and performance. Mastery motivation is fostered by the need for achievement and associated with learning to acquire knowledge, whereas performance motivation is geared towards reducing anxiety and related to learning to prove oneself to others [ 29 ]. We expect mediation for several reasons. First, undertaking actions motivated by achievement goals is predicted by the level of positive and negative emotionality and also by activity of the behavioral activation and inhibition system [ 30 ], which also correlate with the dimensions of the triarchic model of psychopathy [ 31 ]. Second, unrestrained achievement motivation partially mediates the relationship between psychopathy and academic dishonesty, suggesting a role of achievement in understanding the relationship between psychopathy and individual differences in the propensity to cheat [ 32 ]. Third, meanness and disinhibition are negatively and boldness positively correlated with conscientiousness and its facets [ 33 , 34 ]. This fact may play an important role in students’ willingness to exert and control themselves to achieve academic goals and the particular way to do it [ 35 ]. Moreover, research on mastery-goal orientation suggests it is correlated negatively with academic dishonesty and views of the acceptability of academic dishonesty [ 36 – 38 ] and that the change from mastery to performance-based learning environment lead to increased levels of dishonesty [ 39 ].

Therefore, we hypothesized that students with a high level of disinhibition may have difficulties studying because of their need for immediate gratification and lack of impulse control, and in turn, cheat to pass classes. Bold students could want to acquire vast knowledge and high competences because of their high self-assurance, social dominance, and a high tolerance for stress without resorting to fraud. Lastly, students with a high level of meanness may be less prone towards mastery through hard work and learning because of their susceptibility to boredom, tendency to break the rules, and to exploit others to their advantage, perhaps by copying or using other students’ work. Because performance-goal orientation can be driven by the fear of performing worse than others, no specific hypothesis was generated regarding its relation to psychopathy (characterized by a lack of fear).

Besides behavioral tendencies based on personality traits and specific motives to learn, another closely related predictor of academic dishonesty is general self-efficacy. People with high levels of general self-efficacy exercise control over challenging demands and their behavior [ 40 ] and perform better in academic context because of their heightened ability to solve problems and process information [ 41 ]. On the other hand, low levels of general self-efficacy in the academic context can lead to reduced effort and attention focused on the task, which may result in a higher probability of frauds to achieve or maintain a certain level of academic performance [ 42 , 43 ]. Because competence expectancies are important antecedents of holding an achievement goal orientation [ 44 , 45 ] it seems possible that general self-efficacy might moderate the relation between psychopathy facets and academic dishonesty mediated by achievement goals. Thus, we hypothesize that high general self-efficacy will reduce the indirect effects for disinhibition and meanness (i.e., negative moderation effect) and amplify it for boldness (i.e., positive moderation effect).

In sum, we examine the relationships between three facets of psychopathy and academic dishonesty, the possible role of achievement goals as a mediators for those relations, and lastly the possible role of general self-efficacy as a moderator of those mediation models. By analyzing the facets of psychopathy independently, we can determine their unique relationship with the tendency to cheat and thus more accurately predict the risk of dishonest behavior for students with a high level of each of the facet. In addition, investigating indirect effects and interactions between personality and motivation may describe the psychological processes that may lead to cheating and can potentially be used in planning preventive actions.

Materials and methods

Participants and procedure.

The participants were 390 Polish university students and residents (100% White, 74% female) with an average age of 23 ( SD = 3.39, Range = 19–56) years. Participants self-identified as students in social sciences (17%), humanities (12%), science and technology (24%), law and administration (22%), and medical sciences (23%); 7 failed to respond (2%). In addition, participants were first-year (19%), second-year (16%), third-year (31%), fourth-year (13%), fifth-year (13%), and doctoral students (2%); 23 failed to respond (6%).

We established the required sample size as 290 participants, following Tabachnick and Fidell [ 46 ] guidelines and gave ourselves three months to collect it to avoid concerns with power and p- hacking, respectively. The study was approved by Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology (University of Silesia in Katowice) and was conducted online through the Webankieta platform to maximize the anonymity and security of the participants. An invitation to participate in the project was sent to 28 largest Polish universities by enrollment, with a request to publish it on the universities' websites. The link to the survey directed the participants to a detailed description of the research and the rules of participation. After consenting to participate, students completed online questionnaires and, at the end, they were asked if they wanted to receive a summary of the general results and take part in a prize drawing (after the end of the study, five randomly chosen participants received vouchers for online personal development courses). The present study was part of a larger investigation that aimed to examine psychological determinants and predictors of academic dishonesty.

Psychopathy was measured with the TriPM-41 [ 34 ], the shortened Polish adaptation of the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure [ 47 ]. Participants rated statements on a 4-point scale (0 = completely false ; 1 = somewhat false ; 2 = somewhat true ; 3 = completely true ). Items were summed to create indexes for three subscales: disinhibition (16 items, e.g., “I jump into things without thinking”; Cronbach’s α = .83), meanness (10 items, e.g., “I don't have much sympathy for people”; α = .92), and boldness (15 items, e.g., “I'm a born leader”; α = .88).

Achievement goals were measured with the Polish translation of the Achievement Goals Questionnaire-Revised [ 29 ]. Participants reported their agreement (1 = strongly disagree ; 5 = strongly agree ) with statements such as “My aim is to completely master the material presented in this class” (i.e., mastery-goal orientation, 6 items) or “My aim is to perform well relative to other students” (i.e., performance-goal orientation, 6 items). Items were summed to calculate mastery (α = .80) and performance (α = .87) goal orientation indexes.

The Polish translation of the New General Self-Efficacy Scale [ 48 ] was used to measure general self-efficacy (e.g., “Even when things are tough, I can perform quite well”). Participants were asked how much they agreed (1 = strongly disagree ; 5 = strongly agree ) with eight items, which were summed to create the general self-efficacy index (α = .89).

Academic dishonesty was estimated with the Academic Dishonesty Scale [ 49 ], which is a list of 16 academically dishonest behaviors (e.g., “Using crib notes during test or exam” or “Falsifying bibliography”). Participants rate the frequency (0 = never ; 4 = many times ) of committing each behavior during their years of studies. Items were summed to create the academic dishonesty index (α = .83).

Data analysis

Descriptive statistics were calculated with JASP (v0.9.0.0), correlations with STATISTICA (v13.1), and regression, mediation, and moderated mediation with SPSS (v25). In the mediation analysis we used model 4 in macro PROCESS 2.16.3 (10,000 bootstrapped samples) and for the moderated mediations model 7 in macro PROCESS 2.16.3 (10,000 bootstrapped samples). Analyzes were carried out on the responses from 390 fully completed surveys. Because of mixed results in previous studies concerning psychopathy and academic dishonesty levels in men and women (see [ 50 , 51 ]) we conducted analyses on the overall results and also separately in each sex. The database was uploaded to Open Science Framework and is available under the following address: https://osf.io/frq9v/

Descriptive statistics, sex differences tests (see Bottom Panel), and correlations (see Top Panel) for all measured variables are presented in Table 1 . Academic dishonesty was positively correlated with meanness and disinhibition, and negatively correlated with mastery-goal orientation and general self-efficacy. Mastery-goal orientation was positively correlated with boldness and general self-efficacy, and negatively correlated with meanness and disinhibition. Performance-goal orientation was positively correlated with meanness. General self-efficacy was positively correlated with boldness and negatively correlated with meanness and disinhibition. We found only three cases where these correlations were moderated by participant’s sex. The correlation between performance and mastery-goal orientation was stronger ( z = -1.85, p = .03) in men ( r = .51, p < .01) than in women ( r = .34, p < .01). The correlation between mastery-goal orientation and meanness was stronger ( z = 2.00, p = .02) in men ( r = -.28, p < .01) than in women ( r = -.05, ns ). And the correlation between disinhibition and academic dishonesty was stronger ( z = 1.72, p = .04) in women ( r = .39, p < .01) than in men ( r = .20, p < .01). If we adjust for error inflation for multiple comparisons ( p < .007) for these moderation tests, none of the Fisher’s z tests were significant. Therefore, we conclude the correlations were generally similar in the sexes. Men scored higher than women on meanness and disinhibition.

We report Hedges’ g for effect size to adjust for unequal group sizes. Its interpretation is the same as the more common Cohen’s d .

* p < .05

** p < .01

To test the contribution of personality and motivation variables in predicting academic dishonesty, we conducted a standard multiple regression where the model explained 23% of the variance in academic dishonesty [ F (6, 383) = 18.60, p < .001]. The residuals for boldness ( β = .12, p = .04), disinhibition ( β = .27, p < .01), and a mastery-goal orientation ( β = -.39, p < .01) were correlated with academic dishonesty. Additional regression analysis revealed that both mastery-goal orientation and disinhibition strengthened the association between boldness and academic dishonesty, which on its own was not a predictor of the frequency of cheating–suppressor effect (results of hierarchical regression showed that after adding boldness to the model explained variance increased by 1% [Δ F (1, 383) = 4.40, p = .04]).

To examine whether achievement goals mediated the associations between psychopathy and academic dishonesty we conducted a series of mediation analyses.

As shown in Table 2 (see Left Panel), mastery-goal orientation mediated the relation between facets of psychopathy and academic dishonesty (i.e., none of the indirect effects CIs contained zero), and performance-goal orientation was not a mediator of those relations (see Right Panel; all of the indirect effects CIs contained zero). Mastery-goal orientation mediated relation between disinhibition and academic dishonesty (i.e., initial 𝛽 Step 1 = .32, p < .001; 𝛽 Step 2 = .24, p < .001), and the relationship between meanness and academic dishonesty (i.e., 𝛽 Step 1 = .10, p < .05; 𝛽 Step 2 = .05, p = .29). Initial non-significant negative relation between boldness and academic dishonesty (𝛽 = -.0001, p = .99) stayed unrelated after adding mastery-goal orientation to the model, but the value for the relation coefficient was higher and positive (𝛽 = .07, p = .12) suggesting a nonsignificant suppression effect.

ab = coefficient for the indirect effect; 95%CI = 95% confidence intervals; z = Sobel’s test for indirect effect.

* p < .01

To test if the level of general self-efficacy moderated the aforementioned relationships between psychopathy, achievement goals, and academic dishonesty we ran a series of moderated mediations. Index for moderated mediation was significant only for the model with disinhibition and mastery-goal orientation ( - 0.03; 95% CI: -0.70, -0.003), however, the same analyses ran separately for men ( - 0.03; 95% CI: -0.13, 0.05) and women ( - 0.04; 95% CI: -0.08, -0.01) revealed moderated mediation only in women (therefore, we do not report these analyses in men; they can be obtained from the first author). Estimates for that model are presented in Table 3 .

B = regression coefficients; SE = standard error; 95% CI = 95% confidence intervals; A1, A2, A3, B, and C’ are the paths in the moderated mediation model.

* * p < .001

Women with high levels of disinhibition manifesting low level of mastery-goal orientation (see Left Panel, line A1) declared higher levels of academic dishonesty (see Right Panel, line B). An interaction between disinhibition and general self-efficacy (see Left Panel, line A3) with the significant, negative index for moderated mediation means that the indirect effect of disinhibition on academic dishonesty through mastery-goal orientation is negatively moderated by general self-efficacy. The higher the level of the moderator, the weaker the effect of mediation, and for moderator values above one standard deviation from mean mediation become non-significant (95% CI: -0.01, 0.09). In sum, the mastery-goal orientation partially mediated the associations that disinhibition had with academic dishonesty, however, this effect was absent for people with high levels of general self-efficacy.

Discussion and limitations

Psychopathy is an important predictor of engaging in unethical behaviors [ 52 ], including in an academic context [ 53 ]. In the present study, we examined the relationships between facets of psychopathy, as described in the triarchic model of psychopathy (i.e. disinhibition, meanness, and boldness), and the frequency of academic dishonesty among students. We revealed that students with higher levels of meanness and disinhibition, but not boldness, reported more frequent academic dishonesty during their tertiary study.

In the case of meanness, this relationship may indicate a tendency for dishonesty resulting from a lack of fear and, consequently, a diminished impact of the perceived risk of being caught cheating, sensation-seeking that involves engaging in destructive behavior regardless of possible negative consequences of such actions, and a propensity to exploit other student’s work or knowledge to pass classes [ 23 , 54 ]. The association between disinhibition and academic dishonesty may indicate impulsive cheating resulting from self-control problems (see [ 55 ]), and an inability to predict possible negative consequences of cheating [ 26 ]. The fact that academic dishonesty and boldness were uncorrelated may indicate that even though bold students can perform successfully in stressful situations and have high levels of sensation-seeking, those features are unrelated to the tendency to cheat in the academic context. It confirms that the “successful psychopath” [ 56 ] may be characterized by boldness but not antisocial behavior. Of all the facets of psychopathy, disinhibition was the strongest predictor of academic dishonesty, which confirms the role of impulsivity in predicting risky behavior [ 57 , 58 ], and the role of delaying gratification in refraining from academic transgressions [ 59 ].

Beyond these basic associations, we also examined the role of achievement goals as mediators for the relationships between psychopathy facets and academic dishonesty. Mastery-goal orientation mediated the relationships between two psychopathy facets and academic dishonesty. Both meanness and disinhibition led to low levels of students’ mastery-goal orientation which, in turn, contributed to cheating in the academic context. Low mastery-goal orientation might result from the fact that those who are characterized by meanness may have a propensity to be rebellious (e.g., disregard for formal responsibilities, low diligence, and sensitivity to rewards) and those who are characterized by disinhibition may have a propensity for impulsivity (e.g., inability to postpone gratification or control impulses, high behavioral activation system). Without motivation to acquire knowledge, students may cheat to achieve academic goals with no regard to the fairness (i.e., high meanness) or the consequences (i.e., high disinhibition) of their actions [ 31 – 33 ]. In the case of boldness, the result of the mediation analysis might indicate a cooperative or reciprocal suppression effect, however, it should not be trusted because the main effect path did not pass the null hypothesis threshold when the potential suppressor was included in the model. Nonetheless, it seems possible that a particular configuration of boldness and disinhibition could lead to the interactive effect of those facets on the other variables [ 26 ]. Performance-goal orientation did not mediate the relationships between psychopathy facets and academic dishonesty, probably because bold, mean, and disinhibited students are not motivated by the fear to perform worse than others [ 60 ].

Lastly, we tested if general self-efficacy acts as a moderator of these mediation models and found evidence that it moderated the indirect effect of disinhibition on academic dishonesty through mastery-goal orientation. This means that disinhibited students who have a high sense of perceived ability to control their chances for success or failure, might be able to overcome the tendency to cheat resulting from their personality (i.e., high impulsiveness), and motivational (i.e., low motivation to learn) predispositions. However, that effect was found only for women, limiting any insights that can be drawn about men. Previous research showed that an increase in general self-efficacy reduced the risk of suicide among women [ 61 ]. Moreover, Portnoy, Legee, Raine, Choy, and Rudo-Hutt [ 62 ] found that low resting heart rate was associated with more frequent academic dishonesty in female students, and that self-control and sensation-seeking mediated this relationship. Thus, along with the observed lower level of disinhibition for female students, it appears that self-regulation abilities may play a different role for men and women’s performance, and also that deficits in self-control might not lead to the same behavioral tendencies in the sexes (see [ 63 ]). However, because of the cross-sectional nature of our study and an uneven number of men and women in the sample, this needs to be investigated further.

In the present study, we aimed to combine personality and motivation variables to describe the possible process leading to academic dishonesty assessed with a behavioral measure. Because Polish students do not constitute a typical W.E.I.R.D. sample (i.e., Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic), presented results can be used to generalize conclusions from research on academic dishonesty beyond typical W.E.I.R.D cultures. However, our study is not without limitations. First, the measurement of academic dishonesty was based on self-report, which, even after maximizing anonymity of the measurement, might have attenuated our results concerning the frequency of cheating. Thus, future studies should focus on measuring actual dishonest academic behavior. Second, we examined academic dishonesty as an overall frequency of committing different acts of cheating, which reflects the general propensity to cheat. It could be useful to further investigate the predictive power of described models in experiments, focused on the specific type of dishonest behavior. Third, the obtained range of academic dishonesty scores might result from sampling bias, which would require using different sampling procedure in future studies, or from non-normal distribution of academic dishonesty, which would be consistent with the results of the previous studies [ 2 – 4 ]. Fourth, we tested mediation models in a cross-sectional study with a one-time point measurement, which require cautious interpretation. Future studies could use longitudinal methods; starting at the beginning of the first year and continuing over the course of their studies to capture the influence of personality, achievement goals, and general self-efficacy on the academic dishonesty of students in a more robust manner. Despite these shortcomings, our study is the first attempt (we know of) to integrate the triarchic model of psychopathy, general self-efficacy, and achievement goals to predict academic dishonesty, showing potential for further investigation in this area.

Implications and conclusions

Preventing academic dishonesty is often made difficult by the lack of centralized and formalized university policies concerning cheating, faculty reluctance to take formal action against dishonest students, and limited attention paid to students’ personal characteristics associated with a tendency to cheat [ 64 ]. Based on the results of our study, lecturers might overcome those difficulties by: maximizing the amount of oral examinations to deal with the risk of cheating by disinhibited and mean students; enhancing students’ mastery-goal orientation, for example, by increasing use of competency-based assessment; enhancing students’ self-efficacy in academic context, for example, by providing spaced assessed tasks, and the opportunity to practice skills needed for their fulfillment. In the case of dealing with actual dishonest behavior, the fact that teachers prefer to warn students rather than fail them [ 19 ] might suggest indifference to academic integrity rules, reluctance to initiate time-consuming formal procedures against cheating, or teachers’ preference toward autonomy to deal with dishonesty. Therefore, a useful solution could be to assess which areas need to be improved for a particular student (e.g., knowledge about plagiarism, ability to delay gratification, or treating acquisition of knowledge as a value) and to allow the teacher to choose an effective way to remedy them.

In sum, we presented evidence that disinhibition and meanness are associated with the frequency of committing academic dishonesty. We described the possible underlying mechanism of those relations involving mediation effects of the mastery-goal orientation and, in the case of disinhibition, also a moderation effect of the general self-efficacy. Our research can be used by teachers to better identify factors conducive to dishonesty and to modulate their responses to fraud based on the personality and motivational predispositions of students.

Supporting information

Acknowledgments.

We would like to thank Dr Guy Curtis for his comments and suggestions on the article.

Funding Statement

Funding was provided by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange ( https://nawa.gov.pl/en/ ) to P.K.J under Grant number PPN/ULM/2019/1/00019/U/00001. This funding source had no role in the study conception, design, analysis, interpretation, or decision to submit for publication.

Data Availability

Academic Integrity at MIT

A handbook for students, search form, what are the consequences.

The consequences for cheating, plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, and other forms of academic dishonesty can be very serious, possibly including suspension or expulsion from the Institute. Any violation of the rules outlined in this handbook, established by the instructor of the class, or deviating from responsible conduct of research, may be considered violations of academic integrity. The MIT Policy on Student Academic Dishonesty is outlined in MIT’s Policies and Procedures 10.2 .

Instructors, research or thesis supervisors decide how to handle violations of academic integrity on a case-by-case basis, and three options exist. Questions about these options should be directed to the Office of Student conduct ( [email protected] ).

Academic consequences within a class or research project

Within a class, the instructor determines what action is appropriate to take. Such action may include:

requiring the student to redo the assignment for a reduced grade.

assigning the student a failing grade for the assignment.

assigning the student a failing grade for the class.

For a research project, the supervisor determines what action is appropriate to take. Such action may include:

• terminating the student's participation in the research project.

The instructor or supervisor may also submit documentation to the Office of Student Citizenship in the form of a letter to file or a formal complaint. These options are outlined below.

Letter to file

The instructor or supervisor writes a letter describing the nature of the academic integrity violation, which is placed in the student’s discipline file. The student’s discipline file is maintained by the Office of Student Citizenship (OSC) and is not associated with the student’s academic record .

A letter may be filed with the OSC in addition to the action already taken in the class or research project.

If a student receives a letter to file, s/he has the right to:

submit a reply, that is added to the student’s file.

appeal the letter to the Committee on Discipline (COD) for a full hearing.

In resolving the violation described in the letter, the OSC reviews any previous violations which are documented in the student’s discipline file.

Committee on Discipline (COD) complaint

The instructor or supervisor submits a formal complaint to the COD, which resolves cases of alleged student misconduct.

This complaint may be filed with the OSC in addition to the action already taken in the class or research project.

A COD complaint is reviewed by the COD Chair and considered for a hearing. Any previous violations documented in the student’s discipline file are reviewed as part of this process.

Cases resulting in a hearing are subject to a full range of sanctions, including probation, suspension, dismissal, or other educational sanctions.

Policies, Procedures, and Contacts

• MIT Policy on Student Academic Dishonesty
• Typical MIT Student Discipline Process Outline
• Committee on Discipline Rules and Regulations
• Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards
• For Faculty and Staff: What You Should Know about Academic Integrity

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• Published: 05 May 2022

Reconceptualizing academic dishonesty as a struggle for intersubjective recognition: a new theoretical model

• Jasper Roe 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  9 , Article number:  157 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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• Cultural and media studies

Renewed interest in academic dishonesty (AD) has occurred as a result of the changes to society and higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite a broad body of research investigating why and how students engage in intentional violations of principles of academic integrity, the causes of these behaviors remain uncertain. In order to fully address the overarching issue of why students engage in academically dishonest practices, social philosophy can be invoked. This article reviews the current research on AD in higher education, and then seeks to develop a new theoretical understanding based on Axel Honneth’s (1995) Theory of Recognition, positing that it is not a moral deficit that drives students to commit such acts, but a struggle for intersubjective recognition and a subtle form of privatized resistance. This offers a universal model for interpreting and understanding the position of the student in higher education, while offering insight into a social pathology, namely, the social pressure that requires higher education to be viewed as an instrumental rather than intrinsic value.

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Violations of academic norms and standards can be a cause of “moral panic” among those working in academia (Venera-Mihaela and Mares, 2021 ), and such acts have the potential to cause great societal damage. Students who reported committing such acts also expressed likelihood to be dishonest in other areas of life (Guerrero-Dib et al., 2020 ). Lynch et al. ( 2021 ) found that in nursing education, dishonest behaviors may continue into clinical practice, potentially causing grave consequences. There is also a widespread understanding outside of academia that such behaviors are socially intolerable. As an example, in 2021 three German ministers were pushed to leave their office as the result of plagiarism in their respective Ph.D theses (Oltermann, 2021 ).

This article describes the current state of the research base in relation to these concepts, before seeking to reinterpret the root causes of transgressions against the norms of academia through application of Honneth’s ( 1995 ) Theory of Recognition. Prior to doing so, the difference between academic integrity (AI) and academic dishonesty (AD) needs to be clarified. As the “moral code” of academia, AI is built on the dedication to values of honesty, fairness, trust, respect, and responsibility (Lynch et al., 2021 ). AD on the other hand, refers to behaviors which seek to violate the code of AI. The International Center for Academic Integrity ( 2022 ) includes plagiarism, cheating, lying, and deception under the umbrella of AD. A distinction must be made when considering cases in which students have unintentionally violated principles of AI, for example using patchwriting or misquotation. As AI is reliant on an understanding of explicit and implicit norms (Venera-Mihaela and Mares, 2021 ) many students may inadvertently violate such norms while engaged in the learning process. In this article I seek to focus not on such cases, but on intentional cases of AD, in which the student aims to deliberately violate rules in order to gain an advantage by deception, defrauding, or misleading the assessor(s).

Many of those working in higher education will have encountered AD. DiPaulo ( 2022 ) found that 80% of preservice teachers surveyed undertook AD behaviors while engaged in their course of study, including sharing information among peer groups, and 68% engaged in more formalized “cheating”. Large-scale follow up studies over ten years have found that over 60% of students have cheated in some form in their academic study (International Center for Academic Integrity, 2022 ). Some authors have reported figures as high as 95% ( N  = 1127) of students engaging in forms of cheating (Ives et al., 2017 ). In the USA, the figure of 68% was reported for students who had cheated in the past, rising to 75% when asked if they would cheat in the future (Chapman et al., 2004 ). In short, AD is firmly embedded in higher education, and although studies on AI and AD have been published since the 1940s, for example Drake ( 1941 ), the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in an increased focus on this topic. It has been reported that AI violations have increased directly due to online learning instituted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and empirical research has demonstrated that students may also believe this to be the case, with 81% of STEM students surveyed ( N  = 299) believing that online learning caused an increase in cheating (Walsh et al., 2021 ). In the mainstream media, it has been claimed that occurrences of cheating are “soaring” during the online era of the pandemic (Dey, 2021 ).

How educators and institutions are dealing with these increases in AI violations and AD varies. High-technology methods include the expanded use of new software for online proctoring and “lockdown” browsers to limit students’ access to external sources on a personal computer, and over 20 different forms of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies are now available to detect cheating, including those using advanced techniques to maintain integrity such as biometric systems of identification, multi-factor authentication, and blockchain applications (Slusky, 2020 ). Walsh et al. ( 2021 ) point out that this is not the only solution to perceived increases in AI and AD violations, as low-technology methods, such as altering summative assessments and using open-book examinations are also in use. These tools tend to focus on attacking the symptoms of AD, rather than the cause. Consequently, focus needs to be redirected away from locating and combating AD, and towards understanding the social and moral reasoning that underpins these behaviors. Following this, I will analyze the current understanding of AD, and then seek to reinterpret AD through the moral philosophy and social Theory of Recognition developed by Axel Honneth ( 1995 ).

Why students commit AD: current theories and understanding

In the context of COVID-19, Walsh et al. ( 2021 ) found that students surveyed attributed a perceived increase in AD behaviors to four social and psychological theories: Game Theory, Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development, Neutralization Theory, and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991 ). Each of these theories posits a philosophy that explains why the student commits AD, for example through playing a “game” of cat and mouse between student and teacher (Game Theory), developing a stronger set of moral beliefs over time (Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development), rationalization of the violations (Neutralization Theory), and the combination of the intention to commit AD combined with a perceived opportunity (TPB) (Walsh et al., 2021 )

The theories above may then explain some factors or motivations for engaging in AD, but do not tell the entire story. Taking TPB as an example, this theory may explain why cheating occurs when it occurs (for example, when the opportunity arises coupled with the intention), but does not explain how the positive attitude towards AD was formed initially. To this end, research has aimed to identify relationships between certain factors and the likelihood of committing AD. These can be described as belonging to four overarching categories: attitudes, traits, language and culture, and student experience.

Category 1: attitudes towards AD among students, peers, and instructors

One of the most clearly established factors which predict AD is the student’s attitude towards cheating in general (which under TPB, may form part of the “intention” to cheat). A large body of research supports this point (Eriksson and McGee, 2015 ; Ives et al., 2017 ; Hendy and Montargot, 2019 ; Peled et al., 2019 ; Zhang et al., 2021 ; DiPaulo, 2022 ). Whitley et al. ( 1999 ) equally found through a review of 107 studies that viewing cheating positively was a causative factor for AD, along with expectations of the outcome of cheating, prior history of cheating, and perceived rewards. More recently Zhang et al. ( 2018 ) studied 2009 students across eastern China, finding that those who viewed AD as less serious or unimportant were more likely to engage in it.

Teachers’ and peers’ personal attitudes towards AD have also been shown to have an effect on the likelihood of engaging in acts of AD (McCabe et al., 2001 , 2012 ; Maloshonok and Shmeleva, 2019 ). McCabe et al. ( 2001 ) found that when AD behaviors are tolerated by instructors, cheating can increase, and Anderman et al. ( 2009 ) and Yu et al. ( 2018 ) equally found that the students’ opinion of the teacher, and the teacher’s view of AD inversely correlated with its occurrence, while Robinson-Zanartu et al. ( 2005 ) surveyed 270 faculty members, finding that how severely the faculty viewed the violation strongly influenced the severity of the consequences they would seek to impose on the violator.

The effect of peer influence is also clearly established as a causative factor, and as a result AD is more likely to increase when students perceive that others are acting similarly (McCabe, 2016 ). This finding is also important in demonstrating a principle of social solidarity among peers. For example, in a survey assessing student behavior at a small liberal arts university, Papp and Wertz ( 2009 ) found that over 75% of students would not report a witnessed occurrence of cheating, and over 80% would not report a friend.

Category 2: personality traits, gender, and age

Other factors have equally been attributed to the likelihood of engaging in AD. Students who are highly achieving may be less likely to commit acts of AD (McCabe and Trevino, 1997 ; McCabe and Pavela, 2004 ; McCabe et al., 2012 ). How students view themselves (Ng, 2020 ) plays a role, as does students’ self-efficacy (Marsden et al., 2005 ). Students who are excitement-seeking may engage in AD more often (de Bruin and Rudnick, 2007 ) and students who demonstrate personality traits of deviance and low self-restraint may similarly be more inclined to cheat (Jensen and Jetten, 2018 ).

Some studies have focused on gender and age (McCabe and Trevino, 1997 ). Males have been more commonly identified as likely to engage in AD. Szabo and Underwood ( 2004 ) found that 68% of males cheated in assessments compared to just 39% of females, and those in their third year of study were less inclined to cheat in assessment than those in their second or initial year, while (Yang, 2012 ) found that female graduate students were more likely to hold critical views of AD than males, and that doctoral students were less likely to commit AD than master’s students. However, this is by no means certain, as other studies, for example Ives et al. ( 2017 ) found no association between academic achievement, field of study, or year of study.

Finally, the relationship between the learning space and the student may play a role in causes of AD, particularly as technology disrupts the traditional classroom experience (Venera-Mihaela and Mares, 2021 ). In terms of the impact of COVID-19, although the move to online learning has resulted in perceived increases in AD among students (Walsh et al., 2021 ). In sum, there is little clear evidence of a definite pattern concerning these variables.

Category 3: international students: language, culture, or none of the above?

Another area that has commanded attention in the literature is that of international students and students who speak English as a foreign or second language, along with the cultural background of these groups, presented here as two closely related subjects. Language proficiency has been implicated in AD and correlations have been identified between ability, training, and occurrences of AD (Bretag, 2007 ; Perkins et al., 2018 ; 2020 ), although further research is needed in this area. Bertram Gallant et al. ( 2014 ) posit that in regards to AD, the international student population may display greater vulnerability due to a lack of knowledge on behavioral standards in Western universities, or may not have the same fear of consequences, whereas Hendy et al. ( 2021 ) found that the wide variance between AD behaviors among French students, U.S. students and Greek students could be explained by cultural differences, and McCabe et al. ( 2008 ) found that Lebanese university students are influenced by collectivist societal norms in comparison the individual-centric society in the USA. International students or students from non-North American cultural backgrounds may also demonstrate a higher rate of AD (Park, 2003 ). Among doctoral students Cutri et al. ( 2021 ) identify that both feelings of inadequacy (“imposter syndrome”) and cultural differences explain the causes of AD. As with other affecting factors, the research is conflicting. Marshall et al. ( 2022 ) for example found that among Vietnamese students studying abroad and local PG students in New Zealand, both groups held significant understanding of plagiarism and held negative attitudes towards plagiarism, suggesting that culture is not an acceptable explanation for plagiarism behaviors and results in a simplistic approach and potential bias. Equally scholars such as Phan ( 2004 ) have posited that such cultural notions for how students behave in university are often based on inaccurate stereotypes. In such a case “culture” as a category can be seen as misrecognition itself, categorizing the individual and explaining complex behaviors in a simplistic manner.

Category 4: stress and the student experience

A wide range of research describing the causes and variables predicting student engagement in AD is available, but with no single thread of agreement and little large-scale replication of results. There is however, a more universal factor posited for engagement in AD, and it is in this factor that I ground the use of the Theory of Recognition. This is the pressures, stresses, and struggles of participating in higher education, and the societal pressure to complete education as quickly as possible, with as high a mark as possible. It is well established that participating in higher education can be a challenging experience. Tindall et al. ( 2021 ) point out that HE students demonstrate above-average levels of mental illness and nervous disorders as evidence of this. The authors identify that this may link to the likelihood of cheating or other academically dishonest acts, as “negative emotionality” in this sense may drive AD (Tindall et al., 2021 ). Other research has similarly found a link between mental health and likelihood to engage in AD, with a focus on the pressurized, high-stress student experience as a causative factor (Devlin and Gray, 2007 ). In the media this is also commonly recognized. Lodhia ( 2018 ) writes in The Guardian that today’s HE students must focus on obtaining a qualification and their subsequent recognition in the labor market, rather than focusing on their education. This is fundamentally the driving force in which recognition theory can be applied in understanding the motivation for AD. This interpretation could also help to explain why there is a perceived increase in AD among international students, as it has also been argued that cases among this group could stem from dealing with a broader range of issues resulting from cultural adjustment, living abroad, and other social and financial issues, which lead to “out of character” decision making as a result of emotional distress (Lynch et al., 2021 ).

In summarizing the research based so far, there are no firm answers as to why students commit AD, although some factors may point to circumstances in which the opportunity for AD is more likely to be taken. I argue in the following section that all of the factors discussed, and the theories posited, may be contributory—but that the overarching cause of AD behaviors is driven by the stressors placed on students to view education as instrumental in achieving recognition, and that this emphasis on completion of HE study at the fastest rate possible, with the highest grades possible, is itself a social pathology, as it fits Honneth’s ( 2014 ) definition, as a social development, which “significantly impairs the ability to take part rationally in important forms of social cooperation”—in this case, formal education.

Recognition theory and education

The Theory of Recognition described in Honneth’s ( 1995 ) work focuses on the role of recognition and disrespect as aspects of common moral experience between individuals. Honneth ( 1995 ) postulates that to attain freedom, humans must develop stable self-relation by achieving intersubjective recognition. If the individual is unable to achieve such recognition despite it being deserved, the result is that of suffering disrespect, which can impact upon and even lead to the destruction of the self. Further to this, recognition is not given freely; subjects must participate in a struggle, which can take various forms, ranging from verbal discussion all the way to entering into violent conflict, or fighting in a war (Huttunen and Murphy, 2012 ). In the context of academia, students may struggle for recognition through the achievement of grades, through discussion, criticism, or even through subtle movements and motions; a nod of agreement or look of disdain can similarly function as an action, which defines an attempt to gain intersubjective recognition or protest against disrespect.

To date, despite its importance and application in sociology and philosophy, recognition theory has received limited attention in education. Sandberg ( 2016 ) envisioned adult learners re-entering the workforce through adult education as engaged in a struggle for recognition, stuck between the isolation and disconnection from society that results from being excluded from the workforce, and the struggle of engaging in further learning to rejoin and experience stability and participation in the labor market. Sandberg and Kubiak ( 2013 ) also argue that in higher education, Honneth’s theory can be used to develop transformative learning, through the identification that teachers must develop respect for themselves primarily, as this is a condition of the ability to recognize rights in others, in order to imbue self-confidence in students. The results of this, it is argued, would produce democracy in classrooms and then in society as a result (Sandberg and Kubiak, 2013 ).

There are three areas of self-relation that must be developed under this theory in order to achieve positive self-relation, including self-confidence, self-respect, and self-esteem, and these are developed at three different sites of struggle for recognition (Huttunen and Murphy, 2012 ). Self-confidence develops through the individual’s primary relationships. Self-respect is found in the acknowledgement of a person as having legal rights. Self-esteem on the other hand, is gained from understanding that work or actions are acknowledged, and this is the highest form of recognition (Huttunen and Murphy, 2012 ). In relation to higher education, the recognition of passing an assessment, gaining a degree, or succeeding in an element of study can provide this form of intersubjective recognition in the domain of self-esteem, in the form of approval from peers, instructors, or parents, mentors and guardians. An acknowledgement from a teacher that an examination is unfair, or the remediation of an unjust punishment can equally function in this manner.

The struggle for recognition can also be a struggle against ideologies that are present in education and society at large. Honneth ( 2014 ) states that education is a process of internalizing norms, including of the performance-orientation required in the labor market. One example of an ideology that supports this is the merit principle (Herzog, 2016 ), which leads to the subordination of enjoyment of learning to the obtaining of as high a “score” as possible in assessment and outcome. Lodhia ( 2018 ) equally identifies this ideology as leading to greater numbers of students engaging in AD, as results must be prioritized over the engagement and enjoyment of learning. Students who feel that this ideology is unjust, whether consciously or unconsciously, may then feel jaded at the imposition of this ideology by society-at-large and may suffer from disrespect (Herzog, 2016 ), or suffer from great psychological stress, which forces the actions of AD. In this sense, AD can be viewed as part of a social process described by Honneth ( 2014 ), in which a social group (students) develop moral doubts about an aspect or element of the social order—in this case comprising assessment, the institution, the program, the teacher, or instrumental ideology of education, i.e., the merit principle ideology. The committing of transgressions against established norms of academic integrity can then be viewed as a struggle against this - with the result of such behaviors being “for the right reasons” but in a way that unintentionally causes the potential for social harm.

Understanding academic dishonesty as a struggle for recognition

Recognition theory can help us to understand why it is that students know that AD carries severe consequences yet continue to engage in it. In relating this to a struggle for recognition, the argument is summarized by Daniel et al. ( 1994 ) who state that the role of education is to help students to self-actualize, and if that goal is impeded, then cheating or engaging in AD is the only way in which they can continue. This is especially relevant to the tendency to “privatize discontent” (Honneth, 2014 , p. 248) in modern society, and explains why such actions are completed privately rather than in mass organized groups or through raising verbal discussions; this may also explain why when students perceive that their peers are also engaging in AD, they will be more inclined to join in (McCabe, 2016 ). Petrovskaya et al. ( 2011 ) highlight through an internal critique of nursing education that the ideals of academic life include thinking in a free, creative, and critical manner, yet these values do not correlate to some institutionalized practices of academia, which are influenced by the research industry and instrumental reason. This suggests that it is the reification of academia, which results in struggles for recognition including, under this approach, acts of academic dishonesty.

Students who engage in higher education seek the “good life” (Sandberg and Kubiak, 2013 ) by hoping to gain future employment, achieve personal growth, or to please others. The “good life” then, may entail personal or financial success, or in the case of students who are encouraged or pressured into higher education as a result of societal or familial norms it may entail freedom from such pressure on completion. To gain the recognition of completion of higher education requires success in formal assessment. Students are required to view their study as instrumental in obtaining the “good life” and passing their assessments quickly and effectively becomes part of this struggle for recognition. Those who do well may receive praise from peer group members, family members, or teaching faculty in the case of unblinded assessment, thus leading to higher recognition in the dimension of esteem. On the other hand, the consequences of failure to achieve the required standard may lead to the opposite.

This may be why students understand the risk yet still commit AD. In order to achieve their goals, to attain “the good life” (Sandberg and Kubiak, 2013 ) and to get past the impediments to their self-actualization (Daniel et al., 1994 ) they must achieve recognition of their successful participation in assessment by any means, with as high a grade as possible, and as quickly as possible, following the pattern Honneth ( 2014 ) defines as internalization of norms of performance orientation. If students have doubts in their ability and lack the positive self-relation to confidently attempt an assessment by themselves, are critical of the ideology of the assessment, or are convinced of their inability to pass, then they are faced with two choices: risk the suffering of disrespect if caught engaging in AD or risk the suffering of disrespect by failing the assessment. It is also possible to view more banal motivations such as finding the subject uninteresting or not related to the student’s self-identity (Venera-Mihaela and Mares, 2021 ) as part of a struggle for recognition. To this end, it is required to reframe the students’ motivations and path to the future good life. If the subject is uninteresting or not related to what the student defines as essential for themselves, then AD is a subtle act of resistance.

To further explain why students may choose to risk the suffering of disrespect from being caught engaging in AD, versus failing an assessment, neutralization theory may play a role. In this sense, it is less threatening to self-relation to engage in rationalization of the cheating behavior, by for example blaming another party (the instructor makes the assessments too difficult) or referring to a different system of values (the assessment is not important, I do not care about it) (Walsh et al., 2021 ). This is comparatively less consequential for self-relation compared to the risk of gaining a failing grade despite trying to succeed. One additional aspect of this understanding of AD is that it results in a circular social pathology, as the act of committing AD itself entails disrespect. By deceiving the individual responsible for marking an assessment with a false promise of authenticity, the marker is disrespected. By disadvantaging others who do engage authentically in assessment, the other assessment-takers are disrespected. Committing an act of AD then is a final attempt to save the self by disrespecting others. To demonstrate the relation between AD and recognition further, the dimensions of the theory can be mapped to components of AD. Table 1 demonstrates the domains of the Theory of Disrespect, while Table 2 develops this to account for acts of AD.

In relation to Table 1 , the applicable mode of recognition regarding AD is social esteem. In this case, in higher education, we require recognition of our traits and abilities through assessment in order to develop positive self-relation, which is magnified by our overall completion of a program (such as a degree), while enabling us to achieve a version of “the good life” (for example, a stable career). If we are unable to do so, or we risk losing this possibility, then AD may become a reaction to this potential suffering of misrecognition (disrespect). The application of this dimension is demonstrated in Table 2 .

Through this application, a new understanding of intentional academic dishonesty can be formulated. A broader picture can be used to understand that when students engage in AD behaviors; it is not necessarily due to a single factor, an aspect of the individual’s personality, or their gender, field of study, age, or another characteristic. Rather, the universal and basic patterns of recognition that form social life drive students to find ways to achieve the recognition that is needed for positive relation-to-self. The social esteem mode of recognition is particularly applicable; the approval or recognition of the assessor, lecturer, community-of-practice, professional organization, and institution may hinge on the outcome of an assessment or set of assessments. Faced with this struggle, students who do not believe they are capable of achieving this themselves will seek AD behaviors to maintain a chance at recognition, rationalizing this choice if necessary. In other cases, students will seek to rebel against ideologies of assessment as a form of privatized resistance. Sandberg ( 2016 ) identifies that if a group suffers from disrespect or misrecognition, they will strive to regain it. It is in this way that we can reconceptualize AD as the struggle for recognition in the mode of self-esteem. Finally, it can be seen that certain forms of ideology in global society, for instance those based on the merit principle (Herzog, 2016 ) and internalization of performance orientation at all costs (Honneth, 2014 ) are social pathologies, in that they contribute to the instrumentality of education in society.

Implications for teaching, learning, and assessment

This paper has aimed to apply Honneth’s theory of recognition to the practice of AD among students in higher education, through the identification that the self-esteem mode of recognition is at the core of the struggle to succeed in HE to gain recognition and realize a vision of the good life (Sandberg and Kubiak, 2013 ). The stressors of being a student and the societal pressure of completing education as instrumental in achieving the good life, along with the reification of aspects of academia, are then the factors that force the student’s hand in committing AD, and such acts may also have been seen as a form of privatized resistance against perceived issues in a program of study. Current theories are not sufficient to fully explain why this happens, and research on individual and personal variables is conflicting. If AD is reexamined as the struggle for recognition, then there is a firm footing for understanding this phenomenon universally. Furthermore, following this interpretation there is no need for the “moral panic” noted among some faculty in academia (Venera-Mihaela and Mares, 2021 ). In fact, students may be behaving consciously or unconsciously in a rational manner to instinctively protect their self-relation and avoid the destruction of identity, and it is not the case that failing to follow principles of academic integrity is a correlate of a “moral deficit” (Venera-Mihaela and Mares, 2021 ), despite the fact that engaging in such acts entails an act of disrespect to others in itself. Under this interpretation, the causes of AD point to issues within the world of academia, including the reification of academia, the pressures of the student experience, and the stressors of higher education as a struggle for societal recognition. Armed with this understanding, faculty and institutions can do more to understand students’ motivations and work towards corrective action.

Data availability

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

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Roe, J. Reconceptualizing academic dishonesty as a struggle for intersubjective recognition: a new theoretical model. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 9 , 157 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01182-9

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Frequently asked questions

What is academic dishonesty.

Academic dishonesty refers to deceitful or misleading behavior in an academic setting. Academic dishonesty can occur intentionally or unintentionally, and varies in severity.

It can encompass paying for a pre-written essay, cheating on an exam, or committing plagiarism . It can also include helping others cheat, copying a friend’s homework answers, or even pretending to be sick to miss an exam.

Academic dishonesty doesn’t just occur in a classroom setting, but also in research and other academic-adjacent fields.

Frequently asked questions: Plagiarism

Academic integrity means being honest, ethical, and thorough in your academic work. To maintain academic integrity, you should avoid misleading your readers about any part of your research and refrain from offenses like plagiarism and contract cheating, which are examples of academic misconduct.

Plagiarism is a form of theft, since it involves taking the words and ideas of others and passing them off as your own. As such, it’s academically dishonest and can have serious consequences .

Plagiarism also hinders the learning process, obscuring the sources of your ideas and usually resulting in bad writing. Even if you could get away with it, plagiarism harms your own learning.

Most online plagiarism checkers only have access to public databases, whose software doesn’t allow you to compare two documents for plagiarism.

However, in addition to our Plagiarism Checker , Scribbr also offers an Self-Plagiarism Checker . This is an add-on tool that lets you compare your paper with unpublished or private documents. This way you can rest assured that you haven’t unintentionally plagiarized or self-plagiarized .

Compare two sources for plagiarism

Most institutions have an internal database of previously submitted student papers. Turnitin can check for self-plagiarism by comparing your paper against this database. If you’ve reused parts of an assignment you already submitted, it will flag any similarities as potential plagiarism.

Online plagiarism checkers don’t have access to your institution’s database, so they can’t detect self-plagiarism of unpublished work. If you’re worried about accidentally self-plagiarizing, you can use Scribbr’s Self-Plagiarism Checker to upload your unpublished documents and check them for similarities.

Yes, reusing your own work without acknowledgment is considered self-plagiarism . This can range from re-submitting an entire assignment to reusing passages or data from something you’ve turned in previously without citing them.

Self-plagiarism often has the same consequences as other types of plagiarism . If you want to reuse content you wrote in the past, make sure to check your university’s policy or consult your professor.

If you are reusing content or data you used in a previous assignment, make sure to cite yourself. You can cite yourself just as you would cite any other source: simply follow the directions for that source type in the citation style you are using.

Keep in mind that reusing your previous work can be considered self-plagiarism , so make sure you ask your professor or consult your university’s handbook before doing so.

Common knowledge does not need to be cited. However, you should be extra careful when deciding what counts as common knowledge.

Common knowledge encompasses information that the average educated reader would accept as true without needing the extra validation of a source or citation.

Common knowledge should be widely known, undisputed and easily verified. When in doubt, always cite your sources.

Plagiarism has serious consequences , and can indeed be illegal in certain scenarios.

While most of the time plagiarism in an undergraduate setting is not illegal, plagiarism or self-plagiarism in a professional academic setting can lead to legal action, including copyright infringement and fraud. Many scholarly journals do not allow you to submit the same work to more than one journal, and if you do not credit a co-author, you could be legally defrauding them.

Even if you aren’t breaking the law, plagiarism can seriously impact your academic career. While the exact consequences of plagiarism vary by institution and severity, common consequences include: a lower grade, automatically failing a course, academic suspension or probation, or even expulsion.

Accidental plagiarism is one of the most common examples of plagiarism . Perhaps you forgot to cite a source, or paraphrased something a bit too closely. Maybe you can’t remember where you got an idea from, and aren’t totally sure if it’s original or not.

These all count as plagiarism, even though you didn’t do it on purpose. When in doubt, make sure you’re citing your sources . Also consider running your work through a plagiarism checker tool prior to submission, which work by using advanced database software to scan for matches between your text and existing texts.

Scribbr’s Plagiarism Checker takes less than 10 minutes and can help you turn in your paper with confidence.

Self-plagiarism means recycling work that you’ve previously published or submitted as an assignment. It’s considered academic dishonesty to present something as brand new when you’ve already gotten credit and perhaps feedback for it in the past.

If you want to refer to ideas or data from previous work, be sure to cite yourself.

If you’re concerned that you may have self-plagiarized, Scribbr’s Self-Plagiarism Checker can help you turn in your paper with confidence. It compares your work to unpublished or private documents that you upload, so you can rest assured that you haven’t unintentionally plagiarized.

Incremental plagiarism means inserting quotes, passages, or excerpts from other works into your assignment without properly citing the original source.

Even if the vast majority of the text is yours, including any content that isn’t without citing it is plagiarism.

Consider using a plagiarism checker yourself before submitting your work. Plagiarism checkers work by scanning your document, comparing it to a database of webpages and publications, and highlighting passages that appear similar to other texts.

Patchwork plagiarism (aka mosaic plagiarism) means copying phrases, passages, or ideas from various existing sources and combining them to create a new text. While this type of plagiarism is more insidious than simply copy-pasting directly from a source, plagiarism checkers like Turnitin’s can still easily detect it.

To avoid plagiarism in any form, remember to cite your sources . Also consider running your work through a plagiarism checker tool prior to submission, which work by using advanced database software to scan for matches between your text and existing texts.

Verbatim plagiarism means copying text from a source and pasting it directly into your own document without giving proper credit.

Even if you delete a few words or replace them with synonyms, it still counts as verbatim plagiarism.

To use an author’s exact words, quote the original source by putting the copied text in quotation marks and including an in-text citation .

If you’re worried about plagiarism, consider running your work through a plagiarism checker tool prior to submission, which work by using advanced database software to scan for matches between your text and existing texts.

Global plagiarism means taking an entire work written by someone else and passing it off as your own. This can mean getting someone else to write an essay or assignment for you, or submitting a text you found online as your own work.

Global plagiarism is the most serious type of plagiarism because it involves deliberately and directly lying about the authorship of a work. It can have severe consequences .

To ensure you aren’t accidentally plagiarizing, consider running your work through plagiarism checker tool prior to submission. These tools work by using advanced database software to scan for matches between your text and existing texts.

Plagiarism can be detected by your professor or readers if the tone, formatting, or style of your text is different in different parts of your paper, or if they’re familiar with the plagiarized source.

Many universities also use plagiarism detection software like Turnitin’s, which compares your text to a large database of other sources, flagging any similarities that come up.

It can be easier than you think to commit plagiarism by accident. Consider using a plagiarism checker prior to submitting your paper to ensure you haven’t missed any citations.

Some examples of plagiarism include:

• Copying and pasting a Wikipedia article into the body of an assignment
• Quoting a source without including a citation
• Not paraphrasing a source properly, such as maintaining wording too close to the original
• Forgetting to cite the source of an idea

The most surefire way to avoid plagiarism is to always cite your sources . When in doubt, cite!

If you’re concerned about plagiarism, consider running your work through a plagiarism checker tool prior to submission. Scribbr’s Plagiarism Checker takes less than 10 minutes and can help you turn in your paper with confidence.

Plagiarism means presenting someone else’s work as your own without giving proper credit to the original author. In academic writing, plagiarism involves using words, ideas, or information from a source without including a citation .

Plagiarism can have serious consequences , even when it’s done accidentally. To avoid plagiarism, it’s important to keep track of your sources and cite them correctly.

Academic dishonesty can be intentional or unintentional, ranging from something as simple as claiming to have read something you didn’t to copying your neighbor’s answers on an exam.

You can commit academic dishonesty with the best of intentions, such as helping a friend cheat on a paper. Severe academic dishonesty can include buying a pre-written essay or the answers to a multiple-choice test, or falsifying a medical emergency to avoid taking a final exam.

Consequences of academic dishonesty depend on the severity of the offense and your institution’s policy. They can range from a warning for a first offense to a failing grade in a course to expulsion from your university.

For those in certain fields, such as nursing, engineering, or lab sciences, not learning fundamentals properly can directly impact the health and safety of others. For those working in academia or research, academic dishonesty impacts your professional reputation, leading others to doubt your future work.

Paraphrasing without crediting the original author is a form of plagiarism , because you’re presenting someone else’s ideas as if they were your own.

However, paraphrasing is not plagiarism if you correctly cite the source . This means including an in-text citation and a full reference, formatted according to your required citation style .

As well as citing, make sure that any paraphrased text is completely rewritten in your own words.

Plagiarism means using someone else’s words or ideas and passing them off as your own. Paraphrasing means putting someone else’s ideas in your own words.

So when does paraphrasing count as plagiarism?

• Paraphrasing is plagiarism if you don’t properly credit the original author.
• Paraphrasing is plagiarism if your text is too close to the original wording (even if you cite the source). If you directly copy a sentence or phrase, you should quote it instead.
• Paraphrasing  is not plagiarism if you put the author’s ideas completely in your own words and properly cite the source .

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If you’ve properly paraphrased or quoted and correctly cited the source, you are not committing plagiarism.

However, the word correctly is vital. In order to avoid plagiarism , you must adhere to the guidelines of your citation style  (e.g. APA  or MLA ).

You can use the Scribbr Plagiarism Checker to make sure you haven’t missed any citations, while our Citation Checker ensures you’ve properly formatted your citations in APA style.

The consequences of plagiarism vary depending on the type of plagiarism and the context in which it occurs. For example, submitting a whole paper by someone else will have the most severe consequences, while accidental citation errors are considered less serious.

If you’re a student, then you might fail the course, be suspended or expelled, or be obligated to attend a workshop on plagiarism. It depends on whether it’s your first offense or you’ve done it before.

As an academic or professional, plagiarizing seriously damages your reputation. You might also lose your research funding or your job, and you could even face legal consequences for copyright infringement.

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Plagiarism & Academic Integrity

• Academic Integrity

Types of Academic Dishonesty

• How to Avoid Plagiarism: Citing
• Citing Direct Quotes
• Paraphrasing
• Summarizing
• Try It! Identifying Plagiarism
• Understanding a Turnitin Report

There are many types of academic dishonesty - some are obvious, while some are less obvious.

• Misrepresentation ;
• Conspiracy ;
• Fabrication ;
• Collusion ;
• Duplicate Submission ;
• Academic Misconduct ;
• Improper Computer/Calculator Use ;
• Improper Online, TeleWeb, and Blended Course Use ;
• Disruptive Behavior ;
• and last, but certainly not least, PLAGIARISM .

We will discuss each of these types of academic dishonesty in more detail below. Plagiarism is the most common type of academic dishonesty, and also the easiest type to commit on accident! See the plagiarism page for more info about what plagiarism is and how to avoid it in your work.

Cheating is taking or giving any information or material which will be used to determine academic credit.

  Examples of cheating include:

• Copying from another student's test or homework.
• Allowing another student to copy from your test or homework.
• Using materials such as textbooks, notes, or formula lists during a test without the professor's permission.
• Collaborating on an in-class or take-home test without the professor's permission.
• Having someone else write or plan a paper for you.

  Bribery takes on two forms:

• Bribing someone for an academic advantage, or accepting such a bribe (i.e. a student offers a professor money, goods, or services in exchange for a passing grade, or a professor accepts this bribe).
• Using an academic advantage as a bribe (i.e. a professor offers a student a passing grade in exchange for money, goods, or services, or a student accepts this bribe).

Misrepresentation

Misrepresentation is any act or omission that is intented to deceive an instructor for academic advantage. Misrepresentation includes lying to an instructor in an attempt to increase your grade, or lying to an instructor when confronted with allegations of academic dishonesty.

Conspiracy means working together with one or more persons to commit or attempt to commit academic dishonesty.

Fabrication

Fabrication is the use of invented or misrepresentative information. Fabrication most often occurs in the sciences, when students create or alter experimental data. Listing a source in your works cited that you did not actually use in your research is also fabrication.

Collusion is the act of two or more students working together on an individual assignment.

Duplicate Submission

A duplicate submission means a student submits the same paper for two different classes. If a student submits the same paper for two different classes within the same semester, the student must have the permission of both instructors. If a student submits the same paper for two different classes in different semesters, the student must have the permission of their current instructor.

Academic Misconduct

Academic misconduct is the violation of college policies by tampering with grades or by obtaining and/or distributing any part of a test or assignment. For example:

• Obtaining a copy of a test before the test is admisistered.
• Distributing, either for money or for free, a test before it is administered.
• Encouraging others to obtain a copy of a test before the test is administered.
• Changing grades in a gradebook, on a computer, or on an assignment.
• Continuing to work on a test after time is called.

Improper Computer/Calculator Use

Improper computer/calculator use includes:

• Unauthorized use of computer or calculator programs.
• Selling or giving away information stored on a computer or calculator which will be submitted for a grade.
• Sharing test or assignment answers on a calculator or computer.

Improper Online, TeleWeb, and Blended Course Use

Improper online, teleweb, and blended course use includes:

• Accepting or providing outside help on online assignments or tests.
• Obtaining test materials or questions before the test is administered.

Disruptive Behavior

Disruptive behavior is any behavior that interfers with the teaching/learning process. Disruptive bahavior includes:

• Disrespecting a professor or another student, in class or online.
• Talking, texting, or viewing material unrelated to the course during a lecture.
• Failing to silence your cell phone during class.
• Posting inappropriate material or material unrealted to the course on discussion boards.
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Academic Integrity vs. Academic Dishonesty: Understanding the Key Differences

(Last updated: 4 September 2024)

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Academic integrity and academic dishonesty are terms that are frequently mentioned in educational settings, but understanding their full implications is essential for students, educators, and institutions alike. This article explores what academic integrity is, the principles of academic honesty and what academic dishonesty entails, and provides examples of both to clarify the key differences.

What is Academic Integrity?

Academic integrity refers to the ethical standards and moral code followed in the academic world. It encompasses values such as honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. Upholding academic integrity means that students and scholars commit to producing work that is genuine, original, and reflective of their own understanding and effort.

Core Principles of Academic Integrity

• Honesty : Being truthful in all academic endeavours.
• Trust : Establishing mutual respect and confidence between educators and students.
• Fairness : Ensuring equal opportunities and treatment for all students.
• Respect : Acknowledging the contributions and intellectual property of others.
• Responsibility : Taking accountability for one’s actions and learning process.

Academic Integrity Examples

• Proper Citation : Correctly citing all sources of information and ideas that are not your own.
• Original Work : Submitting assignments and research that are entirely your own creation.
• Honest Collaboration : Working with peers only when it is allowed and making sure to acknowledge their contributions.
• Reporting Misconduct : Informing authorities about any instances of academic dishonesty you encounter.
• Preparation and Effort : Completing all assignments to the best of your ability without resorting to shortcuts or unethical practices.

What is Academic Dishonesty?

Academic dishonesty, on the other hand, involves actions that violate these ethical standards and principles. It includes any form of cheating, plagiarism, fabrication, and other deceitful practices that compromise the integrity of the educational process.

Academic Dishonesty Examples

• Plagiarism : Using someone else's work, ideas, or expressions without proper acknowledgement. This can include copying text from a book, website, or another student's paper.
• Cheating : Using unauthorised materials or receiving assistance during an examination. This can involve anything from bringing notes into an exam to obtaining answers from another student.
• Fabrication : Falsifying or inventing information, data, or citations in academic assignments.
• Collusion : Collaborating with others on assignments that are meant to be completed individually.
• Impersonation : Pretending to be another student or having someone else pretend to be you in an examination or other academic activity.

Consequences of Academic Dishonesty

Engaging in academic dishonesty can have severe consequences, impacting a student's academic and professional future. These repercussions can include:

Academic Penalties : Institutions often impose strict penalties on those found guilty of academic dishonesty. These can range from failing the assignment or course to suspension or even expulsion from the institution.

Loss of Reputation : A record of academic dishonesty can tarnish a student’s reputation, affecting relationships with peers, professors, and future employers. It can also result in loss of scholarships or other academic honours.

Legal Ramifications : In some cases, particularly those involving significant fraud or impersonation, legal action may be taken against the offending student.

Personal Consequences : Beyond institutional and legal penalties, students may suffer from personal guilt, loss of self-respect, and damaged relationships due to their dishonest actions.

The Importance of Academic Integrity

When students commit to academic honesty, they develop critical thinking skills by engaging deeply with the material, which enhances understanding and fosters critical analysis. Additionally, maintaining integrity in academic work helps build a strong reputation, benefiting future educational and career opportunities. Furthermore, honest efforts lead to genuine learning and self-improvement, fostering personal growth.

Maintaining high standards of academic integrity ensures that institutions preserve academic standards by protecting the value and credibility of their qualifications. It also promotes a culture of trust, encouraging honesty and responsibility to foster a positive learning environment. Additionally, adhering to ethical standards helps prevent legal disputes and maintains the institution's reputation.

How to Uphold Academic Integrity

To maintain academic integrity, it is essential to understand your institution's policies and ensure you are clear about what is expected of you. Developing good study habits is equally important; allocate sufficient time for studying and completing assignments to avoid the temptation of taking shortcuts. Additionally, learning how to cite sources correctly is crucial for avoiding plagiarism . If you find yourself struggling with your coursework, seek help from tutors, professors, or academic support services instead of resorting to dishonest practices. Reflect on the importance of integrity in both your personal and professional life, and let these values guide your academic endeavours.

Also Read : Essay vs Report: What Are the Key Differences?

Understanding the key differences between academic integrity and academic dishonesty is fundamental for anyone involved in education. Academic integrity is about committing to honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility, while academic dishonesty undermines these values and compromises the educational process.

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Combating Academic Dishonesty, Part 6: ChatGPT, AI, and Academic Integrity

by Thomas Keith | Jan 23, 2023 | Instructional design , Services

Author’s Note: This is the latest installment in an ongoing series of articles about issues pertaining to academic integrity in higher education. For earlier installments, please see: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

ATS instructional designers Mohammad Ahmed and Michael Hernandez contributed content to this article.

Introduction

The state of the tool, issues for academic integrity, technological prevention, non-technological prevention, creative adaptation, further resources.

There are few current issues in education that have provoked more interest – or sounded more alarms – than artificial intelligence (AI) technology. While the issue has simmered for some time, it burst into the forefront of debate following OpenAI’s public release of ChatGPT . When given a prompt – e.g. “What were the causes of World War I?” or “How does the Krebs cycle work?” – ChatGPT (the acronym stands for “Generative Pretrained Transformer”) can generate text that reads, at least on superficial examination, like that written by a human – the basis of the famed Turing Test for machine intelligence.

Once the tool’s capabilities became known, it did not take long for fears to be voiced that students would turn to ChatGPT to write their assignments for them. Eye-grabbing headlines began to appear, not only in sensationalist newspapers like the New York Post ( which dubbed the tool “CheatGPT” ) but in more sober publications like the Atlantic , where an opinion piece bluntly claimed that “the college essay is dead”. Advocates for the worst-case scenario see a future in which human-generated and computer-generated text are indistinguishable, essay assignments are meaningless, and the very skill of academic writing is lost.

One need not accept this doomsday proposition to recognize that ChatGPT raises legitimate concerns for academic integrity. But if we are to address such concerns, we must first answer several key questions: what is ChatGPT, exactly? What are its affordances and limitations? And, assuming that ChatGPT and tools like it are here to stay (as seems overwhelmingly likely), how should we rethink pedagogy to address this new reality?

At this time, ChatGPT is essentially an information aggregator. It trawls vast quantities of human-produced texts and extracts data, which it then synthesizes into a response to a given prompt. As noted above, its responses on many topics are at least coherent enough that they may be superficially indistinguishable from student writing.

As with all AI tools, though, ChatGPT’s capacity to give responses depends upon what, and how much, it is “fed”. Its lack of data on current events, for example, limits its capacity to respond to prompts such as “How is the war in Ukraine progressing today?” There are also guardrails in place to prevent the tool’s being used for nefarious purposes (though cybercriminals are already seeking to circumvent these ).

There are other significant limitations to the tool as well. It cannot cite sources correctly – any request for a bibliography produces false and/or irrelevant citations. Nor is it error-free: users have run across blatant, even comical, mistakes when ChatGPT is asked a question as straightforward as “How do you work?” Like all AI, it is subject to the biases of those who supply its data . And, most fundamentally, it is not true artificial intelligence. There are no indications that ChatGPT understands the questions it is being asked or what it is producing in answer; simply put, it is not sapient. This is worth keeping in mind as the debate rages over whether such tools are capable of supplanting human creativity.

It is, without question, too early in the game to expound upon all the possible difficulties ChatGPT and similar generative AI tools could pose for academic integrity. Already, however, ChatGPT-generated text has proved itself capable of evading plagiarism checkers such as Turnitin. Plagiarism detection software relies on comparing student work to a database of pre-existing work and identifying identical phrases, sentences, etc. to produce an “originality score”. Because the text generated by ChatGPT is (in some sense, anyway) “original,” it renders this technique useless.

ChatGPT also ties into the broader issue of contract cheating – hiring a third party to do work, such as writing an essay or taking an exam, on a student’s behalf. Contract cheating is already a severe problem worldwide, and with the widespread availability of AI writing tools, students can now generate “original” written work for free, without the need to involve a human agent who might betray the student’s confidence.

How Do We Deal with the Problem?

As the New York Times has noted , many faculty and instructors already feel the need to adjust their pedagogy to account for the existence of ChatGPT. Their strategies, actual and proposed, for coping with the tool can be divided into three categories: technological prevention; non-technological prevention; and creative adaptation. We shall consider each of these in turn below.

It will come as no surprise that technological counters to ChatGPT are already in play. A 22-year-old computer science student at Princeton named Edward Tian has introduced GPTZero , which claims to distinguish human- and computer-generated text with a high degree of accuracy. Meanwhile, other plagiarism tools, such as Turnitin, offer their own AI-detection tools and are rapidly working to detect the newest generation of generative AI text. And finally, the makers of ChatGPT are themselves exploring “watermarking” technology to indicate when a document has been generated by the software.

Some experts foresee an “arms race” between AI writing tools and AI detection tools. If this scenario comes to pass, faculty and instructors will be hard-pressed to keep up with the bleeding-edge software needed to counter the newest writing tools. But more fundamentally, we might ask: is technology always the best solution to the problems it creates? Or are there other, perhaps less involved, means of addressing the questions raised by AI?

At the other end of the spectrum, some faculty and instructors have sought to neutralize ChatGPT entirely. This may entail banning ChatGPT specifically; banning all computers in the classroom; supervising student essay-writing, whether in class or via monitoring software such as Proctorio; or even requiring writing assignments to be handwritten.

The concern that underlies such measures is understandable, and they can be effective in the short-term, but they come at a cost: aside from the anxiety that can be provoked by being under surveillance, accessibility issues that may be raised by requiring handwritten work, and the legal/ethical issues raised by video proctoring, students miss the opportunity to learn about the tool and its implications. As we confront the likelihood of a future with ubiquitous AI technology, those students who have never experienced tools like ChatGPT and who know nothing about their uses may well find themselves at a professional disadvantage.

At this point in time, it seems most productive to take a third path – one that balances the need to safeguard academic integrity with the reality that ChatGPT and its like are here to stay. Here are some suggestions for methods to integrate AI tools like ChatGPT into your pedagogy in a productive, rather than destructive, fashion.

• Clarify expectations at the outset. As early in your course as possible – ideally within the syllabus itself – you should specify whether, and under what circumstances, the use of AI tools is permissible. It may help to think of ChatGPT as similar to peer assistance, group work, or outside tutoring: in all these cases, your students should understand where the boundaries lie, when help is permissible, and when they must rely on their own resources. You might also discuss with your students how they feel about AI and its ability (or lack thereof) to convey their ideas. Emergent research suggests that at least some students feel dissatisfied with the results when they entrust expression of their ideas to AI.
• Craft writing prompts that require creative thought. A tool like ChatGPT can easily respond to a simple prompt such as “What are the causes of inflation?”, but it is likely to have trouble with a prompt such as “Compare and contrast inflation in the present-day American economy with that in the late 1970s”. The more in-depth and thought out the prompt, the more it will demand critical reasoning – not simply regurgitation – to answer.
• Run your prompts through ChatGPT. Related to the point above, actually using ChatGPT on a draft of your writing prompt can be an illuminating exercise. Successive iterations may help you to clarify your thinking and add nuances to your prompt that were not present in the initial draft.
• Scaffold your writing assignments. This is a time-honored technique for combating plagiarism of any kind in academic writing. It will be much harder for a student to submit a final draft generated by AI and get away with it if you have observed that student’s thinking and writing process throughout the course.
• Promote library resources. As mentioned previously, ChatGPT is not presently able to generate an accurate bibliography, nor does it understand the concept of citation. This shortcoming can be a good jumping-off point for you to explain to your students how to cite properly, why citation is important, and how they can use available resources to do their own research.
• Model productive use of AI tools. For all its hazards, ChatGPT also offers promising possibilities. A “dialogue” between the user and the tool can help the user to probe deeper into the subject matter, become familiar with mainstream scholarship on the topic, and push beyond “easy answers” toward original work. To promote such dialogue, you might, for example, assign your students to come up with their own prompts, post them to ChatGPT, and then comment on the answers, finding the strengths and weaknesses of the “argument” that the tool generates.

In a field evolving by the day, no article, this one included, can hope to offer definite answers. What we have presented here are points we hope will contextualize the debate and provide a framework for further discussion. In the end, what AI tools will mean for higher education – and for society as a whole – remains to be seen.

To learn more about AI in the classroom, we recommend the excellent page on AI Guidance from Yale’s Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. Turnitin also offers a concise but helpful Guide for approaching AI-generated text in your classroom .

If you have further questions, Academic Technology Solutions is here to help. You can schedule a consultation with us or drop by our office hours (virtual and in-person, no appointment needed). We also offer a range of workshops on topics in teaching with technology.

(Cover Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash )

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Deterring and Detecting Academic Dishonesty: Suggestions for Faculty

Purdue prohibits "dishonesty in connection with any University activity. Cheating, plagiarism, or knowingly furnishing false information to the University are examples of dishonesty." Furthermore, the University Senate has stipulated that

"the commitment of acts of cheating, lying, and deceit in any of their diverse forms (such as the use of ghost-written papers, the use of substitutes for taking examinations, the use of illegal cribs, plagiarism, and copying during examinations) is dishonest and must not be tolerated. Moreover, knowingly to aid and abet, directly or indirectly, other parties in committing dishonest acts is in itself dishonest." (See Student Regulations , Section B.2.a.)

The following are a few examples of academic dishonesty:

• substituting on an exam for another student
• substituting in a course for another student
• obtaining a paper from the Internet and submitting it as one's own work
• arranging to give or receive answers by use of signals during an exam
• copying with or without the other person's knowledge during an exam
• doing class assignments for someone else
• plagiarizing published material or class assignments
• padding items on a bibliography
• obtaining a copy of a test in advance of its scheduled administration
• using unauthorized notes during an exam
• collaborating with other students on assignments when it is not allowed
• obtaining a test from the exam site, completing and submitting it later
• altering answers on a scored test and submitting it for a regrade
• stealing class assignments and submitting them as one's own, particularly computer programs
• fabricating data
• destroying or stealing the work of other students

DETERRENCE AND DETECTION

It is more common for students than instructors to be aware of academic dishonesty. Thus, it is important early in the semester to address academic dishonesty with students to avoid conveying the message that the risks of academic dishonesty are minimal, thereby offering temptation. Some suggestions provided below for deterring and detecting academic dishonesty may be neither practical nor applicable to certain types of courses and teaching practices. However, it is recommended that you consider incorporating any suggestions that are reasonable and appropriate for the type of course(s) you teach. While some of the suggestions seem obvious, they are often overlooked.

• An effective way to discourage academic dishonesty is to  promote academic integrity . The course syllabus and a short discussion are the most effective tools for creating a classroom atmosphere in which honesty is clearly the expected standard. You should address the consequences for academic dishonesty. This serves several purposes. It reinforces your actions if dishonesty is discovered later. It refutes student claims of capricious action by you. It fosters communication between you and your students.
• Evaluation methods that generate a high degree of stress (e.g., only one or two exams) may induce academic dishonesty as a coping mechanism by students.  Measuring student learning by more frequent tests/quizzes and other means of grading  is recommended. Also, making yourself available to assist students and to advise them what to do if they are having difficulty in the course may help alleviate stress.
• Minimizing the ease with which one can commit academic dishonesty  in the classroom encourages honesty. Although some methods of academic dishonesty are so sophisticated that detection is difficult, ample and alert test proctoring is essential. One of the best ways to prevent copying from other students during exams is to distribute alternate forms of the exam that may include the same items arranged in different order on short answer and multiple choice tests. This procedure coupled with staggered seating provides reasonable security. In the event of suspected copying, a second proctor should confirm the observations, if possible. The instructor should identify the other student(s) from whom the suspect appears to be copying in order to compare answers later. Also, proctors should observe whether or not the person from whom the suspect is copying appears to be aiding the copier. The exam should not be disrupted by challenging the suspect or collecting the exam early. Secure the suspect's paper and the papers of those around the suspect at the end of the test. Assigned test seating makes this task and detection much easier.
• Detecting the use of unauthorized notes (cribs)  requires a great deal of monitoring and alertness by proctors. Students can be quite creative in concealing cribs such as notes on the reverse side of mirrored sunglasses, underside of baseball cap bills, erasers, tissue paper on the floor or in the hand, body parts, pencils that have been stripped, etc. Additionally, electronic devices open up a whole realm of possibilities for using unauthorized aids during an exam. When the use of cribs is discovered, have another proctor confirm your observations and retrieve the cribs if the student is willing to relinquish them. If the student is unwilling to surrender the cribs, the second person's observations become more critical. Physical evidence and personal observations are important in the adjudication process.
• A surprising number of students are not well informed about what constitutes plagiarism and how proper attribution should be made.  A class discussion concerning plagiarism may help alleviate the problem.  However, other students plagiarize with full knowledge that they are committing dishonest acts. Whether plagiarizing published works, submitting parts or all of previous course papers/projects, or paraphrasing others' ideas or words without proper attribution, plagiarism usually occurs to save students time and effort. When term papers are required, monitoring a student's progress over time and through the use of outlines, rough drafts, and student conferences may help reduce the perceived benefit and motivation to plagiarize. Maintaining a writing sample/style on each student may be used for the purpose of comparison in an investigation of suspected plagiarism. It is impractical for you to check all references listed by students but certainly a much improved or different writing style may cause you to probe further.
• Altering answers on an exam after it has been graded and submitting it for regrade is a fairly common dishonest practice.  Grading papers in red or green ink (difficult to match) with several lines through the incorrect answers,  calculations, or narratives makes it more difficult to conceal alterations. If a student requests a regrade on an exam,  copying that student's next exam prior to returning it to the student  is an easy way to determine if alterations have been made for a future regrade.
• How much, if any,  collaboration among students  on out-of-class and in-class assignments is permitted varies by instructor and depends on the type of courses and teaching methods.  It is important to clearly state your expectations.
• One of the most undetected and blatantly dishonest practices is using substitutes (ringers) on exams,  particularly when large numbers of students are being tested. Teaching assistants who proctor exams in multiple division courses can be helpful in recognizing substitutes. Seating students from the same sections together makes this task easier.  Requiring student picture identifications  to compare with the names on the exam at the time they are submitted is an effective deterrence and detection method. Also, checking student picture identifications early in the semester will help prevent ringers in the course.
• Stealing exams is not an unheard-of problem. Whether exams are stolen from an instructor's office or electronically removed from the testing site, photographed with a cell phone, or taken from the copying room, the problem does occur. Prevention and detection techniques include  accounting for the number of exams  printed, distributed, and returned. Number exam booklets, forms, etc., and record the numbers on student answer sheets. However,  it is better and safer to make new exams each semester.
• Posting solutions and answers outside of the testing site prior to the end of the exam is discouraged.  Occasionally, by one means or another, the answers get filtered into the testing site if posted too early.

DEALING WITH ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

For guidelines on what to do when dishonesty is discovered, refer to  Responding to Academic Dishonesty: Guidelines for Faculty  or contact the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities at 765-494-1250 or  [email protected] .

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Promoting Academic Integrity 

While it is each student’s responsibility to understand and abide by university standards towards individual work and academic integrity, instructors can help students understand their responsibilities through frank classroom conversations that go beyond policy language to shared values. By creating a learning environment that stimulates engagement and designing assessments that are authentic, instructors can minimize the incidence of academic dishonesty.

Academic dishonesty often takes place because students are overwhelmed with the assignments and they don’t have enough time to complete them. So, in addition to being clear about expectations and responsibilities related to academic integrity, instructors should also invite students to  plan accordingly and communicate with them in the event of an emergency. Instructors can arrange extensions and offer solutions in case that students have an emergency. Communication between instructors and students is vital to avoid bad practices and contribute to hold on to the academic integrity values. 

The guidance and strategies included in this resource are applicable to courses in any modality (in-person, online, and hybrid) and includes a discussion of addressing generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT with students. 

On this page:

What is academic integrity, why does academic dishonesty occur, strategies for promoting academic integrity, academic integrity in the age of artificial intelligence, columbia university resources.

• References and Additional Resources
• Acknowledgment

Cite this resource: Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (2020). Promoting Academic Integrity. Columbia University. Retrieved [today’s date] from https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/resources/academic-integrity/

According to the  International Center for Academic Integrity , academic integrity is “a commitment, even in the face of adversity, to six fundamental values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and courage.” We commit to these values to honor the intellectual efforts of the global academic community, of which Columbia University is an integral part.

Academic dishonesty in the classroom occurs when one or more values of academic integrity are violated. While some cases of academic dishonesty are committed intentionally, other cases may be a reflection of something deeper that a student is experiencing, such as language or cultural misunderstandings, insufficient or misguided preparation for exams or papers, a lack of confidence in their ability to learn the subject, or perception that course policies are unfair (Bernard and Keith-Spiegel, 2002).

Some other reasons why students may commit academic dishonesty include:

• Cultural or regional differences in what comprises academic dishonesty
• Lack or poor understanding on how to cite sources correctly
• Misunderstanding directions and/or expectations
• Poor time management, procrastination, or disorganization
• Feeling disconnected from the course, subject, instructor, or material
• Fear of failure or lack of confidence in one’s ability
• Anxiety, depression, other mental health problems
• Peer/family pressure to meet unrealistic expectations

Understanding some of these common reasons can help instructors intentionally design their courses and assessments to pre-empt, and hopefully avoid, instances of academic dishonesty. As Thomas Keith states in “Combating Academic Dishonesty, Part 1 – Understanding the Problem.” faculty and administrators should direct their steps towards a “thoughtful, compassionate pedagogy.”

The CTL is here to help!

The CTL can help you think through your course policies and ways to create community, design course assessments, and set up CourseWorks to promote academic integrity. Email [email protected] to schedule your 1-1 consultation .

In his research on cheating in the college classroom, James Lang argues that “the amount of cheating that takes place on our campuses may well depend on the structures of the learning environment” (Lang, 2013a; Lang, 2013b). Instructors have agency in shaping the classroom learning experience; thus, instances of academic dishonesty can be mitigated by efforts to design a supportive, learning-oriented environment (Bertam, 2017 and 2008).

Understanding Student’s Perceptions about Cheating 

It is important to know how students understand critical concepts related to academic integrity such as: cheating, transparency, attribution, intellectual property, etc. As much as they know and understand these concepts, they will be able to show good academic integrity practices.

1. Acknowledge the importance of the research process, not only the outcome, during student learning.

Although the research process is slow and arduous, students should understand the value of the different processes involved during academic writing: investigation, reading, drafting, revising, editing and proof-reading. For Natalie Wexler, using generative Artificial Intelligence tools like ChatGPT as a substitute of writing itself is beyond cheating, an act of self cheating: “The process of writing itself can and should deepen that knowledge and possibly spark new insights” (“‘ Bots’ Can Write Good Essays, But That Doesn’t Make Writing Obsolete” ).

Ways to understand the value of writing their own work without external help, either from external sources, peers or AI, hinge on prioritizing the process over the product:

• Asking students to present drafts of their work and receive feedback can help students to gain confidence to continue researching and writing.
• Allowing students the freedom to choose or change their research topic can increase their investment in an assignment, which can motivate them to conduct their own writing and research rather than relying on AI tools. 

2. Create a supportive learning environment

When students feel supported in a course and connected to instructors and/or TAs and their peers, they may be more comfortable asking for help when they don’t understand course material or if they have fallen behind with an assignment.

Ways to support student learning include:

• Convey confidence  in your students’ ability to succeed in your course from day one of the course (this may ease student anxiety or  imposter syndrome ) and through timely and regular feedback on what they are doing well and areas they can improve on. 
• Explain the relevance  of the course to students; tell them why it is important that they actually learn the material and develop the skills for themselves. Invite students to connect the course to their goals, studies, or intended career trajectories. Research shows that students’ motivation to learn can help deter instances of academic dishonesty (Lang, 2013a). 
• Teach important skills  such as taking notes, summarizing arguments, and citing sources. Students may not have developed these skills, or they may bring bad habits from previous learning experiences. Have students practice these skills through exercises (Gonzalez, 2017). 
• Provide students multiple opportunities to practice challenging skills  and receive immediate feedback in class (e.g., polls, writing activities, “boardwork”). These frequent low-stakes assessments across the semester can “[improve] students’ metacognitive awareness of their learning in the course” (Lang, 2013a, pp. 145). 
• Help students manage their time  on course tasks by scheduling regular check-ins to reduce students’ last minute efforts or frantic emails about assignment requirements. Establish weekly online office hours and/or be open to appointments outside of standard working hours. This is especially important if students are learning in different time zones. Normalize the use of campus resources and academic support resources that can help address issues or anxieties they may be facing.  (See the Columbia University Resources section below for a list of support resources.)
• Provide lists of approved websites and resources  that can be used for additional help or research. This is especially important if on-campus materials are not available to online learners. Articulate permitted online “study” resources to be used as learning tools (and not cheating aids – see McKenzie, 2018) and how to cite those in homework, writing assignments or problem sets. 
• Encourage TAs (if applicable) to establish good relationships  with students and to check-in with you about concerns they may have about students in the course. (Explore the  Working with TAs Online  resource to learn more about partnering with TAs.)

3. Clarify expectations and establish shared values

In addition to including Columbia’s  academic integrity policy  on syllabi, go a step further by creating space in the classroom to discuss your expectations regarding academic integrity and what that looks like in your course context. After all, “what reduces cheating on an honor code campus is not the code itself, but  the dialogue about academic honesty that the code inspires. ” (Lang, 2013a, pp. 172)

Ways to cultivate a shared sense of responsibility for upholding academic integrity include: 

• Ask students to identify goals and expectations  around academic integrity in relation to course learning objectives. 
• Communicate your expectations  and explain your rationale for course policies on artificial intelligence tools, collaborative assignments, late work, proctored exams, missed tests, attendance, extra credit, the use of plagiarism detection software or proctoring software, etc. It will make a difference to take the time at the beginning of the course to explain differences between quoting, summarizing and paraphrasing. Providing examples of good and bad quotation/paraphrasing will help students to know what constitutes good academic writing. 
• Define and provide examples  for what constitutes plagiarism or other forms of academic dishonesty in your course.
• Invite students to generate ideas  for responding to scenarios where they may be pressured to violate the values of academic integrity (e.g.: a friend asks to see their homework, or a friend suggests using chat apps during exams), so students are prepared to react with integrity when suddenly faced with these situations. 
• State clearly when collaboration and group learning is permitted  and when independent work is expected. Collaboration and group work provide great opportunities to build student-student rapport and classroom community, but at the same time, it can lead students to fall into academic misconduct due to unintended collaboration/failure to safeguard their work.
• Discuss the ethical, academic, and legal repercussions  of posting class recordings, notes and/or class materials online (e.g., to sites such as Chegg, GitHub, CourseHero – see Lederman, 2020).
• Partner with TAs  (if applicable) and clarify your expectations of them, how they can help promote shared values around academic integrity, and what they should do in cases of suspected cheating or classroom difficulties

4. Design assessments to maximize learning and minimize pressure

High stakes course assessments can be a source of student anxiety. Creating multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning, and spreading assessments  throughout  the semester can lessen student stress and keep the focus on student learning (see  Darby, 2020  for strategies on assessing students online). As Lang explains, “The more assessments you provide, the less pressure you put on students to do well on any single assignment or exam. If you maintain a clear and consistent academic integrity policy, and ensure that all students caught cheating receive an immediate and substantive penalty, the benefit of cheating on any one assessment will be small, while the potential consequences will be high” (Lang, 2013a and Lang, 2013c). For support with creating online exams, please please refer to our  Creating Online Exams resource .

Ways to enhance one’s assessment approach:

• Design assignments  based on authentic problems in your discipline. Ask students to  apply  course concepts and materials to a problem or concept. 
• Structure assignments into smaller parts  (“scaffolding”) that will be submitted and checked throughout the semester. This scaffolding can also help students learn how to tackle large projects by breaking down the tasks. 
• Break up a single high-stakes exam  into smaller, weekly tests. This can help distribute the weight of grades, and will lessen the pressure students feel when an exam accounts for a large portion of their grade. 
• Give students options  in how their learning is assessed and/or invite students to present their learning in creative ways (e.g., as a poster, video, story, art project, presentation, or oral exam).
• Provide feedback prior to grading  student work. Give students the opportunity to implement the feedback. The revision process encourages student learning, while also lowering the anxiety around any one assignment. 
• Utilize multiple low-stakes assignments  that prepare students for high-stakes assignments or exams to reduce anxiety (e.g., in-class activities, in-class or online discussions)
• Create grading rubrics and share them  with your students and TAs (if applicable) so that expectations are clear, to guide student work, and aid with the feedback process.  
• Use individual student portfolio folders  and provide tailored feedback to students throughout the semester. This can help foster positive relationships, as well as allow you to watch students’ progress on drafts and outlines. You can also ask students to describe how their drafts have changed and offer rationales for those decisions.
• For exams , consider refreshing tests every term, both in terms of organization and content. Additionally, ground your assignments by having students draw connections between course content and the unique experience of your course in terms of time (unique to the semester), place (unique to campus, local community, etc. ), personal (specific student experiences), and interdisciplinary opportunities (other courses students have taken, co-curricular activities, campus events, etc.). (Lang, 2013a, pp. 77).

Since its release, ChatGPT has raised concern in universities across the country about the opportunity it presents for students to cheat and appropriate AI ideas, texts, and even code as their own work. However, there are also potential positive uses of this tool in the learning process–including as a tool for teachers to rely on when creating assessments or working with repetitive and time-consuming tasks.

Possible Advantages of ChatGPT

Due to the novelty of this tool, the possible advantages that might present in the teaching-learning process should be under the control of each instructor since they know exactly what they expect from students’ work. 

Prof. Ethan Mollick teaches innovation and entrepreneurship at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and has been openly sharing on his Twitter account his journey incorporating ChatGPT into his classes. Prof. Mollick advises his students to experiment with this tool, trying and retrying prompts. He recognizes the importance of acknowledging its limits and the risks of violating academic honesty guidelines if the use of this tool is not stated at the end of the assignment.

Prof. Mollick uncovers four possible uses of this AI tool, ranging from using ChatGPT as an all-knowing intern, as a game designer, as an assistant to launch a business, or even to “hallucinate” together ( “Four Paths to the Revelation” ). For Prof. Mollick, ChatGPT is a useful technology to craft initial ideas, as long as the prompts are given within a specific field, include proper context, step-by-step directions and have the proper changes and edits.

Resources for faculty: 

• Academic Integrity Best Practices for Faculty (Columbia College & School of Engineering and Applied Sciences)
• Faculty Statement on Academic Integrity (Columbia College)
• FAQs: Academic Integrity from Columbia Student Conduct and Community Standards 
• Ombuds Office for assistance with academic dishonesty issues. 
• Columbia Center of Artificial Intelligence Technology

Resources for students: 

• Policies from Columbia Student Conduct and Community Standards
• Understanding the Academic Integrity Policy (Columbia College & School of Engineering and Applied Sciences)

Student support resources:

• Maximizing Student Learning Online (Columbia Online)
• Center for Student Advising Tutoring Service (Berick Center for Student Advising)
• Help Rooms and Private Tutors by Department (Berick Center for Student Advising
• Peer Academic Skills Consultants (Berick Center for Student Advising)
• Academic Resource Center (ARC) for School of General Studies
• Center for Engaged Pedagogy (Barnard College)
• Writing Center (for Columbia undergraduate and graduate students)
• Counseling and Psychological Services
• Disability Services

For graduate students: 

• Writing Studio (Graduate School of Arts and Sciences)
• Student Center (Graduate School of Arts and Sciences)
• Teachers College

Columbia University Information Technology (CUIT) CUIT’s Academic Services provides services that can be used by instructors in their courses such as Turnitin , a plagiarism detection service and online proctoring services such as Proctorio , a remote proctoring service that monitors students taking virtual exams through CourseWorks. 

Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) The CTL can help you think through your course policies, ways to create community, design course assessments, and setting up CourseWorks to promote integrity, among other teaching and learning facets. To schedule a one-on-one consultation, please contact the CTL at [email protected] . 

References 

Bernard, W. Jr. and Keith-Spiegel, P. (2002).  Academic Dishonesty: An Educator’s Guide . Mahwah, NJ: Psychology Press.

Bertram Gallant, T. (2017).  Academic Integrity as a Teaching and Learning Issue: From Theory to Practice .  Theory Into Practice,  56(2), 88-94.

Bertram Gallant, T. (Ed.). (2008).  Academic Integrity in the Twenty-First Century: A Teaching and Learning Imperative .  ASHE Higher Education Report . 33(5), 1-143. 

Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (2020).  Creating Online Exams . 

Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (2020).  Working with TAs online . 

Darby, F. (2020).  7 Ways to Assess Students Online and Minimize Cheating .  The Chronicle of Higher Education.  

Gonzalez, J. (2017, February).  Teaching Students to Avoid Plagiarism . Cult of Pedagogy, 26.

International Center for Academic Integrity (2023).  Fundamental Values of Academic Integrity .

International Center on Academic Integrity (2023).  https://academicintegrity.org/

Keith, T. Combating Academic Dishonesty, Part 1 – Understanding the Problem. The University of Chicago. (2022, Feb 16).

Lang, J.M. (2013a).  Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty . Harvard University Press.

Lang, J. M. (2013b).  Cheating Lessons, Part 1 .  The Chronicle of Higher Education. 

Lang, J. M. (2013c).  Cheating Lessons, Part 2 .  The Chronicle of Higher Education. 

Lederman, D. (2020, February 19).  Course Hero Woos Professors . Inside Higher Ed. 

McKenzie, L. (2018, May 8).  Learning Tool or Cheating Aid?   Inside Higher Ed.

Marche, S. (2022, Dec 6). The College Essay is Dead. The Atlantic.

Mollick, E. (2023, Jan 17). All my Classes Suddenly Became AI Classes. One Useful Thing.

Mollick, Ethan. (2022, Dic 8). Four Paths to the Revelation. One Useful Thing.

Wexler, N. Bots’ Can Write Good Essays, But That Doesn’t Make Writing Obsolete. Minding the Gap.

Additional Resources

Bretag, T. (Ed.). (2016). Handbook of Academic Integrity. Singapore: Springer Publishing.

Ormand, C. (2017 March 6).  SAGE Musings: Minimizing and Dealing with Academic Dishonesty . SAGE 2YC: 2YC Faculty as Agents of Change.

WCET (2009).  Best Practice Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity in Online Education .

Thomas, K.  (2022 February 16). Combating Academic Dishonesty, Part 1 – Understanding the Problem. The University of Chicago. Academic Technology Solutions.

______. (2022 February 25). Combating Academic Dishonesty, Part 2: Small Steps to Discourage Academic Dishonesty. The University of Chicago. Academic Technology Solutions.

______.  (2022 April 28). Combating Academic Dishonesty, Part 3: Towards a Pedagogy of Academic Integrity. The University of Chicago. Academic Technology Solutions.

______.  (2022 June 7). Combating Academic Dishonesty, Part 4: Library Services to Support Academic Honesty. The University of Chicago. Academic Technology Solutions.

Acknowledgement

This resource was adapted from the faculty booklet  Promoting Academic Integrity & Preventing Academic Dishonesty: Best Practices at Columbia University  developed by Victoria Malaney Brown, Director of Academic Integrity at Columbia College and Columbia Engineering, Abigail MacBain and Ramón Flores Pinedo, PhD students in GSAS. We would like to thank them for their extensive support in creating this academic integrity resource.

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Causes of Academic Dishonesty

Literature on academic dishonesty cites a number of factors that contribute to dishonest academic practices (Whitley & Keith-Spiegel, 2002). Contributing factors include:

Peer pressure

Performance anxiety, excuse making.

• Inability to manage the demands of student life

Situations that encourage academic dishonesty

Self-justification habits, unfamiliarity with what constitutes academic dishonesty.

• Lack of understanding about consequences

Check Your Understanding

What is one common cause for academic dishonesty?

Reveal Answer

A lack of familiarity with what constitutes academic dishonesty is one common cause.

Students can pressure other students to commit acts of academic dishonesty in many ways: pressuring others to work together or split assignments when course policies prohibit collaboration, seeing other students cheat and then joining them, engaging in academic dishonesty as a group and helping friends on assignments or exams when the professor has prohibited collaboration.

Anxiety about academic performance can cause some students to cheat in academic activities. Students may cheat to avoid failing a course or receiving a bad grade. Some students may use cheating as a way to cope with poor test-taking skills.

Some students blame their professors for their cheating, complaining that the professors expect too much or are too difficult to understand. Students also may use the excuse that the exams were unfair or a course was not in their major. Occasionally, students reason that other students are cheating, so they have no alternative but to cheat as well.

Inability to manage demands of student life

One of the most common reasons for academic dishonesty is students' inability to manage the pressures of their social and academic lives. Students who cannot plan and manage their workload and other activities and are usually behind in meeting their deadlines and can at times resort to cheating or plagiarism as an easy solution.

When course policies do not spell out clearly what students can and cannot do, or when an instructor is not careful in enforcing academic integrity standards, some students may use the situation to commit acts of academic dishonesty. If the penalties for violating academic integrity standards are minimal, some students may consider cheating to be worth the risk of being caught.

Some students engage in self-talk in order to justify their actions to themselves, even though those actions may not be appropriate. For example, they justify cheating by telling themselves that they were cheating:

• Only in one academic activity
• Because they were sick and couldn't catch up
• "This particular assignment is not very important"
• "I do not need this particular course for graduation, so it's okay"
• "No one will get hurt by this"
• "I had to help a friend in need"
• "The instructor doesn't really care"
• "Everyone cheats in this class"

When a course policy is not clear, what can I do to ensure my academic integrity?

Request from the instructor clarification on that course policy.

Some students genuinely may not know what constitutes cheating or plagiarism and may not ask the course instructor for clarification. Some instructors may assume students understand the guidelines already. As a result, students can unintentionally commit acts of academic dishonesty. Further, uncertainty about technological issues and, particularly, international students' unfamiliarity with American standards of academic integrity, can also lead to problems involving questions of academic integrity.

It is also important to mention that many students resist committing acts of academic dishonesty for a variety of reasons. These reasons include the recognition of the fact that it is wrong, desire to earn their grades, genuine interest in learning, concern about how they would feel in the long run if they cheat, fear of getting caught and the associated embarrassment and penalties, respect for course instructor and classmates, ability to manage their workload well, and religious beliefs.

Academic dishonesty can not be justified under any circumstances. A damaged academic reputation may take many years of ethical behavior to repair.

Take Quiz 2

• Definition and Types
• Consequences
• Cheating, Falsification, Fabrication and Sabotage
• Protecting Yourself

Academic Integrity: Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Overarching importance of the book, citation (use of internet), importance of the book to my personal and academic development, works cited.

Issues of academic integrity are on the minds of most instructors, in different levels of education. For example, plagiarism and academic dishonesty are ubiquitous in many academic circles. The growing numbers of educational institutions that have site licenses to use anti plagiarism softwares show that issues of academic integrity are both pervasive and frustrating in the education sector.

This paper is an essay about a book titled, “Doing Honest Work in College: How to Prepare Citations, Avoid Plagiarism, and Achieve Real Academic Success”, by Lipson (1). From an ethical and moral perspective, this essay provides an overview of the book and explains its contribution to my academic endeavors. It also highlights its importance in improving the quality of my academic pursuits.

In his book, Lipson (2) discusses two main issues – academic honesty and citation. His text is useful to academicians because it highlights the importance of honest work by explaining the main principles of honesty and the importance of maintaining consistent standards of academic integrity throughout all stages of one’s academic career.

His work is also beneficial to academicians because it explains the importance of citation (to avoid plagiarism) and provides a guide for students to follow when using different citation styles, including APA, MLA, Chicago and other citation styles (Lipson 66-87).

Although this citation guide is elaborate, I did not find some citation styles useful to my academic pursuits because some of them focus on academic disciplines that I do not pursue. For example, I did not find the ACS and CSE citations useful to me because they focus on chemistry and biology (respectively), which I do not study.

Lipson (21) presents some valuable lessons regarding the use of internet research as a source of study materials. Many researchers use virtual articles because of increased access to the internet and the ease of obtaining materials online. However, Lipson (21-22) cautions us not to use internet sources blindly. Some of the most significant issues he highlights include the following:

• The quality of information on the web varies significantly (anybody with a computer and an internet connection can post anything on the web)
• While internet search may help to narrow down on a topic, it may erode the context of the research
• Easy access to virtual information (copy pasting) may easily lead to plagiarism, which is an academic offense
• Do not copy-paste too much information from online sources because it could be difficult to keep track of all the information

To address some of the above-mentioned issues, he recommends the following actions

• Search for additional test strings in online research (look for background information) to understand the context of study (Lipson 25)
• Screen sources and use only reliable virtual databases, such as e-journals to avoid plagiarism (Lipson 25)
• Have Q-notes to keep track of all the information copied and pasted in the final paper
• To save the URLs and of the websites visited and the dates accessed because such information would be important in later referencing (Lipson 21-22)
• To crosscheck sources of virtual information (Lipson 21)
• If unsure about which sources to use, it is important to ask the academic supervisor, or a librarian, for guidance

The technical issues of the book notwithstanding, I found the context of the book to be of importance to my personal and academic development

The gist of the information presented by Lipson (10) is the need to uphold academic integrity in academics. Academic integrity is a relatively broad term that outlines the moral and ethical codes of conducting academic studies. The concept addresses several issues, such as plagiarism, avoidance, and cheating (Lipson 10-15).

The main objective of upholding academic integrity is to observe high (quality) standards of conducting academic studies. The purpose of doing so is to encourage honesty and rigor when conducting research studies. Most of the integrity issues discussed by Lipson (10) made me reflect on the importance of having a proper studying schedule that lessens the need to cheat, or participate in dishonest academic work.

Particularly, his focus on time management has addressed the core of my failure to complete my assignments on time because procrastination and poor time management have contributed to my failure to deliver assignments on time. Furthermore, they have often increased the temptation to cheat. To address this problem, I would be a better planner. For example, I would break down the research process into different stages.

Each of them would have a timeline for completion. Instead of waiting until it is too late to start a research project, I would make sure I start each research process on time and complete it before it is due. My poor time management techniques have always increased the pressure to meet deadlines and possibly compromised my quality of work.

In order of importance, my priorities in school have been to

• Participate in extra-curricular activities
• Socialize (meet new people)
• Visit new places

Academics fall within the learning context. Since it is first in my list of priorities, the information presented by Lipson (10), in his book, is invaluable to my personal and academic development. For example, it is useful in understanding the consequences of my actions. Indeed, when in college, it is easy to overlook how current actions affect the future. For example, there is a pressure to pass examinations and present good grades, regardless of the means used to do so.

Therefore, a student may believe that “the end justifies the means” because, after all, people are more inclined to appreciate performance, as opposed to the methods a student uses to get the grades. However, I believe my actions and lifestyle choices would affect my future because we live in a world where information spreads rapidly and the lack of integrity could mean the end of one’s career. Lipson (41) affirms this fact when he emphasizes the need for honesty in research work.

He cautions people from cooking data and presenting them in a manner that would please their audiences, while hiding the truth. Instead, he encourages academicians to present information as they are and not as people would want to see it (Lipson 41).

This assertion has influenced my perspective of life because I believe engaging in dishonest work is a short-term view of life because some of these ills could plague one’s career progress. For example, people may suffer a reputational damage if people learn that they cheated on their exams. Such concerns show that my present actions and lifestyle choices affect my future.

Lipson’s (26) work has also brought my attention to the need to change my communication style, behaviors, relationships, and perspective of life. In terms of my communication style, his work has highlighted the need for me to listen more and to be a better reader (Lipson 26).

I have found this inspiration through his excerpt on foreign language, where he says honesty could help people to learn new languages by teaching them how to be good readers and how to translate language more accurately (Lipson 26). By learning the same skills, Lipson (26) also says such skills would help to make readers more spontaneous speakers and writers. I believe these skills would positively influence my communication skills and relationships with my colleagues and family members.

Lipson’s (26) work has also encouraged me to change my perspective about my weaknesses and shortcomings. Concisely, I have learned that instead of looking at them as some of my greatest failures, I should look at them as learning experiences. Such changes in perspective could change my approach in life by making me more positive and receptive to criticism. This change would not only positively affect my behaviors, but also improve my attitude towards my academic and personal endeavors.

“Doing Honest Work in College: How to Prepare Citations, Avoid Plagiarism, and Achieve Real Academic Success” is not only an interesting literary piece about academic integrity and its importance, but also an elaborate guide to undertaking quality academic work. I would recommend other students to read it to avoid common academic violations, such as cheating and plagiarism (among others), because it openly explains the principles of academic integrity and outlines ways that most students could follow to meet them.

The book covers different spheres of academic work, including group work, laboratory assignments, and individual projects. In this regard, it is useful to different people in the academic field.

For example, teachers could find the book important in starting discussions about some of the ethical and moral issues associated with academic work. Students are also bound to find the text useful in understanding different citation styles, regardless of whichever academic field they like. Compressively, the book is an interesting read for teachers and students alike.

Lipson, Charles. Doing Honest Work in College: How to Prepare Citations, Avoid Plagiarism, and Achieve Real Academic Success , Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2008. Print.

• The State of Texas Academic Readiness
• Academic Performance of College Students: Influence of Time Spent Studying and Working
• Academic Integrity and Plagiarism
• Plagiarism: What It Is and How to Avoid It
• Academic Integrity and Academic Dishonesty
• Empowerment of Students for Their Motivation
• Preparation for Academic Success at the Graduate Level
• What Causes Truancy in Schools?
• Using a “Daily Motivational Quiz” to Increase Student Preparation, Attendance, and Participation
• Early Alert Warning Systems Used to Thwart Attrition in Colleges
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, May 29). Academic Integrity: Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty. https://ivypanda.com/essays/academic-integrity/

"Academic Integrity: Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty." IvyPanda , 29 May 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/academic-integrity/.

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IvyPanda . 2019. "Academic Integrity: Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty." May 29, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/academic-integrity/.

1. IvyPanda . "Academic Integrity: Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty." May 29, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/academic-integrity/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Academic Integrity: Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty." May 29, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/academic-integrity/.

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• Knowledge Base

Academic Integrity vs Academic Dishonesty

Published on 15 July 2022 by Tegan George and Jack Caulfield. Revised on 13 April 2023.

Academic integrity  is the value of being honest, ethical, and thorough in your academic work. It allows readers to trust that you aren’t misrepresenting your findings or taking credit for the work of others.

Academic dishonesty (or academic misconduct) refers to actions that undermine academic integrity. It typically refers to some form of plagiarism , ranging from serious offences like purchasing a pre-written essay to milder ones like accidental citation errors – most of which are easy to detect with a plagiarism checker .

These concepts are also essential in the world of professional academic research and publishing. In this context, accusations of misconduct can have serious legal and reputational consequences.

Table of contents

Types of academic dishonesty, why does academic integrity matter, examples of academic dishonesty, frequently asked questions about plagiarism.

While plagiarism is the main offence you’ll hear about, academic dishonesty comes in many forms that vary extensively in severity, from faking an illness to buying an essay.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

Most students are clear that academic integrity is important, but dishonesty is still common.

There are various reasons you might be tempted to resort to academic dishonesty: pressure to achieve, time management struggles, or difficulty with a course. But academic dishonesty hurts you, your peers, and the learning process. It’s:

• Unfair to the plagiarised author
• Unfair to other students who did not cheat
• Damaging to your own learning
• Harmful if published research contains misleading information
• Dangerous if you don’t properly learn the fundamentals in some contexts (e.g., lab work)

The consequences depend on the severity of the offence and your institution’s policies. They can range from a warning for a first offence to a failing grade in a course to expulsion from your university.

• Faking illness to skip a class
• Asking for a classmate’s notes from a special review session held by your professor that you did not attend
• Crowdsourcing or collaborating with others on a homework assignment
• Citing a source you didn’t actually read in a paper
• Cheating on a test
• Peeking at your notes on a take-home exam that was supposed to be closed-book
• Resubmitting a paper that you had already submitted for a different course (self-plagiarism)
• Forging a doctor’s note to get an extension on an assignment
• Fabricating experimental results or data to prove your hypothesis in a lab environment
• Buying a pre-written essay online or answers to a test
• Falsifying a family emergency to get out of taking a final exam
• Taking a test for a friend

Academic integrity means being honest, ethical, and thorough in your academic work. To maintain academic integrity, you should avoid misleading your readers about any part of your research and refrain from offences like plagiarism and contract cheating, which are examples of academic misconduct.

Academic dishonesty refers to deceitful or misleading behavior in an academic setting. Academic dishonesty can occur intentionally or unintentionally, and it varies in severity.

It can encompass paying for a pre-written essay, cheating on an exam, or committing plagiarism . It can also include helping others cheat, copying a friend’s homework answers, or even pretending to be sick to miss an exam.

Academic dishonesty doesn’t just occur in a classroom setting, but also in research and other academic-adjacent fields.

Consequences of academic dishonesty depend on the severity of the offence and your institution’s policy. They can range from a warning for a first offence to a failing grade in a course to expulsion from your university.

For those in certain fields, such as nursing, engineering, or lab sciences, not learning fundamentals properly can directly impact the health and safety of others. For those working in academia or research, academic dishonesty impacts your professional reputation, leading others to doubt your future work.

Academic dishonesty can be intentional or unintentional, ranging from something as simple as claiming to have read something you didn’t to copying your neighbour’s answers on an exam.

You can commit academic dishonesty with the best of intentions, such as helping a friend cheat on a paper. Severe academic dishonesty can include buying a pre-written essay or the answers to a multiple-choice test, or falsifying a medical emergency to avoid taking a final exam.

The consequences of plagiarism vary depending on the type of plagiarism and the context in which it occurs. For example, submitting a whole paper by someone else will have the most severe consequences, while accidental citation errors are considered less serious.

If you’re a student, then you might fail the course, be suspended or expelled, or be obligated to attend a workshop on plagiarism. It depends on whether it’s your first offence or you’ve done it before.

As an academic or professional, plagiarising seriously damages your reputation. You might also lose your research funding or your job, and you could even face legal consequences for copyright infringement.

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Academic dishonesty among university students: The roles of the psychopathy, motivation, and self-efficacy

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Institute of Psychology, University of Silesia in Katowice, Katowice, Poland

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy, Institute of Psychology, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

• Lidia Baran, 
• Peter K. Jonason

• Published: August 31, 2020
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238141
• Reader Comments

Academic dishonesty is a common problem at universities around the world, leading to undesirable consequences for both students and the education system. To effectively address this problem, it is necessary to identify specific predispositions that promote cheating. In Polish undergraduate students ( N = 390), we examined the role of psychopathy, achievement goals, and self-efficacy as predictors of academic dishonesty. We found that the disinhibition aspect of psychopathy and mastery-goal orientation predicted the frequency of students’ academic dishonesty and mastery-goal orientation mediated the relationship between the disinhibition and meanness aspects of psychopathy and dishonesty. Furthermore, general self-efficacy moderated the indirect effect of disinhibition on academic dishonesty through mastery-goal orientation. The practical implications of the study include the identification of risk factors and potential mechanisms leading to students’ dishonest behavior that can be used to plan personalized interventions to prevent or deal with academic dishonesty.

Citation: Baran L, Jonason PK (2020) Academic dishonesty among university students: The roles of the psychopathy, motivation, and self-efficacy. PLoS ONE 15(8): e0238141. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238141

Editor: Angel Blanch, University of Lleida, SPAIN

Received: April 9, 2020; Accepted: August 10, 2020; Published: August 31, 2020

Copyright: © 2020 Baran, Jonason. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: The database was uploaded to Open Science Framework and is available under the following address: https://osf.io/frq9v/ .

Funding: Funding was provided by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange ( https://nawa.gov.pl/en/ ) to P.K.J under Grant number PPN/ULM/2019/1/00019/U/00001. This funding source had no role in the study conception, design, analysis, interpretation, or decision to submit for publication.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Academic dishonesty refers to behaviors aimed at giving or receiving information from others, using unauthorized materials, and circumventing the sanctioned assessment process in an academic context [ 1 ]. The frequency of academic dishonesty reported in research indicates the global nature of this phenomenon. For example, in a study by Ternes, Babin, Woodworth, and Stephens [ 2 ] 57.3% of post-secondary students in Canada allowed another student to copy their work. Similarly, 61% of undergraduate students in Sweden copied material for coursework from a book or other publication without acknowledging the source [ 3 ]. Working together on an assignment when it should be completed as an individual was reported by 53% of students from four different Australian universities [ 4 ], and copying from someone’s paper in exams at least once was done by 36% of students from four German universities [ 5 ]. Research shows that academic dishonesty is also a major problem at Polish universities. In the study by Lupton, Chapman, and Weiss [ 6 ] 59% of the students admitted to cheating in the current class, and 83.7% to cheating at some point during college. According to a report on the plagiarism in Poland, prepared by IPPHEAE Project Consortium, 31% of students reported plagiarizing accidentally or deliberately during their studies [ 7 ].

Existing academic dishonesty prevention systems include using punishments and supervision [ 8 ], informing students about differences between honest and dishonest academic actions [ 9 ], adopting university honor codes [ 10 ], and educating students on how to write papers and conduct research correctly [ 11 ]. Although these methods lead to a reduction of academic dishonesty (see [ 12 ]), their problematic aspects include the possibility of achieving only a temporary change in behavior, limited impact on students' attitudes towards cheating, and a long implementation period [ 13 , 14 ]. Possible reasons for these difficulties include the fact that conventional prevention methods rarely address differences in students’ personality and academic motivations, which may be associated with a tendency to cheat. For example, previous studies have reported that negative emotionality was associated with positive attitudes toward plagiarism [ 15 ]; intrinsic motivation was associated with lower self-reported cheating [ 16 ]; and socially orientated human values were negatively, while personally focused values were positively correlated with academic dishonesty [ 17 ].

It is also important to remember that implementing the aforementioned methods of prevention will not lead to a reduction in academic dishonesty if faculty members do not follow and apply the established rules [ 18 ]. Faculty members often prefer not to take formal actions against dishonest students [ 19 ], and in many cases do not use the methods available to them to detect and prevent cheating [ 20 ]. However, when they do respond to academic dishonesty it is often in inconsistent ways [ 21 ]. This might suggest that, while dealing with students’ dishonesty, faculty members prefer to choose their own punitive and preventative methods, which may differ depending on the particular student and professor. If that is the case, then examining the role of individual differences in academic dishonesty could be useful not only to better understand the nature of academic transgressions but also to address faculty's informal ways of dealing with students' cheating.

The aim of the current study was to investigate relationships between personality, motivation, and academic dishonesty to understand the likelihood of cheating in academia more effectively and potentially inform faculty's personalized interventions. Of all the personality traits under investigation, psychopathy appears to be useful for this purpose, because it includes a tendency to be impulsive, to engage in sensation-seeking, and resistance to stress, all of which are associated with academic dishonesty [ 2 ]. Indeed, psychopathy is the strongest—albeit moderate in size ( r = .27)—predictor of academic dishonesty according to a recent meta-analysis of 89 effects and 50 studies [ 22 ]. In the present study, we wanted to further examine the relationship between academic dishonesty and psychopathy by using the triarchic model of psychopathy distinguishing its three phenotypic facets: boldness, meanness, and disinhibition [ 23 ] which may reveal added nuance to how this personality trait relates to academic dishonesty.

Within the triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy, boldness represents self-assurance, fearlessness, and a high tolerance for stress and unfamiliarity; meanness captures interpersonal deficits such as lack of empathy, callousness and exploitativeness; and disinhibition represents the tendency towards impulsivity, poor self-regulation and focus on immediate gratification. Because of the different neurobiological mechanisms leading to the shaping of those aspects [ 24 ], it seems likely that the tendency towards academic dishonesty may have a different etiology depending on their levels. For students with high disinhibition, cheating may result from low self-control; for those with high meanness from rebelliousness with propensity to use others; and for bold ones from emotional resiliency and sensation-seeking [ 25 – 27 ]. However, because boldness constitutes fearlessness without failed socialization [ 28 ], breaking academic rules might not be the preferred way to look for excitement among bold students. Thus, our first goal was to examine the predictive power of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition in academic dishonesty.

Furthermore, we were interested if the relationships between the psychopathy facets and academic dishonesty would be mediated by individual differences in motivations for mastery and performance. Mastery motivation is fostered by the need for achievement and associated with learning to acquire knowledge, whereas performance motivation is geared towards reducing anxiety and related to learning to prove oneself to others [ 29 ]. We expect mediation for several reasons. First, undertaking actions motivated by achievement goals is predicted by the level of positive and negative emotionality and also by activity of the behavioral activation and inhibition system [ 30 ], which also correlate with the dimensions of the triarchic model of psychopathy [ 31 ]. Second, unrestrained achievement motivation partially mediates the relationship between psychopathy and academic dishonesty, suggesting a role of achievement in understanding the relationship between psychopathy and individual differences in the propensity to cheat [ 32 ]. Third, meanness and disinhibition are negatively and boldness positively correlated with conscientiousness and its facets [ 33 , 34 ]. This fact may play an important role in students’ willingness to exert and control themselves to achieve academic goals and the particular way to do it [ 35 ]. Moreover, research on mastery-goal orientation suggests it is correlated negatively with academic dishonesty and views of the acceptability of academic dishonesty [ 36 – 38 ] and that the change from mastery to performance-based learning environment lead to increased levels of dishonesty [ 39 ].

Therefore, we hypothesized that students with a high level of disinhibition may have difficulties studying because of their need for immediate gratification and lack of impulse control, and in turn, cheat to pass classes. Bold students could want to acquire vast knowledge and high competences because of their high self-assurance, social dominance, and a high tolerance for stress without resorting to fraud. Lastly, students with a high level of meanness may be less prone towards mastery through hard work and learning because of their susceptibility to boredom, tendency to break the rules, and to exploit others to their advantage, perhaps by copying or using other students’ work. Because performance-goal orientation can be driven by the fear of performing worse than others, no specific hypothesis was generated regarding its relation to psychopathy (characterized by a lack of fear).

Besides behavioral tendencies based on personality traits and specific motives to learn, another closely related predictor of academic dishonesty is general self-efficacy. People with high levels of general self-efficacy exercise control over challenging demands and their behavior [ 40 ] and perform better in academic context because of their heightened ability to solve problems and process information [ 41 ]. On the other hand, low levels of general self-efficacy in the academic context can lead to reduced effort and attention focused on the task, which may result in a higher probability of frauds to achieve or maintain a certain level of academic performance [ 42 , 43 ]. Because competence expectancies are important antecedents of holding an achievement goal orientation [ 44 , 45 ] it seems possible that general self-efficacy might moderate the relation between psychopathy facets and academic dishonesty mediated by achievement goals. Thus, we hypothesize that high general self-efficacy will reduce the indirect effects for disinhibition and meanness (i.e., negative moderation effect) and amplify it for boldness (i.e., positive moderation effect).

In sum, we examine the relationships between three facets of psychopathy and academic dishonesty, the possible role of achievement goals as a mediators for those relations, and lastly the possible role of general self-efficacy as a moderator of those mediation models. By analyzing the facets of psychopathy independently, we can determine their unique relationship with the tendency to cheat and thus more accurately predict the risk of dishonest behavior for students with a high level of each of the facet. In addition, investigating indirect effects and interactions between personality and motivation may describe the psychological processes that may lead to cheating and can potentially be used in planning preventive actions.

Materials and methods

Participants and procedure.

The participants were 390 Polish university students and residents (100% White, 74% female) with an average age of 23 ( SD = 3.39, Range = 19–56) years. Participants self-identified as students in social sciences (17%), humanities (12%), science and technology (24%), law and administration (22%), and medical sciences (23%); 7 failed to respond (2%). In addition, participants were first-year (19%), second-year (16%), third-year (31%), fourth-year (13%), fifth-year (13%), and doctoral students (2%); 23 failed to respond (6%).

We established the required sample size as 290 participants, following Tabachnick and Fidell [ 46 ] guidelines and gave ourselves three months to collect it to avoid concerns with power and p- hacking, respectively. The study was approved by Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology (University of Silesia in Katowice) and was conducted online through the Webankieta platform to maximize the anonymity and security of the participants. An invitation to participate in the project was sent to 28 largest Polish universities by enrollment, with a request to publish it on the universities' websites. The link to the survey directed the participants to a detailed description of the research and the rules of participation. After consenting to participate, students completed online questionnaires and, at the end, they were asked if they wanted to receive a summary of the general results and take part in a prize drawing (after the end of the study, five randomly chosen participants received vouchers for online personal development courses). The present study was part of a larger investigation that aimed to examine psychological determinants and predictors of academic dishonesty.

Psychopathy was measured with the TriPM-41 [ 34 ], the shortened Polish adaptation of the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure [ 47 ]. Participants rated statements on a 4-point scale (0 = completely false ; 1 = somewhat false ; 2 = somewhat true ; 3 = completely true ). Items were summed to create indexes for three subscales: disinhibition (16 items, e.g., “I jump into things without thinking”; Cronbach’s α = .83), meanness (10 items, e.g., “I don't have much sympathy for people”; α = .92), and boldness (15 items, e.g., “I'm a born leader”; α = .88).

Achievement goals were measured with the Polish translation of the Achievement Goals Questionnaire-Revised [ 29 ]. Participants reported their agreement (1 = strongly disagree ; 5 = strongly agree ) with statements such as “My aim is to completely master the material presented in this class” (i.e., mastery-goal orientation, 6 items) or “My aim is to perform well relative to other students” (i.e., performance-goal orientation, 6 items). Items were summed to calculate mastery (α = .80) and performance (α = .87) goal orientation indexes.

The Polish translation of the New General Self-Efficacy Scale [ 48 ] was used to measure general self-efficacy (e.g., “Even when things are tough, I can perform quite well”). Participants were asked how much they agreed (1 = strongly disagree ; 5 = strongly agree ) with eight items, which were summed to create the general self-efficacy index (α = .89).

Academic dishonesty was estimated with the Academic Dishonesty Scale [ 49 ], which is a list of 16 academically dishonest behaviors (e.g., “Using crib notes during test or exam” or “Falsifying bibliography”). Participants rate the frequency (0 = never ; 4 = many times ) of committing each behavior during their years of studies. Items were summed to create the academic dishonesty index (α = .83).

Data analysis

Descriptive statistics were calculated with JASP (v0.9.0.0), correlations with STATISTICA (v13.1), and regression, mediation, and moderated mediation with SPSS (v25). In the mediation analysis we used model 4 in macro PROCESS 2.16.3 (10,000 bootstrapped samples) and for the moderated mediations model 7 in macro PROCESS 2.16.3 (10,000 bootstrapped samples). Analyzes were carried out on the responses from 390 fully completed surveys. Because of mixed results in previous studies concerning psychopathy and academic dishonesty levels in men and women (see [ 50 , 51 ]) we conducted analyses on the overall results and also separately in each sex. The database was uploaded to Open Science Framework and is available under the following address: https://osf.io/frq9v/

Descriptive statistics, sex differences tests (see Bottom Panel), and correlations (see Top Panel) for all measured variables are presented in Table 1 . Academic dishonesty was positively correlated with meanness and disinhibition, and negatively correlated with mastery-goal orientation and general self-efficacy. Mastery-goal orientation was positively correlated with boldness and general self-efficacy, and negatively correlated with meanness and disinhibition. Performance-goal orientation was positively correlated with meanness. General self-efficacy was positively correlated with boldness and negatively correlated with meanness and disinhibition. We found only three cases where these correlations were moderated by participant’s sex. The correlation between performance and mastery-goal orientation was stronger ( z = -1.85, p = .03) in men ( r = .51, p < .01) than in women ( r = .34, p < .01). The correlation between mastery-goal orientation and meanness was stronger ( z = 2.00, p = .02) in men ( r = -.28, p < .01) than in women ( r = -.05, ns ). And the correlation between disinhibition and academic dishonesty was stronger ( z = 1.72, p = .04) in women ( r = .39, p < .01) than in men ( r = .20, p < .01). If we adjust for error inflation for multiple comparisons ( p < .007) for these moderation tests, none of the Fisher’s z tests were significant. Therefore, we conclude the correlations were generally similar in the sexes. Men scored higher than women on meanness and disinhibition.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238141.t001

To test the contribution of personality and motivation variables in predicting academic dishonesty, we conducted a standard multiple regression where the model explained 23% of the variance in academic dishonesty [ F (6, 383) = 18.60, p < .001]. The residuals for boldness ( β = .12, p = .04), disinhibition ( β = .27, p < .01), and a mastery-goal orientation ( β = -.39, p < .01) were correlated with academic dishonesty. Additional regression analysis revealed that both mastery-goal orientation and disinhibition strengthened the association between boldness and academic dishonesty, which on its own was not a predictor of the frequency of cheating–suppressor effect (results of hierarchical regression showed that after adding boldness to the model explained variance increased by 1% [Δ F (1, 383) = 4.40, p = .04]).

To examine whether achievement goals mediated the associations between psychopathy and academic dishonesty we conducted a series of mediation analyses.

As shown in Table 2 (see Left Panel), mastery-goal orientation mediated the relation between facets of psychopathy and academic dishonesty (i.e., none of the indirect effects CIs contained zero), and performance-goal orientation was not a mediator of those relations (see Right Panel; all of the indirect effects CIs contained zero). Mastery-goal orientation mediated relation between disinhibition and academic dishonesty (i.e., initial 𝛽 Step 1 = .32, p < .001; 𝛽 Step 2 = .24, p < .001), and the relationship between meanness and academic dishonesty (i.e., 𝛽 Step 1 = .10, p < .05; 𝛽 Step 2 = .05, p = .29). Initial non-significant negative relation between boldness and academic dishonesty (𝛽 = -.0001, p = .99) stayed unrelated after adding mastery-goal orientation to the model, but the value for the relation coefficient was higher and positive (𝛽 = .07, p = .12) suggesting a nonsignificant suppression effect.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238141.t002

To test if the level of general self-efficacy moderated the aforementioned relationships between psychopathy, achievement goals, and academic dishonesty we ran a series of moderated mediations. Index for moderated mediation was significant only for the model with disinhibition and mastery-goal orientation ( - 0.03; 95% CI: -0.70, -0.003), however, the same analyses ran separately for men ( - 0.03; 95% CI: -0.13, 0.05) and women ( - 0.04; 95% CI: -0.08, -0.01) revealed moderated mediation only in women (therefore, we do not report these analyses in men; they can be obtained from the first author). Estimates for that model are presented in Table 3 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238141.t003

Women with high levels of disinhibition manifesting low level of mastery-goal orientation (see Left Panel, line A1) declared higher levels of academic dishonesty (see Right Panel, line B). An interaction between disinhibition and general self-efficacy (see Left Panel, line A3) with the significant, negative index for moderated mediation means that the indirect effect of disinhibition on academic dishonesty through mastery-goal orientation is negatively moderated by general self-efficacy. The higher the level of the moderator, the weaker the effect of mediation, and for moderator values above one standard deviation from mean mediation become non-significant (95% CI: -0.01, 0.09). In sum, the mastery-goal orientation partially mediated the associations that disinhibition had with academic dishonesty, however, this effect was absent for people with high levels of general self-efficacy.

Discussion and limitations

Psychopathy is an important predictor of engaging in unethical behaviors [ 52 ], including in an academic context [ 53 ]. In the present study, we examined the relationships between facets of psychopathy, as described in the triarchic model of psychopathy (i.e. disinhibition, meanness, and boldness), and the frequency of academic dishonesty among students. We revealed that students with higher levels of meanness and disinhibition, but not boldness, reported more frequent academic dishonesty during their tertiary study.

In the case of meanness, this relationship may indicate a tendency for dishonesty resulting from a lack of fear and, consequently, a diminished impact of the perceived risk of being caught cheating, sensation-seeking that involves engaging in destructive behavior regardless of possible negative consequences of such actions, and a propensity to exploit other student’s work or knowledge to pass classes [ 23 , 54 ]. The association between disinhibition and academic dishonesty may indicate impulsive cheating resulting from self-control problems (see [ 55 ]), and an inability to predict possible negative consequences of cheating [ 26 ]. The fact that academic dishonesty and boldness were uncorrelated may indicate that even though bold students can perform successfully in stressful situations and have high levels of sensation-seeking, those features are unrelated to the tendency to cheat in the academic context. It confirms that the “successful psychopath” [ 56 ] may be characterized by boldness but not antisocial behavior. Of all the facets of psychopathy, disinhibition was the strongest predictor of academic dishonesty, which confirms the role of impulsivity in predicting risky behavior [ 57 , 58 ], and the role of delaying gratification in refraining from academic transgressions [ 59 ].

Beyond these basic associations, we also examined the role of achievement goals as mediators for the relationships between psychopathy facets and academic dishonesty. Mastery-goal orientation mediated the relationships between two psychopathy facets and academic dishonesty. Both meanness and disinhibition led to low levels of students’ mastery-goal orientation which, in turn, contributed to cheating in the academic context. Low mastery-goal orientation might result from the fact that those who are characterized by meanness may have a propensity to be rebellious (e.g., disregard for formal responsibilities, low diligence, and sensitivity to rewards) and those who are characterized by disinhibition may have a propensity for impulsivity (e.g., inability to postpone gratification or control impulses, high behavioral activation system). Without motivation to acquire knowledge, students may cheat to achieve academic goals with no regard to the fairness (i.e., high meanness) or the consequences (i.e., high disinhibition) of their actions [ 31 – 33 ]. In the case of boldness, the result of the mediation analysis might indicate a cooperative or reciprocal suppression effect, however, it should not be trusted because the main effect path did not pass the null hypothesis threshold when the potential suppressor was included in the model. Nonetheless, it seems possible that a particular configuration of boldness and disinhibition could lead to the interactive effect of those facets on the other variables [ 26 ]. Performance-goal orientation did not mediate the relationships between psychopathy facets and academic dishonesty, probably because bold, mean, and disinhibited students are not motivated by the fear to perform worse than others [ 60 ].

Lastly, we tested if general self-efficacy acts as a moderator of these mediation models and found evidence that it moderated the indirect effect of disinhibition on academic dishonesty through mastery-goal orientation. This means that disinhibited students who have a high sense of perceived ability to control their chances for success or failure, might be able to overcome the tendency to cheat resulting from their personality (i.e., high impulsiveness), and motivational (i.e., low motivation to learn) predispositions. However, that effect was found only for women, limiting any insights that can be drawn about men. Previous research showed that an increase in general self-efficacy reduced the risk of suicide among women [ 61 ]. Moreover, Portnoy, Legee, Raine, Choy, and Rudo-Hutt [ 62 ] found that low resting heart rate was associated with more frequent academic dishonesty in female students, and that self-control and sensation-seeking mediated this relationship. Thus, along with the observed lower level of disinhibition for female students, it appears that self-regulation abilities may play a different role for men and women’s performance, and also that deficits in self-control might not lead to the same behavioral tendencies in the sexes (see [ 63 ]). However, because of the cross-sectional nature of our study and an uneven number of men and women in the sample, this needs to be investigated further.

In the present study, we aimed to combine personality and motivation variables to describe the possible process leading to academic dishonesty assessed with a behavioral measure. Because Polish students do not constitute a typical W.E.I.R.D. sample (i.e., Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic), presented results can be used to generalize conclusions from research on academic dishonesty beyond typical W.E.I.R.D cultures. However, our study is not without limitations. First, the measurement of academic dishonesty was based on self-report, which, even after maximizing anonymity of the measurement, might have attenuated our results concerning the frequency of cheating. Thus, future studies should focus on measuring actual dishonest academic behavior. Second, we examined academic dishonesty as an overall frequency of committing different acts of cheating, which reflects the general propensity to cheat. It could be useful to further investigate the predictive power of described models in experiments, focused on the specific type of dishonest behavior. Third, the obtained range of academic dishonesty scores might result from sampling bias, which would require using different sampling procedure in future studies, or from non-normal distribution of academic dishonesty, which would be consistent with the results of the previous studies [ 2 – 4 ]. Fourth, we tested mediation models in a cross-sectional study with a one-time point measurement, which require cautious interpretation. Future studies could use longitudinal methods; starting at the beginning of the first year and continuing over the course of their studies to capture the influence of personality, achievement goals, and general self-efficacy on the academic dishonesty of students in a more robust manner. Despite these shortcomings, our study is the first attempt (we know of) to integrate the triarchic model of psychopathy, general self-efficacy, and achievement goals to predict academic dishonesty, showing potential for further investigation in this area.

Implications and conclusions

Preventing academic dishonesty is often made difficult by the lack of centralized and formalized university policies concerning cheating, faculty reluctance to take formal action against dishonest students, and limited attention paid to students’ personal characteristics associated with a tendency to cheat [ 64 ]. Based on the results of our study, lecturers might overcome those difficulties by: maximizing the amount of oral examinations to deal with the risk of cheating by disinhibited and mean students; enhancing students’ mastery-goal orientation, for example, by increasing use of competency-based assessment; enhancing students’ self-efficacy in academic context, for example, by providing spaced assessed tasks, and the opportunity to practice skills needed for their fulfillment. In the case of dealing with actual dishonest behavior, the fact that teachers prefer to warn students rather than fail them [ 19 ] might suggest indifference to academic integrity rules, reluctance to initiate time-consuming formal procedures against cheating, or teachers’ preference toward autonomy to deal with dishonesty. Therefore, a useful solution could be to assess which areas need to be improved for a particular student (e.g., knowledge about plagiarism, ability to delay gratification, or treating acquisition of knowledge as a value) and to allow the teacher to choose an effective way to remedy them.

In sum, we presented evidence that disinhibition and meanness are associated with the frequency of committing academic dishonesty. We described the possible underlying mechanism of those relations involving mediation effects of the mastery-goal orientation and, in the case of disinhibition, also a moderation effect of the general self-efficacy. Our research can be used by teachers to better identify factors conducive to dishonesty and to modulate their responses to fraud based on the personality and motivational predispositions of students.

Supporting information

S1 table. descriptive statistics and correlations for academically dishonest behaviors..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238141.s001

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr Guy Curtis for his comments and suggestions on the article.

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• 45. Schunk DH, Pajares F. Competence perceptions and academic functioning. In: Elliot AJ, Dweck CS, editors. Handbook of Competence and Motivation. New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2005. pp. 85–104.
• 46. Tabachnick BG, Fidell LS. Using multivariate statistics (Vol. 5). Boston, MA: Pearson; 2007.
• 47. Patrick CJ. Operationalizing the triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy: Preliminary description of brief scales for assessment of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition. Unpublished test manual. Tallahassee, FL: Florida State University; 2010. Available form: https://patrickcnslab.psy.fsu.edu
• 56. Hall JR, Benning SD. The “successful” psychopath. In: Patrick CJ, editor. Handbook of Psychopathy. New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2006. pp. 459–478.

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Bridging Classroom Learning to Real-World Emergency Management

Purpose of the Internship

The purpose of the internship is to provide the fledgling emergency manager with the opportunity to gain first-hand experience related to all four phases of Emergency Management. The internship is a key component of the Emergency Administration and Planning program and provides pre-career students an opportunity to apply classroom knowledge and develop professional skills that will lead to a successful career. Moreover, the internship experience frequently provides the student with an entry into a permanent position.

Emergency Administration and Planning students must complete an internship of at least 240 hours of employment. Students must register for EADP 4800, EADP Internship Preparation, and complete the course before beginning an internship appointment. This three hour course meets four times during the semester and prepares students for an internship. Career testing, resume and interview preparation, and discussions of professional and ethical conduct are covered. When the student is ready to begin an internship, the internship coordinator will assist in identifying internships, but the student is ultimately responsible for securing an appointment.

Internships may be completed during the summer months, on a part-time basis during the academic year, or once all course work has been completed.

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For more information, please contact the EADP Internship Coordinator,   Dr. Ron Timmons .

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There are three categories for internships in the EADP program:

Students with NO Professional Work Experience: 48 Hours in Major

Required: Internship Preparation (EADP 4800)

Required: Internship Practicum (EADP 4810) and a 240 hour internship.

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This change must be approved. Please contact  Dr. Ron Timmons , the EADP Internship Coordinator (Chilton 204J), to request a waiver for EADP 4800.

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Not required: Internship Practicum (EADP 4810) and a 240 hour internship.

This change must be approved. Please see   Dr. Ron Timmons ,  EADP Internship Coordinator (Chilton Hall 204J) to request a waiver for EADP 4800/4810.

If you choose the 42 hour degree plan, you may not complete an internship for credit.

EADP 4810 (Internship Practicum) is a restricted enrollment course and requires a permission code for registration. You MUST contact the Internship Coordinator prior to your registration date. It is best to acquire your code at least two weeks prior to your registration date. DO NOT wait until the day you are scheduled to register to try to obtain your registration code.

EADP 4800 - Internship Preparation 

During Internship Preparation, students will meet with the internship coordinator to begin arranging their internship. The internship coordinator will assist the student in securing a practicum, but the final responsibility for finding an internship rests with the student.

Enroll in Internship Preparation at least one semester before beginning an internship.

Prerequisites:  Enrollment is restricted to EADP majors who have completed EADP 3010, 3035, and 3045, and consent of the Internship Coordinator.

Topics covered in this course include: career counseling, resume development, professionalism and interviewing skills.

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Internship Coordinator must approve internship prior to beginning internship. If it is not approved, it will not count.

Pre-requisites: Enrollment is restricted to EADP majors who have completed EADP 4800, 3010, 3035, 3045, plus 3 additional hours of EADP coursework. After a student has arranged for an internship, they must register for Internship Practicum (EADP 4810).

EADP 4810 is a restricted enrollment course and requires a restriction code for registration. You MUST contact the Internship Coordinator prior to registration in order to enroll in this course. It is best to acquire your code at least two weeks prior to your registration date. Do NOT wait until the day you are scheduled to register to try to obtain your registration code.

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Internship opportunities are available with a variety of public agencies and departments, as well as at various levels of government. Students may also serve as interns in the private and nonprofit sectors. Internships complement coursework in the major field with practical, hands on knowledge. Students gain a better understanding of emergency management principles while also obtaining experience, credentials, and identity in the field. EADP internships, therefore, serve a very important step in the student's career preparation and development.

When anticipating an internship, you should begin by thinking about the type of work experience you would like to complete.  For example, consider whether you hope to work in the public, private or nonprofit sector.  Then, narrow the choice further by specific organization (e.g. municipal, state or federal government) and functional area (e.g. planning or response).  The internship preparation course will also help to identify student's strengths and areas of professional interest.  All students enrolled in EADP 4810 must register with Eagle Careers through the UNT Career Center. Students may find an internship searching opportunities posted on Eagle Careers, through networking, and reading professional newsletters.  To qualify for course credit, the internship must be approved by the Internship Coordinator prior to beginning the internship, be related to Emergency Administration and Planning, and supervised by a professional in the field.

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