A collaborative approach to improving academic honesty

Academic dishonesty is widely acknowledged in universities as a worsening trend, attributed to an expansion of the internet (Underwood & Szabo, 2003), increased class sizes and decreased personal contact, more reliance on the international student market (Ashworth, Bannister & Thorne, 1997), greater student diversity (Lambert, Ellen & Taylor, 2006), higher tuition costs (Sheard, Markham & Dick, 2003) and increased competition for employment (Underwood & Szabo, 2003). However, despite the strong interest in the public media and across the sector in Australia, Marsden, Carroll and Neill (2005, p. 8) observe that ‘there is no empirical evidence to support the popular contention that dishonesty is on the rise.’ They provide a valuable contribution of selfreported dishonesty. Nevertheless, Jocoy and DiBiase (2006) observe that self-reported figures bear little resemblance to actual cases detected. Lambert et al. (2006) point out a further conundrum: while 5.8% of students report being caught for academic dishonesty, those same institutions’ official records indicate a detection rate of only 0.2%. Clearly academics are choosing to deal with dishonesty through informal channels. Two critical incidents prompted action on academic dishonesty in the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Sydney. First, in 2002 a senior peer review team visiting the Faculty noted that academic dishonesty was a ‘serious problem’. Second, the 2002 Student Course Experience Questionnaire (SCEQ) revealed that as many as 5% of students in one postgraduate program perceived dishonesty as a serious concern. This chapter reports on a social constructivist approach to addressing these concerns about academic honesty. The research here describes the iterative, evidence-based processes undertaken by the Faculty, over a four year period, developing what has become a holistic strategy to focus strongly on prevention and education. The approach thereby aligns with Park’s (2004) call for institutional responses to protect credibility and reputations in ways that reflect specific cultural contexts. Further, the orientation is also consistent with McCabe (2005) who urges proactive strategies that build a community of trust, where ethical behaviour is valued and academic integrity is the expected behaviour. With this educative institutional approach to promoting academic honesty in contrast to detecting plagiarism by the individual student, the following section reviews the academic honesty literature. The social constructivist framework and emergent methodology is then described. The three cycles of collaborative action research, employed to systematically address the problem, follow with discussion. Finally, the implications of this approach for change and future directions are outlined.