Encouraging Active Classroom Discussion of Academic Integrity and Misconduct in Higher Education Business Contexts

Abstract

The present study assessed business students' responses to an innovative interactive presentation on academic integrity that employed quoted material from previous students as launching points for discussion. In total, 15 business classes (n=412 students) including 2nd, 3rd and 4th year level students participated in the presentations as part of the ethics component of ongoing courses. Students' perceptions of the importance of academic integrity, self-reports of cheating behaviors, and factors contributing to misconduct were examined along with perceptions about the presentation. Discussion sessions revealed that academic misconduct is a complex issue. For example, knowledge of what constitutes misconduct was not consistent across domains (e.g. exam contexts versus group work), penalties were not wholly known, and there was variation in perceived responsibility for reporting and representing academic integrity. Survey measures revealed that self-reported academic misconduct was more prevalent than expected with only 7.5% of students indicating they had never cheated in any way. Furthermore, results showed gender and year of study as predictive factors for issues related to academic misconduct. In general, students were receptive to this form of presentation. The implications of such instructional interventions for enhancing ethical behaviors in higher education classrooms are discussed.

Strengthening the research agenda of educational integrity in Canada: a review of the research literature and call to action

“…Qualitative interviews were used as the primary data collection method less often (Fredeen 2013;Wideman 2009Wideman , 2010Wideman , 2011, while focus groups were used in only two studies (Bens 2010;Evans-Tokaryk 2014). Other approaches involved using presentations in class, class discussions, and quizzes to gather data (Baetz et al 2011;Kier 2013Kier , 2014aKier , 2014bDe Pasquale, 2012, Zivcakova, Wood, Forsyth, Zivcak, Shapiro, Coulas, et al, 2014). This range of research designs demonstrates diversity among these studies, which concentrate on how students perceive, understand, and self-report academic misconduct and plagiarism.…”

“…A number of studies focused on a specific academic disciplines including health sciences and nursing (Austin, Simpson andReynen 2005, Austin, Collins, Remillard, Kelcher andChuia 2006;Miron 2016;Paterson et al 2003;Wideman 2009Wideman , 2010Wideman , 2011; business (Baetz et al 2011. Taylor et al 2004; and engineering (Hu 2001).…”

Faculty reluctance to report student plagiarism: A case study

“…Some of these processes include the institution of plagiarism policies (Gullifer & Tyson, 2014), the signing of honour codes (Hall, 2011), class instruction about referencing and citation including information on a range of penalties for transgressions (Voelker et al, 2012), practice assignments and writing skills programmes (Löfström 2011), formative feedback through tutorial interventions (Volkov et al, 2011), assistance with study planning (Löfström & Kupila, 2013) and active classroom discussion of academic integrity and misconduct (Baetz et al, 2011).…”

Examining the Impact of Dons Providing Peer Instruction for Academic Integrity: Dons’ and Students’ Perspectives

“…Presentation Each don was provided with a pre-made set of 42 PowerPoint slides which depicted four major topics of academic integrity: Definition, detection, consequences and importance of academic integrity (Baetz et al 2011). For each of these four topics, there were three types of slides: quotes, discussion slides, and formal information slides.…”

“…For example, two recent studies advocate for the importance of interactive discussions when presenting content related to academic integrity (Baetz et al 2011;Sims 2004). Who should provide this information?…”