Interim Results of a Longitudinal, Multi-site Survey of Perceptions of Academic Integrity

Cheating is a perennial issue in education from early grades all the way through graduate study. A spate of back to back academic integrity issues in the authors’ home department spurred a number of conversations among faculty. A recurring theme of the conversations was, “How can these students think this is acceptable?” The authors decided to try to answer the related question of how differently DO faculty and students regard the same cheating behavior in terms of severity. During the 2015-2016 academic year, a survey was developed and administered. One section is meant to duplicate the spirit of McCabe and Bowers’ pivotal study. Other sections of the instrument are intended to elucidate a severity rating for 20 various scenarios that represent a range of academic integrity violations from trivial to most severe. The results from the first year were sufficiently compelling to warrant recruitment of additional respondent institutions during year two. This work reports on results from the third administration at the original institution, and the first or first and second administrations at additional institutions. In all cases, previous work has pointed to the existence of a disparity in perception between students and faculty, freshmen and upper-class students, and students at different institutions. The authors have termed this disparity an ethical gray area. Understanding these differences enables the opportunity to better engage in dialogue with the ultimate goal of reducing academic integrity violations.