The Impact of Faculty Development Workshop on Students’ Understanding of Academic Integrity

Academic misconduct, prevalent in universities, threatens student potential for academic and professional success. A new initiative at a large, Mid-Atlantic University to assist engineering faculty in creating classrooms of integrity provided the impetus for this study. Nine faculty members from the College of Engineering at the University participated in the initiative to redesign their course in order to create and implement plans to enhance students’ understanding of academic integrity. Specific goals of the workshop included increasing the likelihood that students will practice academic integrity and illustrating links between academic integrity and professional ethics. Using a pre/post assessment mechanism, this case study investigates how students in one faculty participant’s course understand academic integrity and its importance before and after the faculty participant implemented his redesigned plans. This study serves as an initial account of students’ understanding of academic integrity and why academic integrity is important. Content analysis of students’ responses reveals that their responses shifted after taking the redesigned course such that responses linking the importance of academic integrity to professional ethics emerged. The results will be used to inform future academic integrity initiatives.