Academic Dishonesty: A Preliminary Researchers View

Increasingly academe is facing the challenge of dealing with allegations of plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Academic dishonesty plagues both the degree acquisition process as well and the publishing process. Academic dishonesty within the university space has been clouded in mystery, as many universities are not willing to break the code of silence. However, within the academic publishing space, several respectable journals had to withdraw published papers citing academic dishonesty as a concern. At the core of academic dishonesty is the researcher and their perceptions of issues affecting academic dishonesty. The purpose of this research is to develop a better understanding of researchers’ attitudes to issues of academic dishonesty. This study is quantitative in nature and primary data in the form of Likert scale questions were collected from developing researchers. The questionnaire data were statistically analysed, and a framework was developed to outline emerging researchers’ perceptions of academic dishonesty. Key findings included academic dishonesty is influenced by several issues such as academic pressure, electronic deterrents, writing challenges, outsourcing, data challenges, plagiarism, database challenges, and electronic sources. This is important because by better understanding researchers’ perceptions to academic dishonesty, (1) appropriate training interventions can be implemented (2) higher quality research will be produced and (3) research funding will not be wasted.