Academic dishonesty

Academic dishonesty encompasses a broad set of deceptive, misleading, or fraudulent behaviors committed by members of academic institutions or research communities. Though the concept most readily applies to students and is commonly associated with secondary and postsecondary learning environments, it also extends to researchers, scholars, and all other types of academic professionals. Major examples of academic dishonesty include plagiarism, cheating on assignments or examinations, collusion, fabrication, falsification, and sabotage.

Beginning in late 2022, advanced new generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, became widely available online. The development quickly led to novel forms of academic dishonesty, in which students began to outsource their homework and assignments to generative AI platforms. Many educational institutions responded by adding the use of generative AI to their existing lists of prohibited academic practices.

Background

While academic dishonesty ranks among the major issues facing the contemporary scholastic community, it is not a novel problem. Experts who have studied it note centuries of precedent. For example, in China, researchers have traced a history of cheating on the keju civil service examination that dates back at least 1,400 years. Meanwhile, plagiarism, cheating, and other forms of academic dishonesty have been a salient feature of formal education for virtually the entirety of its institutionalized history.

One of the first major modern studies into academic dishonesty was conducted by researcher W. J. Bowers and published by Columbia University in 1964. Carrying out what is widely recognized as the first authoritative, wide-scale study of cheating in US schools, Bowers performed an analysis involving more than five thousand students at nearly one hundred educational institutions across the United States. Bowers found that two-thirds (66 percent) of students who participated in the study admitted to engaging in at least one form of academic dishonesty. The research also associated career-oriented and professional fields of academia with higher rates of cheating than generalist academic disciplines such as the liberal arts. It established academic dishonesty as a behavior common to most students, with the Nebraska Educator noting that Bowers’ “findings are important enough to still be relevant to the field more than fifty years after [the study] was published.”

Subsequent studies have confirmed that academic dishonesty remains very common among students. According to some studies, more than 80 percent of students engaged in one or more forms of dishonest academic conduct themselves or had witnessed other students doing so. Many students consider such cheating to be acceptable. Academic dishonesty occurs far more infrequently in research and professional scholarship but nonetheless persists as a major problem, particularly since it carries a far more serious set of potential effects and consequences.

Overview

Among students, the major forms of academic dishonesty include plagiarism, cheating, and collusion. Students also engage in fabrication, falsification, and sabotage, but these forms of academic dishonesty are more closely associated with professional research and scholastic communities.

Plagiarism is typically defined as an attempt to present another person’s work as one’s own. It can be committed intentionally or unintentionally, with or without the knowledge of the individual(s) whose work is being plagiarized. Common examples include lifting quotes, concepts, or ideas created or developed by another person without properly crediting the originator and in a manner that implies or explicitly claims that the work belongs to the plagiarist. Educational institutions also consider the unacknowledged and unauthorized reuse of one’s own academic work as a form of plagiarism. For example, a student who submits the same essay assignment to satisfy the academic requirements of two different courses is usually considered to have committed plagiarism.

Cheating can take many forms, with educational institutions usually defining it as any method of performing work or using information that is not specifically sanctioned by the school, scholastic department, or instructor. Examples include copying other students’ work on assignments or during examinations, making unauthorized use of Internet-connected or assistive devices during examinations or other academic activities, hiring another person to perform academic work on behalf of another individual, or otherwise procuring completed homework or assignments from third parties. Collusion may be classified as a subtype of cheating in which multiple students collaborate on assignments or work intended to be carried out on an individual basis.

Fabrication involves the intentional importation of fictional research results or data into an academic study or assignment. It most commonly occurs in quantitative research in the natural, life, or social sciences but can also occur in the humanities. For example, a student may attempt to support an essay thesis by referencing source material that does not actually exist. Referencing or submitting falsified documents or source material as part of a study, project, or assignment is another form of academic fabrication. Falsification is closely related to fabrication but instead specifically covers the intentional manipulation or misrepresentation of the research methods or equipment used to generate the reported findings. Excluding, changing, or otherwise altering partial or complete research or study findings are also considered acts of academic manipulation.

Sabotage is a relatively rare but serious form of academic dishonesty. It involves a deliberate effort to ruin or corrupt another person’s work or to prevent another party from completing a planned study or project within its required parameters. Acts of academic sabotage are most frequently associated with highly competitive scholastic or research environments.

In institutional contexts, academic dishonesty is considered a serious offense. Students found to have committed acts of academic dishonesty typically face sanctions. Depending on the nature and severity of the dishonest act, such sanctions may include a reduced grade, an automatic failing grade on the affected assignment or course, academic probation, suspension, or expulsion. In addition to deep reputational injury, researchers and scholars found to have committed such dishonest acts may face loss of tenure or employment or have their works stricken from the academic record.

Some less common forms of academic dishonesty can involve criminal acts such as bribery. These acts are most often committed by students seeking to exchange money, valuables, or services for passing grades, higher grades, or admission to an academic institution for which the student does not qualify on their own merits. If detected, both the perpetrators of such acts and the recipients of money or valuables may become subject to criminal prosecution.

Topic Today

Unveiled to the public by the San Francisco-based technology developer OpenAI in late 2022, the ChatGPT generative AI tool quickly became a major issue in academia, especially at the secondary and postsecondary levels. Students in the United States and around the world quickly began using ChatGPT to complete homework assignments, write papers, and engage in other forms of academic dishonesty, sparking a spirited debate at the institutional policy level with regards to how schools should respond. Generative AI produces original content that can elude software-based anti-plagiarism checks, which makes the situation more complicated.

According to an article in Best Colleges, 43 percent of surveyed respondents, or about one thousand US college students, have acknowledged using ChatGPT or similar tools in academic contexts. Of those respondents, 51 percent acknowledged a belief that using generative AI to complete homework or assignments constituted a form of cheating, while another 41 percent characterized such practices as morally wrong.

Educators were divided in their opinions on how best to respond to the novel development. Many institutions quickly moved to close policy loopholes that did not explicitly attach academic penalties to the use of generative AI, but opinions widely differ on the question of how schools should deal with AI advancements. Some educators and administrators believe that schools and teachers should embrace generative AI in the classroom and incorporate it at a pedagogical level as a novel teaching tool. Adherents of this viewpoint generally share the belief that the students of the early 2020s will mature in a world in which AI is likely to be a dominant technology and that they will therefore benefit from building proficiency in its use at an early age. Competing views hold that generative AI poses a pressing threat to academic integrity and inhibits students from building the knowledge and skills their academic programs are designed to develop. To these ends, some instructors have eliminated digital-only testing and assignment formats in favor of a return to paper-based work, while others have introduced requirements that compel students to produce multiple drafts or submit version histories of developed work so their academic processes can be verified and evaluated.

Bibliography

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Fanelli, Daniele. “How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data.” PLoS One, vol. 4, no. 5, May 2009, pp. 1–11.

Gecker, Jocelyn, and the Associated Press. “College Professors Are in ‘Full-On Crisis Mode’ as They Catch One ‘ChatGPT Plagiarist’ after Another.” Fortune, 10 Aug. 2023, www.fortune.com/2023/08/10/chatpgt-cheating-plagarism-college-professors-full-on-crisis-mode/. Accessed 9 Oct. 2023.

McCabe, D.L. K.D. Butterfield, and L.K. Trevino. Cheating in College: Why Students Do It, and What Educators Can Do about It. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.

Parnther, C. “Academic Misconduct in Higher Education: A Comprehensive Review.” Journal of Higher Education Policy and Research Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, 2020, pp. 25–45.

Volante, Louis, Christopher DeLuca, and Don A. Klinger. “ChatGPT and Cheating: 5 Ways to Change How Students Are Graded.” The Conversation, 27 Feb. 2023, www.theconversation.com/chatgpt-and-cheating-5-ways-to-change-how-students-are-graded-200248. Accessed 22 Aug. 2024.

Welding, Lyss. “Half of College Students Say Using AI on Schoolwork Is Cheating or Plagiarism.” Best Colleges, 27 Mar. 2023, www.bestcolleges.com/research/college-students-ai-tools-survey/. Accessed 9 Oct. 2023.

Zachek, Amy. “The History, Evolution, and Trends of Academic Dishonesty: A Literature Review.” The Nebraska Educator, vol. 5, Oct. 2020, pp. 105–120.