“To cheat or not to cheat, that is the question ...

“To cheat or not to cheat, that is the question”: Undergraduates’ moral reasoning and academic dishonesty. Prof. Dr. Parmjit Singh Roslind Thambusamy University Technology MARA, 40200 Shah Alam, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract While academic qualifications are important in securing jobs, it is inarguable that ethics and integrity are also crucial in the workplace. But how are these being imparted to students within the context of the higher education (HE) curriculum? These concerns are serious and disconcerting given the reports of rampant academic dishonesty within higher education institutions (HEIs). Something is dangerously amiss within the HE system if we produce graduates who think that cheating is acceptable. For these students, concepts like 'morality,' 'virtue,' and 'truth' are subsumed under the imperative of getting the grade. This concern is exacerbated by studies (Jones, 2011; Etter, Harding, Finelli & Carpenter, 2004; Nonis & Swift, 2001) which show that there is a significant relationship between academic cheating and students’ potential unethical behavior in the workplace, which is a troubling indicator in terms of overall human resource and national development. This study addresses the issue of undergraduates’ moral reasoning by focusing on how they perceive academic dishonesty and what drives them to cheat. This study employed a descriptive research design method using a self-report questionnaire to collect data from 288 (72 males and 217 females) randomly selected undergraduate students from different programs of study in a Malaysian HEI. The findings reveal that almost two-thirds (59.8%) of the respondents felt that academic dishonesty is rampant. Interestingly though, while close to 90% responded positively when asked “are you sure another student cheated during a quiz/exam?”, almost 80% indicated they would not report such acts of dishonesty. Reasons for this phenomenon is a telling indicator of the undergraduates’ moral reasoning and it is one that HEIs should attempt to re-orientate by way of curricular and pedagogical strategies in order to advocate the culture of academic integrity and by default, professional ethics. Keywords: academic dishonesty, undergraduates, moral reasoning, integrity, ethics

I. BACKGROUND A recent study has revealed that, apart from the usual soft skills such as communication and teamwork that top the list of skills valued by employers, integrity and professional ethics has also found its way into the list of skills valued by employers (Parmjit, Roslind, & Mohd. Adlan, 2014). In fact, the findings of this study revealed that for employers of multinational organizations, ethics topped the list of soft skills required in any future employee. This is a significant indicator that this aspect of human capital development needs to be acknowledged and addressed. While HEIs emphasise academic qualifications, it seems that ethics (or the lack thereof) has become a value that employers are becoming increasingly concerned about. Hence, it is only appropriate that HEIs take note of this trend and undertake the necessary steps to ensure that they produce graduates with the right values. There is a dire need for HEIs to focus on the ethical development of their graduates given the increasing reports of academic dishonesty. Adesile and Oseni (2011) in a study of academic dishonesty among tertiary level students cited a host of studies done on academic dishonesty with disturbing findings. They cite “multi-institutional studies [which] showed that respondents between the range of 39% and 70% acknowledged involvement in academic dishonesty during their college years (Bowers, 1964; McCabe, 1992, 1993; Pino & Smith, 2003;Aluede, Omoregie & Osa-Edoh, 2005)” (p.2). According to the sources cited in their study, academic dishonesty “occurs at epidemic proportion (Hutton, 2002; McCabe, 1993; Niels, 1996)” (p.2). Even more disconcerting is that in a “thirty years follow up study on student’s cheating, Wotring (2007) remarked that the population of students’ cheaters increased from 63% to 70%.” (p.2). The massive scale in which this practice occurs is astounding given the “survey studies [which] reported that almost one-third of the six thousand students from thirty one colleges and universities had indulged in cheating (McCabe,1999); more than 30% plagiarized on all their papers (Bloomfield, 2005); and 117 fresh students used emails to exchange answers in an examination (Wilson, 1999) (p.3). While such a revelation is shocking enough in terms of the apparent lack of ethics among university students, even more 1

unsettling are studies (Jones, 2011; Etter, Harding, Finelli & Carpenter, 2004; Nonis & Swift, 2001) that show a significant relationship between academic cheating and students’ potential unethical behavior in the workplace. The link between unethical behavior in the university and the potential workplace, however tenuous, should not be taken lightly as it is a potent indicator of the failure of the HE system to produce ethically-sound human capital, particularly in the current capitalist-driven socio-economic system that unpins global development, where a country’s socio-economic development is measured in materialistic terms as in high or low income. This emphasis on purely monetary gains does not bode well for ethical decision making and this is confirmed by Adesile and Oseni (2011) who mention that “studies have reported a significant relationship between the level of college cheating and a country’s corruption index (Magnus, Polterovich, Danilov, & Savvateev, 2002)” (p.9). As producers of human capital that will impact on national development, Liddell and Cooper (2012) cite Whiteley (2002) who posited “that “one of the fundamental obligations of the modern college and university is to influence intentionally the moral thinking and action of the next generation of society’s leaders and citizens” while “Chickering (2010) refers to higher education as the most compelling institutional source for upholding our democracy, although he warns that we have fallen far short of creating college graduates “who can function at the levels of cognitive, moral, intellectual, and ethical development that our complex national and global problems require.” ” (p. 5-6). This line of thinking underscores the general belief that educational institutions of all levels are directly responsible for the moral and ethical development of young people as they pass through these institutions. In the HE current scenario in an academic institution, academic dishonesty comprises many different acts of cheating ranging from plagiarism, cheating on tests, quizzes and examinations as well as cheating on coursework such as collaborating with friends to complete individual assignments, copying other students’ assignments, doing other students’ work for them, not contributing in a group project, and paying someone to do their coursework (McCabe, Trevino,& Butterfield, 2001; McCabe, 2005). While many reasons have been offered for dishonest behaviours in HEIs, both internal and external factors such as peer influence, assessment modes, personal beliefs, socio-cultural mores and other possible reasons are among the reasons students engage in academic dishonesty. According to Adesile and Oseni (2011), “literature showed that individual actions could be shaped by larger forces which transcend internal, organizational, and institutional boundaries (Bertram, 2008). Students’ behaviors, thoughts and actions are products of many factors (McCabe, 2001; Nadelson, 2007). Variables such as cognitive development and environmental situation play important role (Bandura cited in Nadelson, 2007)” (p.3). Devlin and Gray, (2007), on the other hand, argued that different cultures that might affect the prevalence of cheating particularly in plagiarism. They argued that second language learners face difficulty in paraphrasing English text which may tacitly lead to dishonest behaviours. An Australian study by Lynnette and James (2001) reported a high number of international students who admitted engaging in academic dishonesty behaviors as compared to Australian students. This implies that non-native speakers of English are more prone to commit academically dishonest behaviours under particular circumstances. While there may be myriad reasons for the occurrence of academic dishonesty, it is not the intention of this study to compare the prevalence of cheating between different regions, among different types of students or even the degrees of dishonesty. The question that has prompted this study is not so much that dishonesty occurs or in what form as the many studies cited can attest to these occurrences. The question here when students are faced with the temptation to cheat, to what extent does their moral reasoning control or influence their decision to cheat or not to cheat? This is basically the question; whether to obey the academic rules or to succumb to the temptation to cheat. It was felt that this study would be able to probe the students’ perceptions regarding the question of to cheat or not to cheat and why, particularly in the Malaysian context, where few studies of this phenomena have been conducted (Smith, Ghazali, & Siti Fatimah, 2007; Che Ku Hisam, 2008). It is hoped that this study will provide significant insights exclusively towards Malaysian undergraduates’ moral reasoning with regards to indulging in academically dishonest behaviors. Additionally, the study also attempts to reveal the the extent of dishonest behaviour among these undergraduates. This study concurs with researchers who have highlighted “that how students think and what affects their decisions to act dishonestly, are all important factors which when understood,” could curb academic dishonesty (McCabe, Feghali & Abdalah, 2008 cited in Adesile and Oseni, 2011, p.9). According to Liddell and Cooper (2012) “ethics refers to a set of moral principles used by an individual or group that provides a framework for behavior. For instance, professional associations expect ethical behavior of their members and set the parameters for that behavior in their ethical guidelines” (p.14). While ethics and 2

morals stem from a similar paradigm, the term ethics is most widely used in the professional context while the term morals is more often used in the educational or spiritual context. Hence, we have moral education in schools but business or medical or legal ethics taught in universities. However, for the purpose of this paper, the term moral reasoning (Kohlberg has been adopted to signify a process of “moral development, which is an aspect of cognitive development [where] as a person is able to make sense of the world in more complex ways, the ability to weigh moral actions also moves to more sophisticated decision-making approaches” (Liddell & Cooper 2012, p.15). This explanation is more aligned to the learning processes of undergraduates at the tertiary level. (Liddell and Cooper, 2012) provide a succinct elaboration of the conceptual underpinnings of moral reasoning which “is grounded in the work of cognitive-structural theorists, such as Jean Piaget and William Perry. Cognitive-structural theories assume that development happens in stage sequencing that is invariant, hierarchical, and qualitatively unique from other stages (as opposed to additive). Using cognitive structures help us to organize and adapt to our environments. Additionally, understanding moral growth from a cognitive-structural developmental framework leads us to expect that learners (in our case, college students) are using cognitive structures to make meaning and reason through problems as they become more intellectually complex and competent (McEwen, 2003)” (p.9). The most well-known of the theorists who contributed frameworks to assess moral reasoning especially in the tertiary setting are Kohlberg, Bandura and Rest.

II. OBJECTIVES The purpose of the study is to investigate the perceptions and extent of academic dishonesty among undergraduates at a leading Malaysian HEI. Specifically, the study aims to achieve the following main objectives: a) To determine the extent of academic dishonesty behaviors among undergraduates. b) To determine the moral reasoning that drives undergraduates to engage in academically dishonest behaviours. The findings of this study will contribute to previously unavailable empirical evidence, especially in Malaysian context, on the extent of academic dishonesty and the moral reasoning that influences undergraduates to cheat or not to cheat. This will enlighten educators on the extent of academic dishonesty that exists as well as what prompts students to indulge in such behaviour. This will hopefully enable academics to develop effective strategies to address academic dishonesty and work out policies that can help achieve academic integrity by focusing on the reasoning that drives students to cheat. III. METHODOLOGY The study employed a descriptive study that examines the responses of a large group of undergraduates towards the issue of academic dishonesty by analysing their perceptions of this issue. This study employed a self-administered survey questionnaire highlighting the pertinent issues related to academic dishonesty. Recognizing that the issue of academic dishonesty is a sensitive one involving one’s morals and behaviour, it was felt that self-administered survey questionnaires would be the ideal instrument to gather data as it would ensure that the respondents felt secure in providing their honest responses confident that these would be anonymous (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2008). Specifically, the main objectives of the questionnaire used in this study were to unveil the following issues: a) The extent of academic dishonesty behaviors among students, and b) The reasons for engaging in academic dishonesty behaviors which would reveal the moral reasoning behind the need to cheat. The sample was selected on a purposive basis in order to cover the range of programs offered at a particular faculty in the target HEI. The sample was given the instrument in one sitting to ensure a 100% return rate and allowed sufficient time to respond to the items. III. Findings and Discussion This section details the findings and elaborates on the statistical analysis based on the formulated research questions. This study involved a total of 288 undergraduates comprising 72 (25%) male students and 216 (75%) female students (refer to Table 1). TABLE1: DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF STUDENTS (N=288) 3

Variables Gender Male Female

Frequency

Percent

72 216

25.0 75.0

In wanting to find out the extent of academic cheating from the students’ perspective, the following question was asked. A.

How frequently do you think your friends cheated during a/an quiz/exam?

TABLE 2: THE EXTENT OF CHEATING BY OTHER STUDENTS Never Once A few Several In the past year, how often, if ever, Times Times 1. Have you suspected another student of 6.6% (19) 57.0% cheating during a quiz/exam? (163) 2. Were you sure another student cheated 8.0% (23) 5.6% (16 ) 53.5% during a quiz/exam? (153)

Many Times 36.4% (104) 32.9% (94)

When respondents (refer to Table 2) were asked, “Have you suspected another student of cheating during a quiz/exam?” and “Were you sure another student cheated during a quiz/exam?”, a staggering 93.4% and 86.4% respectively indicated that cheating in quizzes and exams occurred. While suspecting or even being certain that others cheated in quizzes/exams may be considered a fairly straightforward response, in order to probe deeper into the students’ moral reasoning about academic dishonesty, the following question was asked. B.

Do students report acts of academic dishonesty committed by other students?

TABLE 3: REPORTED ANOTHER STUDENT FOR CHEATING Yes No 1. Have you ever reported another student for 6.2% (17) 93.8% (258) cheating? In a shocking revelation, while almost all the respondents acknowledged that many students did cheat as indicated in Table 2, a staggering 93.8% responded that they would NOT report acts of academic dishonesty. The findings reported in Table 4 further exacerbates the situation by showing the likeliness of students to report incidences of academic dishonesty. When asked how likely is that “you would report an incident of cheating that you observed”, “The typical student at your university would report such violations?” and “A student would report a close friend?”, the majority of the responses fell into the unlikely category with a high percentages of 83.3%, 76.0% and 80.5% respectively. Again, these findings are indicative of the students’ moral reasoning that although incidences of academic dishonesty are rife, they are unlikely to report these incidences to the authorities.

No.

TABLE 4: REPORTING INCIDENCES OF ACADEMIC DISHONESTY Very Unlikely Likely Very Unlikely Likely How likely is that:

1. 2. 3.

You would report an incident of cheating that you observed. The typical student at your university would report such violations. A student would report a close friend.

4

Very Unlikely Likely Very Unlikely Likely 83.3% 16.7% (240) (48) 76.0% 24.0% (218) (69) 80.5% 19.5% (231) (56)

In order to capture the integral issues that drive the students’ moral reasoning in the matter of academic dishonesty, the following questions were asked under the broad heading of C.

What are the reasons for engaging in academic dishonest behaviors as perceived by students?

Table 5 below displays the responses given by students as to why they engaged in academic dishonesty as well why they would not report their friends for cheating. As discussed earlier, the reasons why students cheat are numerous but for the purpose of this study, these are broadly categorised into four dimensions namely Peers’ Behaviors, Academic Achievement and Assessment, Personal Beliefs and Other Related Reasons. TABLE 5: STUDENTS’ REASONING REGARDING ACADEMIC DISHONESTY No A 1. 12. 13. B 2. 3. 7. 8. 14. 17. C 9. 11. 6. 4. 10 15. 16. D 5. 20. 18. 19.

Categories of Reasons Driving Academic Dishonesty Peers’ Behaviors I wanted to help a friend. I thought if I helped someone else, they might help me. Other students do it (or urged me to do it). Academic Achievement and Assessment The assessment was too difficult. The assessment was too time-consuming. The due date was too soon. The due date coincided with other assessments due. The content of the assessment was not of interest to me. I thought the assessment was unfair. Personal Beliefs I was under pressure to get good grades. I had a personal crisis. I didn’t think it was wrong. I was not likely to be caught. The lecturer hadn’t taught me well enough. It was easy – the temptation was too great. I hadn’t heard of other students being penalized before. Other Related Reasons It was unintentional. Cheating is a victimless crime – it doesn’t harm anyone. It was easy to copy during the quiz It was easy to copy during the exam.

Yes

No

Rank

81.9% 64.7% 56.4%

18.1% 35.3% 43.6%

1 8 11

79.4% 77.1% 66.1% 72.8% 48.6% 42.5%

20.6% 22.9% 33.9% 27.2% 51.4% 57.5%

3 4 7 5 12 17

67.9% 35.8% 29.8% 59.3% 48.6% 42.7% 43.4%

32.1% 64.2% 70.2% 40.7% 51.4% 57.3% 56.6%

6 18 19 9 12 16 15

58.9% 45.5% 81.4% 21.3%

41.1% 54.5% 18.6% 78.7%

10 14 2 20

Peers’ Behaviors Table 5, Section A, the majority of the students (81.9%) responded that they “wanted to help a friend” followed by almost two-thirds (64.7%) responding that “I thought if I helped someone else, they might help me.” More than half (56.4%) stated that “Other students do it (or urged me to do it)”. This clearly shows the the influence of cultural conditioning where the community identity (in this case student community) is valued over ethical behaviour. This means that these students are willing to engage in academically dishonest behaviors willingly just to maintain the status quo. The need to preserve and conform to a community identity is deeply-entrenched in Asian culture, where community well-being and status quo is prioritised over individual or even ethical concerns. In terms of not reporting incidences of dishonest behaviour, this means that, while not directly engaging in dishonest behaviours, these students nevertheless, are willing to turn a blind eye to such occurrences, hence becoming willing partners in crime. Apparently, the need to conform outweighs all other considerations, which is a clear indicator of the moral reasoning of the students when confronted with the temptation to cheat. This finding is corroborated by McCabe, Trevino, & Butterfield, (2001) who found that peer pressure is significantly related to student cheating and also by Wilkinson (2009) who also mentions students’ lifestyle and relationship with others as a significant factor that contributes to 5

the prevalence of cheating. This concern, although already mentioned earlier, needs to be reiterated due to its significant impact on the students’ moral reasoning even to the extent that they would willingly cheat to please their friends. Academic Achievement and Assessment Section B relates to students’ perceptions of the assessments and achievement and how these impacted on their reasoning to cheat. In this category, the difficulty level of the assessment was blamed by the majority of the respondents (79.4%) with “The assessment was too difficult”. Almost the same number (77.1%) claimed that “The assessment was too time-consuming”. About half the respondents felt that “The content of the assessment was not of interest to me,” (51.4%) and “I thought the assessment was unfair” (57.5%) which contributed to their urge to cheat. The need to assess is a natural consequence of teaching and learning but the mode and frequency of assessments has always been a matter of contention in educational circles. This finding reveals that, for students, the modality and frequency of assessment is indeed a significant contributor to the students’ need to cheat. Personal Beliefs Section C deals with personal beliefs where the “pressure to get good grades” was selected by more than two-thirds of the respondents (67.9%). Slightly more than half (59.3%) reasoned that they were “not likely to be caught” while less than half (43.4%) reasoned that not having “heard of other students being penalized before” condoned cheating. “I had a personal crisis” was also a strong reason with 64.2% of the respondents opting for this item. Paula (2004) lists among the intentional acts of cheating 1) an individual’s extreme need to succeed, 2) fear of failing or missing out an opportunity, and 3) a lack of time, interest, or the abilities needed to complete the assignment properly. Congruent to this, the respondents in this study were pressured to engage in academic dishonesty behaviors in order to survive. In spite of all this evidence pointing to the ambiguity of the students’ moral reasoning, surprisingly, more than two-thirds (70.2%) did recognize that cheating was wrong by disagreeing to the item “I didn’t think it was wrong”. Thus, in terms of moral maturity, the students do know the difference between right and wrong but choose to still cheat due to the various reasons as observed in their responses. Other Related Reasons In section D, the majority of the respondents (81.4%) perceived that “It was easy to copy during the quiz”. Cheating during exams, on the other hand, was shown to be more difficult with close to three-quarters (78.7%) disagreeing that “It was easy to copy during the exam.” Lecturers should take note of this to implement stricter measures to prevent cheating during quizzes. Like exams, harsher penalties could be imposed for cheating even during quizzes to prevent such behaviour. In Malaysian HEIs, quizzes are generally conducted in the classroom environment, whereas, examinations are usually held in a big hall and supervised vigilantly by several examiners. Additionally, unlike quizzes, the punishment for cheating is always emphasized prior to the examination. This indirectly heightens the students’ awareness of the penalties for cheating during exams, hence verifying the finding where the majority of the students find that it is not easy to cheat during exams. Policies on cheating should be tightened. What is sad and telling in terms of the ambiguity of the students’ moral reasoning is that they were divided (45.5% - Yes and 54.5% - No) in their response to the item “Cheating is a victimless crime – it doesn’t harm anyone” meaning that almost half of them are think that cheating actually does not harm anyone. In order to identify the main reasons that underpin the students' moral reasoning with regards to the issue of academic dishonesty, the top ten reasons selected by the respondents were gleaned. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

I wanted to help a friend. (peers' behaviour) It was easy to copy during the quiz (other related reasons) The assessment was too difficult. (assessment and achievement) The assessment was too time-consuming.(assessment and achievement) The due date coincided with other assessments due.(assessment and achievement) I was under pressure to get good grades.(personal beliefs) The due date was too soon.(assessment and achievement) 6

8. I thought if I helped someone else, they might help me. (peers' behaviour) 9. I was not likely to be caught. (personal beliefs) 10. It was unintentional. (other related reasons) It is interesting to note that, when faced with the temptation to cheat, students' moral reasoning is mostly affected by considerations of assessment and achievement which not difficult to understood as students would naturally prioritise their academic performance above any other consideration. While the respondents did place the issue of friendship as the top reason for students to cheat, overall, it occupied less of students' reasoning as compared to assessment and achievement. The other reasons like personal beliefs and other related reasons were also deemed not as important as assessment and achievement. II. CONCLUSION This study attempted to uncover the motives of students indulging in academic dishonesty by unravelling the forces that drive their moral reasoning. The evidence above reveals clearly the factors that drive the moral reasoning of the students and the resultant stance towards academic dishonesty. The evidence was gleaned from four categories comprising 1) Peers’ Behavior, 2) Academic Achievement and Assessment, 3) Personal Beliefs, and 4) Other Reasons related to Cheating. It is clear that students, driven by the need to perform well academically, are willing to stoop to dishonest acts to ensure that their assessments and achievement are intact. This evidence highlights the need for institutions to create open and honest discussions about the problems and conflicts with regards to the issue of academic dishonesty and formulate policies regarding academic dishonesty that embrace all forms of assessment, not just the final examinations. The idea that students find it easy to cheat in quizzes reflects negatively on lecturers and on the assessment procedures. To prevent such practices, a standardised procedure for quizzes should be instituted and maintained by all lecturers regardless of the subject taught. Penalties for cheating on quizzes should be as strict as those imposed for exams. All quizzes should be as strictly proctored as in the exams. Another reason why students feel that it is easier to copy during quizzes could be due to the quality of the teaching and testing itself, where students' thinking is neither challenged nor stretched due to the low-order thinking promoted by the lecture notes and test items used. To combat this, the quality of teaching and testing should improve requiring higher-order, critical thinking which would not allow copying. This also applies to assignments as it would prevent plagiarism, a common ailment afflicting HEIs. All this would require lecturers to be more dedicated and focused on teaching creatively and creating assessments that actually test their students' knowledge and skills rather than recycle, ad nauseum, powerpoints of lecture notes, questions from past year papers or the same quiz questions year after year that actually facilitate copying rather than prevent it. Wilkinson (2009) and relevant research on testing can enlighten lecturers on the proper features in constructing assessments that prevent cheating among students. Furthermore, as “one of the fundamental obligations of the modern college and university is to influence intentionally the moral thinking and action of the next generation of society’s leaders and citizens” (Whitley 2002 in Liddell & Cooper., 2012, p. 5-6) HEIs need to move beyond the provision of merely occupational expertise and uplift the HE experience to one that embraces wholesome learning, which includes humanities subjects like literature and theatre, which by their very nature, are dedicated to the instilling of moral values as well as human values that go beyond the acquisition of material wealth. These subjects could be made compulsory but not examinable, so as not to overload the students with more assessments but as avenues for them to build their own values by exploring and expounding on the values presented in the literary and dramatic texts. Unfortunately, at the HE level, these crucial subjects are omitted from all STEM courses in favor of more occupational fare. Research has indicated that we need human capital “who can function at the levels of cognitive, moral, intellectual, and ethical development that our complex national and global problems require.” (Chikering, 2010 in Liddell & Cooper., 2012, p.56).This is a tall order and can only be attained by relooking the intellectual fare being dished out at our HEIs. Fischer & Zigmond (2011) further suggested that institutions and educators must understand their students and the potential reasons for students to engage in academic dishonesty and actualise this understanding into policies and pedagogies that eventually model academic integrity which would be absorbed into students’ moral and cognitive development. The idea of engaging students in an open and honest discussion about this serious issue is perhaps an alien concept in Malaysian culture, where the young are generally not asked for their opinions especially in important matters. However, this culture needs to change as academic dishonesty is a disease, one that afflicts the moral health of the individual and, by default, the nation. Research has already shown that academic dishonesty is but the first step to a more insidious destruction of the moral fiber of the nation. No amount of material wealth can smother the stench of moral decay for as Theodore Roosevelt rightly claimed "To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to 7

society". How many in HEIs, students and academics alike would agree with Sophocles who said, "I would prefer to fail with honor than to win by cheating."? References Adesile M. I., & Oseni R. A. (2011)Academic Dishonesty among Tertiary Institution Students: An Exploration of the Societal Influences Using SEM Analysis International Journal of Education., Vol. 3, No. 2 pp 1-15. Retrieved on 12th 2014 from www.macrothink.org/ije Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Che Ku Hisam. (2008). Tracking the Academic Dishonesty at the Malaysian Higher Education. [Online Article]. Retrieved Dec 1st 2012, from http://www1.tganu. uitm.edu. my/upena/dokumen/ AcadmeicDisho nesty.doc. Coalter, T., Lim, C. L., & Wanorie, T. (2007). Factors that Influence Faculty Actions: A Study on Faculty Responses to Academic Dishonesty. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2007 Devlin, M. & Gray, K. (2007). In Their Own Words: A Qualitative Study of The Reasons Australian University Students Plagiarize. Higher Education Research & Development, 26(2), 181-198. Etter, B. K., Harding, T. S., Finelli, C. J., & Carpenter, D. D.The Role of Moral Philosophy in Promoting Academic Integrity Among Engineering Students. A Paper presented at the 34th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference. October 20-23, 2004. Fischer, B. A. & Zigmond, M. J. (2011). Educational Approaches for Discouraging Plagiarism, Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations 29, 100-103. Elsevier. Fraenkel, J. R. & Wallen, N. E. (2008). How to Design and Evaluation Research in Education (7th Ed.). New York: McGraw Hill. Jones, D. L. R. (2011). Academic Dishonesty: Are More Students Cheating? Business Communication Quarterly, Volume 74, Number 2, June 2011. 141-150. Retrieved on 21st 2014 from http://debdavis.pbworks.com/ Liddell, D.L. & Cooper D.L. (2012). Moral Development in Higher Education. New Directions For Student Services, no. 139, Fall 2012 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley Online Library . Retrieved on 12th November 2014 from wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI: 10.1002/ss.20018. Lynnette, S. & James, R. (2001). An Examination of Student Cheating in the Two-year College. Retrieved Nov 21st 2013 from http://www.essay-911.com/essay-encyclopedia/examination.htm McCabe, D. L., & Pavela, G. R. (1997). Ten Principles of Academic Integrity. TheJournal of College and University Law, 24, 117-118. McCabe, D. L., Trevino, L. K., & Butterfield, K. D. (2001). Cheating in Academic Institutions: A decade of research. Ethics & Behavior, 11(3), 219-232. McCabe, D. (2005). Levels of Cheating and Plagiarism Remain High. Retrieved Nov 21st 2012 from The Center for Academic Integrity Website: http://www.academicintegrity.org/cai_ Nonis, S. & Swift, C. (2001). An Examination of the Relationship between Academic Dishonesty and the Worksplace: A Multicampus Investigation. Journal of Education for Business, 77(2), 69-77. Parmjit S, Roslind X.T., & Mohd Adlan R. Fit or Unfit? (2014). Perspectives of Employers and University Instructors of Graduates’ Generic Skills. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 123 (2014) 315 – 324. Retrieved on 21st 2014 from http://ac.els-cdn.com/ Paula, W. (2004). Academic Original Sin: Plagiarism, the Internet, and Librarians. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 30 (3), 237-242. Smith, M., Ghazali, N., & Siti Fatimah, N. (2007). Attitudes towards Plagiarism among Undergraduate Accounting Students: Malaysian Evidence. Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia. Retrieved 12th Oct 2012 from www.emeraldinsight.com/1321-7348.htm Slobogin, K. (2002). Survey: Many students say cheating’s OK. Retrieved Nov 1 st 2012 from http://archives.cnn.com/2002/fyi/teachers.ednews/04/05/highschool.cheating/index.html Willen, M. (2004). Reflections on the Cultural Climate of Plagiarism. Retrieved Oct 1st 2011 from http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-fa04/le-fa04myview.cfm Wilkinson, J. (2009). Staff and Student Perceptions of Plagiarism and Cheating. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Vol. 20, No. 2, 98-105, ISSN 1812-9129. Retrieved Oct 1st 2011 from http://www.isetl.org/ijthe/

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