Academic Dishonesty Undermines The Purpose Of Graduate School

Ethics are the principals that build an individual’s character and integrity. It is the code of conduct that a person lives by; it is the way that a person conducts themselves when no one is around. Stealing, lying, and cheating are wrong, yet every day in the workplace these issues occur. Growing competition lends to the need for people to do what they can to get ahead and stay ahead. Ethics are pushed to the side as people try to gain power or to stay out of trouble, all at the risk of tarnishing their character. This same mindset has spilled over into Academia. A student’s desire to successfully earn a degree by any means necessary has caused educational institutions to address these ethical issues by setting policies in place to combat academic dishonesty.

Academic dishonesty includes cheating and/or copying words or work (i.e. plagiarism) that is not your own on quizzes, assignments, and discussion posts. Please don’t assume that I can’t catch cheating online there is a program monitoring all the work you do online for my course and it will notify me if you copied and pasted any text from the textbook, web, or another students work. If discussion posts and assignments are too similar to other students’ or to your text this may constitute cheating. If you engage in academic dishonesty, you will receive an ‘F’ on the assignment/quiz/discussion post. If you have a repeat infraction you will receive an ‘F’ for the entire course.

Academic Honesty Policy: Students are expected to maintain complete honesty and integrity in the academic experiences both in and out of the classroom. Any students found guilty of dishonesty in any phase of academic work will be subject to disciplinary action.

The University’s Policy of Academic Misconduct (2012) provides an orderly process for dealing with academic integrity and outlines the procedure for navigating through that process. As students at the University of West Florida, we are expected to maintain an environment of trust and integrity (University of West Florida, “Policy of Academic Misconduct”, 2012). Plagiarism is defined as the use of others’ words or ideas and offering it as your own without crediting the sources (University of West Florida, “Policy of Academic Misconduct”, 2012). Some examples outlined in the Policy of Academic Misconduct include assisting others’ student to engage in an act of misconduct and completing an assignment that is not your own (University of West Florida “Policy of Academic Misconduct”, 2012). Additional ways of plagiarizing include cut, copy, and pasting a paper or paraphrasing information without citing the sources and purchasing and submitting an academic work as your own (Suarez and Martin, 2001).

Many argue over the morals of academic dishonesty. Eugene Bratek writes his thoughts and opinions in his article, “Moving From Cheating to Academic Dishonesty”. In his article, the author writes of occasions of cheating in prevalent schools and how as a community, people can spend less time blaming others and more time building a community of trust. Bratek is completely correct in his writings of ending cheating and becoming an honest community. Bratek points to the fact that cheating and “cutting corners” are making good grades difficult to obtain in the long run.

“Pshh, let me see number four,” is probably something we have all heard or seen someone do during a test. Did you know that 85 percent of adolescents participate in academic dishonesty before graduating high school? As I jotted down ideas, I came up with the concept of cheating because I see many people in my surrounds doing it. The categorical and numerical questions I came up with in my study are, “What subject would you cheat on, if you were in need for a good grade? If you were given 10 problems, how many problems would you cheat on?”

Academic integrity is not only fundamental to assessment practices done at school, but also serves as a backbone for individual learning and development. According to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), “Honesty is the foundation of good academic work”(Brennecke, 2015, p. 3). Therefore, it is important to note that academic dishonesty of any kind will always violate the most fundamental values of an intellectual community and undermine the achievements of the entire university. (Northeastern University [NEU] office of student conducts and conflict resolution, 2014). The fact that universities have Academic Integrity Policy, decision making, and review processes that relates to academic integrity, these aspects do not always reflect

Academic dishonesty is a crime that the University of Iowa State takes very seriously. There are several steps in the policy for dishonesty that ensure the student is well aware there is an issue and has a chance to give their side if they think their work was not dishonest. Academic dishonesty is not just in the form of using another student or persons work and handing it in. Trying to get a professor to give you a better grade or a friend to give you one of their assignment, by offering them some cash or other reward is also considered academically dishonest. If a student is suspected to have committed an act of dishonesty, the Dean of Students will be the first to know because the professor or TA are

Plagiarism to me means using someone else's intellectual ideas or work as your own without crediting the original author's work and Franklin University takes this offense seriously. Correspondingly the punishments for academic dishonesty are severe, depending on the intent and severity of the first offense those punishments could be a score of zero or possibly a failing grade in the class with the possibility of needing to complete a workshop on appropriate citation. Additionally, A violation of academic dishonesty will result in the option to withdraw from the class in an attempt to avoid a failing grade, Undergraduate students may also eliminate them from receiving any academic honors. Furthermore, any consecutive violation of academic dishonesty

Academic dishonesty is a threat to every student and every institution of higher education. The very act runs contrary to the fundamental values of higher education (Bowers, 1964). Dishonesty compromises the integrity of the individual student as well as the reputation of the institution (Engler, Landau, & Epstein, 2008; Gallant, 2008).

The sample consisted of 198 students in teacher education classes at a private university in the northeast. Each questionnaire was placed in an unmarked envelope. Completed questionnaires were replaced in these envelopes and sealed by the student. The questionnaires were voluntarily completed during class time. Students who declined to participate were encouraged to engage in other reading or writing activities. Respondents were assured that their responses were confidential and anonymous. The average age of the respondents was 28 years. About 80% of the respondents were females and more than 80% were registered for more than twelve credits. The mean and the mode of salary expectations were between $30,001 and $35,000 with more than a quarter of the respondents (28%) expecting salaries between $35,001 to $40,000. RESULTS Uncovering the salient dimensions of academic dishonesty In order to uncover the salient dimensions of academic dishonesty, the sixteen dishonest practices were submitted to factor analysis. Factor analysis is a procedure for summarizing the information ratings on the sixteen practices into a smaller number of salient dimensions which can then be identified as the dimension underlying the respondents’ ratings. It is in this way that the commonalities in responses are effectively discerned. Four factors were extracted which had an

Many questions as to why students decide to perform acts of unethical behaviors have been posed. The most common reasons students resort to the unethical behaviors mentioned above, are because of objective parameters of academic life, such as: difficulty of the course, or not enough time to prepare. While the least common reasons are related to subjective factors, such as, the teacher’s leniency or the importance of scoring a good grade. (Iorga & Romedeac, 2013)

McCabe has said that an estimated seventy percent of college students have admitted to some type of cheating. He supports this claim by saying that the parties to blame here is the school system and the media. HBU defines academic dishonesty to when a student cheats or steals someone’s work and passes it as their own among these are a list of actions that count for academic dishonesty. Some examples being brought up about dishonesty is how in the NFL saw past the deflating incident in the Super Bowl were it seems like the media praised the player for his actions (Loschiavo). Therefor, students think it is correct to do be dishonest in their class work.

What is academic misconduct and how it is define? The definitions and type of academic misconduct varies from academic institutions to institutions but the foundations and basis are essentially the same – to outline guiding boundary for students to abide by. For example, the definition of academic misconduct is defined by the University of California, Berkeley Division of Student Affairs as “Academic misconduct is any action or attempted action that may result in creating an unfair academic advantage for oneself or an unfair academic advantage or disadvantage for any other member or members of the academic community. This includes a wide variety of behaviors such as cheating, plagiarism, altering academic documents or transcripts, gaining access to materials before they are intended to be available, and helping a friend to gain an unfair academic advantage.” So with a clear and simple definitions and examples, why do students ranging from high school all the way to graduate school still engaged in some form of academic misconducts or another? “About 20% of college students admitted to cheating and plagiarism in their high school years during the 1940’s. By 1999, 75 to 98 percent of college students admitted to the same academic dishonesty in high school” (Phillips, 2009).

The definition for this action is, “academic dishonesty.” It defines as, “Misconduct is any type of cheating that occurs in relation to a formal academic exercise.” It can include, plagiarism: the adoption or reproduction of ideas or words or statements of another person without due acknowledgment.” (Berkely) So, in simpler terms this means using somebody