College Students and Academic Dishonesty

Abstract

Students at a medium-size state university in the Southeast were surveyed regarding their attitudes and behaviors about learning. Three hundred and forty-five students (52.8 percent) indicated they had never committed any acts of dishonesty. Students who possessed an academic were less likely to commit acts of dishonesty and earned higher grade point averages. A variety of including sex, grade point average, race, social class, fraternity/sorority membership, major, paid employment, and those variables associated with the ethic were assessed for their influence on dishonesty. The higher one's classification the more likely one would engage in acts of dishonesty. The more students watch television and the more they participate in student clubs or groups the more likely they are to commit acts of dishonesty. The implications of the findings are discussed. ********** Academic dishonesty is an issue which has garnished national attention and it is considered a serious problem among college students (Maramark and Maline 1993:3; McCabe and Trevino 1997:379). Shane Spiller and Deborah F. Crown (1995:763) acknowledge that there is little comparable longitudinal research on dishonesty and they challenge the assumption that cheating has increased over the years. Based on one measure of dishonesty they found no support for the claim that cheating has increased, although they readily admit other forms of dishonesty may be increasing. Individual characteristics such as age, sex, grade point average, social class, extracurricular activities, etc., and contextual (situational/institutional) characteristics such as fraternity or sorority membership, faculty support for integrity, peer opinions, etc. are linked with dishonesty. Donald L. McCabe and Linda Klebe Trevino (1997:391) found that peer-related contextual factors had the most influence on whether a student would commit an act of dishonesty. Stephen Davis et al. (1992:19) attribute a diminishing sense of integrity as a major factor influencing cheating, while Miguel Roig and Lauren DeTommaso (1995:691) identify procrastination as a major cause of dishonesty. The statistics regarding dishonesty are disheartening. Fifty-four percent of students at a small state university in the Southwest admitted cheating on either exams, quizzes, and assignments (Haines et al. 1986:345). Eighty-two percent of students at a large state university in the Midwest cheated at some point in their college career (Stern and Havlicek 1986:136). Eighty-six percent of students at a large Southern university cheated on either exams, papers, or homework assignments (Michaels and Miethe 1989:876). Bernard E. Whitley, Jr. (1998:238) reviewed 107 studies related to cheating among college students and found an average of 70.4 percent of students had cheated, 43.1 percent had cheated on examinations, 40.9 percent had cheated on homework assignments, and 47 percent had plagiarized. Fifty-one percent of students majoring in criminal justice at a medium-size state university in the South had committed some type of misconduct (Coston and Jenks 1998:241). Among sociology students at the University of Oklahoma, 83 percent committed at least one act of dishonesty (Cochran et al. 1999:94). Potential remedies for dishonesty are few. Erica B. Stern and Larry Havlicek (1986:140) found that students and faculty favored smaller classes and closer monitoring during exams. Neither group believed that an honor code or trust system would reduce cheating on examinations. Part of the problem may be in the way faculty deal with cases of dishonesty. Faculty tend to deal with incidents of dishonesty on a one to one basis rather than referring cases to the University Office of Judicial Affairs. This practice occurs even at institutions with honor codes (McCabe 1993:654). …

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