College students and academic dishonesty *

Students at a medium-size state university in the Southeast were surveyed regarding their attitudes and behaviors about learning. Three hundred and forty-five students (52.8 percent) indicated they had never committed any acts of academic dishonesty. Students who possessed an "academic ethic" were less likely to commit acts of academic dishonesty and earned higher grade point averages. A variety of factors including sex, grade point average, race, social class, fraternity/sorority membership, major, paid employment, and those variables associated with the academic ethic were assessed for their influence on academic dishonesty. The higher one's classification the more likely one would engage in acts of academic dishonesty. The more students watch television and the more they participate in student clubs or groups the more likely they are to commit acts of academic dishonesty. The implications of the findings are discussed.

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Academic dishonesty is an issue which has garnished national attention and it is considered a serious problem among college students (Maramark and Maline 1993:3; McCabe and Trevino 1997:379). Shane Spiller and Deborah F. Crown (1995:763) acknowledge that there is little comparable longitudinal research on academic dishonesty and they challenge the assumption that cheating has increased over the years. Based on one measure of academic dishonesty they found no support for the claim that cheating has increased, although they readily admit other forms of academic dishonesty may be increasing. Individual characteristics such as age, sex, grade point average, social class, extracurricular activities, etc., and contextual (situational/institutional) characteristics such as fraternity or sorority membership, faculty support for academic integrity, peer opinions, etc. are linked with academic dishonesty. Donald L. McCabe and Linda Klebe Trevino (1997:391) found that "peer-related contextual factors" had the most influence on whether a student would commit an act of academic dishonesty. Stephen Davis et al. (1992:19) attribute a "diminishing sense of academic integrity" as a major factor influencing cheating, while Miguel Roig and Lauren DeTommaso (1995:691) identify procrastination as a major cause of academic dishonesty.

The statistics regarding academic dishonesty are disheartening. Fifty-four percent of students at a small state university in the Southwest admitted cheating on either exams, quizzes, and assignments (Haines et al. 1986:345). Eighty-two percent of students at a large state university in the Midwest cheated at some point in their college career (Stern and Havlicek 1986:136). Eighty-six percent of students at a large Southern university cheated on either exams, papers, or homework assignments (Michaels and Miethe 1989:876). Bernard E. Whitley, Jr. (1998:238) reviewed 107 studies related to cheating among college students and found an average of 70.4 percent of students had cheated, 43.1 percent had cheated on examinations, 40.9 percent had cheated on homework assignments, and 47 percent had plagiarized. Fifty-one percent of students majoring in criminal justice at a medium-size state university in the South had committed some type of academic misconduct (Coston and Jenks 1998:241). Among sociology students at the University of Oklahoma, 83 percent committed at least one act of academic dishonesty (Cochran et al. 1999:94).

Potential remedies for academic dishonesty are few. Erica...