Academic Integrity and

Graduate Students

Don McCabe – Rutgers University

Promoting Academic

Integrity

The ‘bottom line’ upfront

• Students are very adept at rationalizing cheating and ‘blaming’ it on others.

• US students identify athletes, fraternity & sorority members, and business students as the most frequent cheaters. Grad students in engineering are also identified as a problem. Some pre-med.

• Faculty report high levels of cheating among students (especially UGs) but many don’t take any ‘special’ steps to address the issue. Many ‘blind’ to grad student cheating.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Methodological Issues

Self-report data – will students be ‘honest’ about

their ‘dishonesty’?

Anonymity concerns with web-based surveys –

lower response rates & lower self-reported

cheating?

Changing definition of cheating??? – This could be

the real ‘key’ - especially with the Internet and

plagiarism. Collaborative work is also problematic.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Cheating Index Employed

• Test cheating:

Copy from other (2), use of crib or cheat notes, help

other cheat, get pretest information

• Cheating on written work/projects:

Internet plagiarism (2), written plagiarism (2), fabricate or

falsify bibliography, submit work of other, unpermitted

collaboration

Promoting Academic

Integrity

General observations

• In 2002-2011 period, self-reported cheating has declined

notably (UG & Grad) – more on test cheating.

• Possible reasons: (1) cheating is down; (2) self-reporting is

down; (3) students more easily rationalize or neutralize

cheating; (4) other.

• Possible rationalizations: (1) GPA determines everything

and I didn’t get a chance to study as much as I should

have; (2) test is too hard or unfair – e.g., covers material

not assigned; (3) pressure from my parents, teachers, job

market; (4) many others are cheating; (5) other.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Motivations to cheat

• Pressure to succeed/excel.

• Fairness. (“Others do it.”)

• Material is trivial/irrelevant.

• Courses too hard/faculty unreasonable.

• Sense of “entitlement” seems important.

• Emulating business practice. (Business majors)

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Students reporting greater cheating

• Males historically reported more test cheating, but

females have closed the gap; females report

roughly equal cheating on written work - except the

most explicit forms.

• Communications & Business majors. Dental and Pharmacy students are also problematic (but my sample size is small.)

• Those with significant time commitments – e.g., a

job. Athletes are a ‘special’ issue.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Institutional factors associated with

greater cheating on college campuses

• Cheating is campus norm (a ‘cheating

culture’).

• School has no honor code.

• Students feel faculty don’t support integrity

policies, little chance of getting caught and

penalties not seen as significant.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Honor codes seem to reduce cheating

• Melendez (1985):

– Unproctored exams.

– Pledge – typically on every test/assignment.

– Student judiciary – majority or Chair.

– Non-toleration – the ‘rat’ clause.

UF seems to have a ‘modified’ code.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

U.S. Academic Integrity Assessment

Fall 2002 – Spring 2011

Grad Students UGs*

N ~15,300 ~71,000

% Test (5) 17% 39%

% Paper (7) 40% 62%

% Total 44% 68%

*Excluding first year students, two year schools, and code schools.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Graduate Students

2002 – 2011

2002-2003* 2010-2011*

N ~ 2,200 ~1,500

% Test (5) 18% 15%

% Paper (7) 39% 35%

% Total 43% 39%

*Excluding schools with honor codes..

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Graduate students

2002 – 2011*

Test Paper

% Copy (2) 5% % Work other 2%

% Crib Notes 3% % ‘Written’ Plag. (2) 23%

% Help other 4% % Net Plagiarism (2) 23%

% Bibliography 5%

% Serious Test 8% % Serious Paper 30%

*No code schools only. N = ~15,300

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Observations

• Self-reported cheating at large schools is not that much greater than at smaller schools as one might expect - especially for undergrads. Reality or reporting issue?

• Does this support the belief that, in general, students in more selective schools engage in academic dishonesty less often?

• “Cut & paste’ plagiarism is a big issue – most of the 30%+ number in both cases is of this ‘lesser’ variety. Students claim it’s no big deal, they were never taught that plagiarism includes such activities, and/or in their culture plagiarism was not addressed in school. In my view we need to take these ‘excuses’ away during orientation.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Relative levels of cheating – Grad students (2002/2004 MBA Study Data)

Business 429 56%

Engineering 237 54%

Science 376 50%

Health Professions 393 49%

Education 498 48%

Law 104 45%

Arts 145 43%

Soc Sci/Humanities 562 39%

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Suggested faculty strategies

• Greater faculty involvement as

professional role models.

• Don’t recycle exams.

• Must remain vigilant and address cheating

when it occurs – at least out of a sense of

fairness for honest students.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Institutional strategies – My view

• Faculty & staff should engage students in ongoing dialogue (throughout program) to help build “community of trust.”

• School culture should emphasize clear

communication of rules and moral

socialization – the ‘hidden’ curriculum.

• Key is for both institution and its faculty to act – failure to act sends powerful message to students.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Institutional strategies

What’s your view?

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Frequency of cheating – Faculty view

Cheating occurs on EVERY assignment,

especially among a certain sub-set of students,

on homework and especially reports.

Where I have suspected or caught students

cheating are in large enrollments held in rooms

at or near their capacity. Sometimes it is all too

easy for a student to look over the shoulder at

someone else's test/exam. There is no good

solution for this.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Top five cheating behaviors ‘observed’ by faculty

Copy written source w/o cite 79% (36%)

Copy internet source w/o cite 78% (36%)

Unpermitted collaboration 61% (43%)

Pretest information 38% (31%)

Copy in test w/o other knowing 36% (11%)

Comparison is undergrad student self-reports.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Top five cheating behaviors ‘observed’ by faculty

Copy written source w/o cite 79% (23%/21%)

Copy internet source w/o cite 78% (23%/21%)

Unpermitted collaboration 61% (23%/27%)

Pretest information 38% (13%/14%)

Copy on test w/o other knowing 36% (3%/3%) Comparisons are self-reports of all grad students (15,000+) & grad

students majoring in science or engineering from that group (2,000+).

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Top five cheating behaviors ‘observed’

Very significant difference between faculty observations and

student self-reports. Different time frame (one year student

vs. three faculty) does not seem to explain this large

difference.

Question is what might:

- Faculty exaggerating what happens?

- Students under-reporting?

- Some combination of these two?

- Other?

Why don’t large faculty estimates lead to action?

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Other ‘numbers’ of interest –

Seriousness of cheating

(Faculty vs. Grad students)

Copy written source w/o cite 3.18 (2.98)

Copy internet source w/o cite 3.23 (2.99)

Unpermitted collaboration 3.24 (2.31)

Copy in test w/o other knowing 3.85 (3.83)

Submit work done by other 3.90 (3.74)

Comparison is student self-reports. 4 pt. scale: 4=serious

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Other numbers of interest

All grad students vs. Sci/Eng’g. and STEM students

Seriousness of cheating

Copy written source w/o cite 2.98 (2.85/3.57)

Copy internet source w/o cite 2.99 (2.85/3.56)

Unpermitted collaboration 2.31 (2.68/3.10)

Copy in test w/o other knowing 3.83 (3.79/NA)

Submit work done by other 3.74 (3.69/3.92)

Comparisons: Sci./Eng’g. only/Florida STEM) 4 = serious.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Observations –

Seriousness of cheating

Not surprisingly, students rate seriousness lower in

every case.

Biggest S. vs. F. difference, by far, is unpermitted

collaboration where 41% of grad students rate this

behavior either as not cheating (11%) or trivial

cheating (30%). In contrast, much smaller numbers

rate copying on a test (4%) this way.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Observations –

Seriousness of cheating

Are faculty feelings about seriousness part of the

problem in some cases?

For example, 15% for unpermitted collaboration and

Internet plagiarism, and 16% of faculty for cut & paste

plagiarism from written sources rate the behavior as

either not cheating or trivial cheating. These faculty

often become student ‘excuses’ for cheating. If they

say it’s OK, it must be – even if the relevant faculty

member (to whom I am submitting my assignment or

test) says otherwise.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Bottom line –

Seriousness of cheating

It would help if faculty presented a more united front

about cheating – some consistent message.

However, must be careful that the message doesn’t

become so ‘rote’ that students ignore it.

How might we achieve such a goal? Can we?

Should we, or is there something to be said for a

very personalized message if we can get faculty to

do this at all?

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Effectiveness of Integrity Policy-

Observations

Perhaps most importantly, with only 16% of faculty rating

the effectiveness of the integrity policies on their campus

as high or very high, why aren’t faculty more activist here.

Possible responses: (Any ‘favorites’?)

- We’ve tried and failed.

- There is nothing we can do; parents need to do more.

- We’re responsible for content – not character/morals.

- Other.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Administration

The J-Board

Lack of feedback

Weak penalties

Other?

Faculty identify some possible

‘culprits’ in their comments

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Observations – Business students

Business students are somewhat of a problem with regard

to academic dishonesty on most campuses.

True for both undergrads and grad students. Seems to also

be true for Engineering majors. At one time, I felt an

Engineering undergrad planning on an MBA was highly

predictive of cheating – almost a ‘sure’ bet. May still be.

Disappointing findings in this brief look of cheating by major

are the high levels of cheating in Health Sciences gad

students and education undergrads. High level of cheating

among Arts grad students is ‘surprising’.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

UF STEM Survey

Conducted 2011. (2002-2011)

855 respondents (N = 2513 Science & Engineering majors)

93% (vs. 86%) informed about policy at UF – Top sources of

information were faculty (>80% learned at least something

from faculty; 92%), orientation (62%/ 59%), program

director/advisor (50%/26%), UF website (44%/48%).

Top majors: chemistry (15%), ‘other’ (11%), electrical and

computer engineering (7%), interdisciplinary ecology (7%),

and soil and water science (7%). National survey is science

(53%) and engineering (47%) only without detailed majors.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

UF STEM Survey - #2

Discussion of policies by professor (%often/very often)

UF Other*

Plagiarism 38% 36%

Collaborative work 43% 43%

Citation of written sources 46% 49%

Citation of internet sources 34% 42%

Incorporation of lab data of other into your report 19% 27%**

Incorporation of research data of other in your report 24% 30%**

* Science/engineering grad students at other schools (2002-2011).

** Different wording: UF = ‘incorporating’ other’s data; Other = ‘falsifying/fabricating’ data.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

UF STEM Survey

Country of high school graduation

212 students graduated ex-US

¼ of total and 1/3 of those answering question

189 listed country: India 50

China 45

Latin America 45

Europe 21

Asia (other) 11

Other 17

Does this diversity make the problem of ‘controlling’ plagiarism and cheating

more difficult?

Promoting Academic

Integrity

UF STEM Survey

Agree/disagree with various statements

Statement % A/AS Mean

Plagiarism is a serious problem at UF 36% (28%) 3.26 (3.01)

Investigation of plagiarism fair & impartial 30% (30%) 3.30 (3.23)

Faculty vigilant in discovering plagiarism 42% (42%) 3.20 (3.04)

Faculty change assignments regularly 33% (45%) 3.07 (3.25)

*National sample numbers. Questions are cheating and plagiarism, not just

plagiarism. N=2513.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

STEM survey – Personal experiences with plagiarism

• I hear many accounts of plagiarism from previous semesters…

• I had a group project with another student in a graduate class. The night

before the project was due, he copy and pasted an online article and gave it

to me to include in the report.

• I've heard stories of students caught for plagiarism in several graduate

courses I was in, but I believe the professors rather than report them

formally, instead opted to discipline them within the class.

• In my PhD program, I took a stats class. A foreign student asked me to help

her with an assignment that was due the next day. She asked me to look at

my finished assignment. Afterwards, when I saw her assignment, I saw that

she had pretty much copied my assignment.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

Sample comments about plagiarism/academic honesty

• It is not punished seriously enough at this level and students do not take it seriously.

• I think UF has an obligation to take a hard line on this. It makes my degree more valuable when other institutions know I EARNED it by doing the work myself.

• The Florida Honor Code has not been discussed adequately in my coursework, nor has proper citation style.

• I think it would be helpful for there to be a workshop for grad students on the different citation methods and examples of how to cite books, journals, magazines, personal communication, etc.

Promoting Academic

Integrity

The ‘bottom line’ – UF grad students

• Cheating does occur, but we don’t know how much per survey since UF elected not to include relevant questions.

• My guess – and it’s only a guess – is that level of cheating among STEM students at UF is roughly the same the national norm since ratings of seriousness are not very different. This is confounded by UF decision to focus only on plagiarism. BUT UF STEM students do see plagiarism as a bigger issue than national norm.

• Based on open-ended student responses, faculty could be doing more to reduce cheating – both through education and security.

• Does UF Honor Code have any impact at all among grad students?

• What do you think? What now?