Curing the Cheating Epidemic? A Multi-site International Comparison of Perspectives on Academic Integrity and the Way We "Cure" by Teaching

Plagiarism became an issue in both the scientific and political communities in Germany at the beginning of the decade. The former German Minister of Defense and the Minister of Education and Science lost their Ph.D. titles due to plagiarism and subsequently resigned. In response, a German internet community worked as a group of “plagiarism hunters” screening the dissertations of high profile individuals. The situation prompted an intense discussion about academic integrity, largely focusing on plagiarism. A number of newly published books have surfaced in Germany about the correct way to proceed with academic work. In contrast, other cases of cheating are not discussed widely by German academics. Obviously different traditions and organizational arrangements in various countries or in different institutions in the same country will lead to varying degrees of scrutiny. The research question for this work is: whether schooling is unavoidably connected to cheating? The answer to this question is probably yes. The specific question to be addressed is whether different university traditions and organizational arrangements are more or less successful in preventing cheating, or at least instilling a consistent view of what is acceptable and what is not? This paper will present data from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, and the University of Applied Sciences (Hochschule) in Darmstadt, asking students about their attitudes towards cheating. The participating institutions of higher education offer obligatory courses which inform the students about academic integrity and the faculty try to support students to apply the rules correctly. The university systems of the countries are very different, leading to differing modes of supervision and to different student expectations of how they have to be guided.