Academic Dishonesty 201

Erin Morris 6/15/20

Module 201: Academic Dishonesty EDIT 604

Introduction

There is a growing perception that technology is being abused by students that are

avoiding their academic assignments. The internet holds plenty of research that is helpful

towards students, but if they don’t properly know how to cite or paraphrase their papers, it

becomes dishonest. In this article, Ethical Orientations and Personality Factors Associated with

Attitudes about Cheating with Information Technology the researcher’s study two different

institutions to see how the students feel towards academic dishonesty. They believe that there are

current methods out that allows students to put the information to dishonest academic use. They

asked questions that was based off ethical choices and individual personality traits to see if it

played a role towards dishonest online use. Student cheating has been studied for many years

with the correlation of students’ attitudes and behaviors about academic dishonesty. The idea

was to test students to see if their ethical decisions are in comparison to their feelings towards

being dishonest in their studies.

The Research & Collecting Data

There were two study groups that was monitored to establish their ethical evaluations

after being administered the Ethics Position Questionnaire. (Cramer, J 2006; Etter, S 2006; Finn,

S 2006). The first test focused on ethical choices, while the second test given to both sets of

college students added a new depth of understanding with a personality measure. They were

based off four factors which include deviant behavior, social dominance, lack of empathy, and

anomie. The students studied were enrolled in two different institutions, one being a church

affiliated liberal arts college and the other a regional two-year campus of a major research
 Academic Dishonesty 201

university. (Cramer, J 2006; Etter, S 2006; Finn, S 2006). The questions were designed to probe

emotional and personal experiences from the students being studied. They were deciding what

websites were used for assignments, while others were used for academic dishonesty. The

methods that were used to investigate throughout the study was based off of personal

background, ratings of academically dishonest parts of technology, and responses to the Ethical

Position Questionnaire. On top of that, the responses were judged on a scale called the

Sensation-Seeking Scale which allowed the researchers to gather data on the personality traits of

the students.

Results & Important Findings

They rated the twenty-four descriptions of academically dishonest behavior from

submitting a paper bought online to using a software program to increase the length of a paper.

(Cramer, J 2006; Etter, S 2006; Finn, S 2006). The answers ranged from very serious, to

moderately serious, to not serious at all. The results were unexpectedly positive, meaning that the

more relativistic the students’ ethical perspective, the more likely they were to rate these

behaviors as serious. Students who rated such behaviors as being more serious when it comes to

misusing technology was linked with their disapproval of high sensation-seeking activities along

with no wanting to do harm to others. There were no discrepancies between the two institutions

and the way that the students thought towards academic dishonesty. There will be more

continued research since technology is ever changing and diverse populations will be included to

gain more widespread knowledge.

Reflection
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After reading this article, I believe the biggest insight that I received was to take the time

to really understand your learners beyond just academically. It is so vital for the teacher to know

where the students are at in their learning while also understanding their background and beliefs.

Seeing the research that was gathered during this study showed me that in the classroom, a

teacher’s role should be to introduce all different modalities so that students feel comfortable

with technology. They should know that technology is there to gain more knowledge on, but that

it is their responsibility to create their own pieces of work. I believe that the teacher should also

be building the students up to want to produce and be proud of their own work. It starts at a

young age, so I believe that being an elementary school teacher I will be continuing to

incorporate these ideas into my classroom each day.

Link:

http://search.ebscohost.com.login.library.coastal.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN

=EJ768871&site=ehost-live

https://eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=EJ768871
 Academic Dishonesty 201

References

Etter, S., Cramer, J. J., & Finn, S. (2006). Origins of Academic Dishonesty: Ethical Orientations and

Personality Factors Associated with Attitudes about Cheating with Information

Technology. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 39(2), 133–155.

Winslow, J, Dickerson, J, Lee, C. (2016) Applied Technologies For Teachers. Second Edition. (pgs 69-81)