J Acad Ethics (2014) 12:29–41 DOI 10.1007/s10805-013-9198-3
Ethical Beliefs Toward Academic Dishonesty: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Undergraduate Students in Ukraine and the United States Mariya A. Yukhymenko-Lescroart
Published online: 14 November 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract Little work has been done on beliefs toward academic misconduct in Ukraine. This study explored the beliefs of Ukrainian students toward various forms of academic misconduct and compared the results to the U.S. undergraduate students (N=270). Twenty-two forms of cheating, plagiarism, and questionable academic behaviors were grouped in five categories: unilateral cheating, collective cheating, falsification gaining favoritism, and performing extra work to receive better grades. Cross-cultural comparisons of beliefs were pivotal in this study. Results indicated that, in general, Ukrainian students are less likely to believe that academic misconduct is wrong compared to their U.S. counterparts, as well as seem to have different beliefs on what is and isn’t academic misconduct. Recommendations are proposed to help students change their beliefs and to reduce academic dishonesty. These recommendations also have application purposes outside of Ukraine. Keywords Academic misconduct . Beliefs . Cheating . Cross-cultural study . Plagiarism
Introduction International education provides educational, cultural, and professional opportunities for a number of students worldwide. According to the Project Atlas and the Open Doors reports of the Institute of International Education (2012a, b), over 4.1 million students studied abroad worldwide in 2010, a 10.8 % increase over the previous year. The U.S. has been the major host destination of globally mobile students for the past decade, hosting 19 % of all worldwide international students in the 2011–2012 academic year. During the previous academic year, the total number of international student enrollment in the U.S. increased 6 % to a record high of 764,495 students, of which new international students comprised 30 %. For the first time since M. A. Yukhymenko-Lescroart Department of Educational Psychology, University of Connecticut, 249 Glenbrook Rd., Storrs, CT 06269, USA Present Address: M. A. Yukhymenko-Lescroart (*) Learning Sciences Research Institute, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1240 W. Harrison St., Chicago, IL 60607, USA e-mail:
[email protected]
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the 2000–2001 academic year, international undergraduate students outnumbered international graduate students in 2011–2012. Likewise, the number of U.S. students studying abroad has reached almost 274,000 students and has more than tripled over the past two decades. While international education is crucial to strengthening economics and societies both in the United States and around the world, the academic integrity of students is vital to the continued growth of the international academic exchange. However, research has shown that academic misconduct is widespread among undergraduate students around the globe (see Crown and Spiller 1998; Ercegovac and Richardson 2004; Whitley 1998 for reviews). For example, a review by Whitley (1998) of 107 studies on the prevalence of cheating among U.S. and Canadian college students revealed a mean of 70.4 % students admitting to academic dishonesty. The rates of academic dishonesty are even higher among students outside North America (see McCabe et al. 2008 for a review). Identifying the differences in beliefs between cultures on the different forms of academic dishonesty is important for preserving academic integrity among international students. Academic behaviors that are viewed as dishonest in one cultural context may be appropriate in another. Understanding how students think about, and their attitudes toward, academic dishonesty could help to reduce the incidence of academic dishonesty. Cross-cultural comparisons of beliefs toward various forms of academic dishonesty may reveal important similarities and differences that have serious implications for educators and administrators in today’s globalized world. Compared to research on academic misconduct in other countries, previous research among Ukrainian college students has been limited: only two such studies were found that examined and compared academic cheating behaviors and beliefs of students in Ukraine and the U.S. (Grimes 2004; Stephens et al. 2010). Grimes (2004), examined students’ perceptions and attitudes toward dishonesty in academic and business contexts in U.S. and eight countries of Eastern Europe and former Soviet Republics in Central Asia. The results showed immense differences of students’ reported observations, self-reported incidences, and perceptions of academic dishonesty across U.S. and Ukrainian students. While the vast majority of students in both cultures reported that they observed academic cheating at least once during their college experience (83.7 % of U.S. students and 93.7 % of Ukrainian students), there were striking differences in the prevalence of observed cheating. Roughly three in 20 U.S. students reported that they observed cheating more than ten times (15.4 %), compared to 17 in 20 Ukrainian students (85.5 %). With regards to self-reported cheating, more Ukrainian students indicated that they have cheated (89.6 %), were asked to cheat (92.1 %), and would assist cheating (81.2 %) than U.S. students (50.2 %, 60.7 %, and 32.5 %, respectively). These numbers indicate that cheating is a much more common activity in Ukrainian college classrooms, but is somewhat less pronounced in the U.S. sample. Finally, a striking difference across the two nations appeared in the student responses to questions concerning whether academic cheating is ethical. While the majority of U.S. students (85.4 %) believed that cheating was ethically wrong, only 3.5 % of Ukrainian students agreed. Stephens et al. (2010) obtained similar results in a comparative study of U.S. and Ukrainian undergraduates. The authors focused on students’ self-reported beliefs and behaviors related to six “academic behaviors,” which were grouped in three categories, particularly, homework cheating (copying from another student and unpermitted collaboration), plagiarism (conventional and digital), and test cheating (copying from another student and using unpermitted notes). Stephens et al. reported slightly higher numbers of students than Grimes (2004). Specifically, the majority of U.S. (65.6 %) and almost all Ukrainian undergraduate students (97.4 %) admitted to engaging in one or more behaviors of academic misconduct at least once during the previous year. With regards to engaging in specific behaviors, percentages ranged
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from 11.1 % (using unpermitted notes during a test) to 50.3 % (unpermitted collaboration during homework) for the U.S. subsample and from 57.4 % (conventional plagiarism: from a printed book or journal) to 83.0 % (unpermitted collaboration) for the Ukrainian subsample. Students differed on their beliefs as well. Overall, almost all U.S. students (98.4 % overall, range 32.1 % to 92.6 %) reported that they believed these behaviors were wrong, with the most wrong behaviors being test cheating (copying from another student, using unpermitted notes), followed by plagiarism (conventional, digital) and homework cheating (copying from another student, using unpermitted collaboration). However, fewer Ukrainian students (67.7 % overall, range 20.1 % to 48.8 %) reported that they believed these behaviors were wrong. Ukrainian students reported that copying from another student (whether it is during a test or for homework) is the most wrong, followed by using unpermitted notes during a test, plagiarism (conventional, digital), and unpermitted collaboration during homework. In a related cross-cultural research, several studies were found that explored students’ beliefs toward academic dishonesty comparing U.S. students with Eastern European students (Grimes 2004; Lupton et al. 2000; Lupton and Chapman 2002; Magnus et al. 2002). Lupton and colleagues compared U.S. students to Polish (Lupton et al. 2000) and Russian students (Lupton and Chapman 2002). In both studies, students from Eastern European countries were more likely than U.S. students to believe that most students cheat on exams and out of class assignments, that cheating on one exam is not so bad, and that it is OK to tell someone in a later section about an exam just completed. A study by Grimes (2004) indicated that compared to students in the U.S., students in Albania, Belarus, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia were less likely to indicate that academic dishonesty is ethically wrong. Magnus et al. (2002) investigated students’ attitudes about a cheating situation among students in the U.S., Russia (separating students from Moscow, the capital, and provincial Russia), Israel, and the Netherland. Compared to the U.S. counterparts, undergraduate students from Moscow and provincial Russia reported less negative attitude toward a student who copied answers from another student during an exam and more negative attitude toward a student who reported this incident to department office. Additionally, U.S. undergraduates had negative attitude toward the other student who consented another student to copy answers from oneself during an exam, whereas Russian undergraduates from both Moscow and provinces had positive attitude toward the student. Additionally, Magnus et al. found that the attitude of U.S. students toward cheating depend on the level of education (high school, undergraduate, postgraduate) with inverse relationship. However, this was not the case for Russian students: they had the same tolerance disregarding the level of education. Finally, Payan et al. (2010) explored students’ perception of cheating without the cooperation of others (unilateral cheating), freeriding (collaborative cheating), and requesting for an extension with false information (delaying) in 13 countries, including Croatia, Russia, Lithuania, Slovenia, and the U.S. Except for students from Lithuania, standardized factor scores for unilateral, collaborative and delaying behaviors were lower for Eastern European students than their U.S. counterparts. The Present Study Previous research has suggested that holding positive attitudes toward academic cheating is one of the strongest correlates of cheating (e.g., Franklyn-Stokes and Newstead 1995; Grimes 2004; Lim and See 2001; Whitley 1998). In line with this research, studies by Grimes (2004) and Stephens et al. (2010) showed that fewer Ukrainian students believed that academic cheating is wrong and reported engaging in behaviors of academic dishonesty more frequently when compared to U.S. counterparts. While Grimes asked students to indicate their general belief toward broad academic cheating, Stephens et al. explored cross-cultural differences
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based on the six behaviors and found that students’ beliefs differed not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively: students reported different behaviors as the most wrong behaviors. Related cross-cultural studies investigating attitudes of U.S. and Eastern European students toward cheating also showed that there are differences in students’ perception of cheating across cultures. Thus, there is a need to further investigate the beliefs of students in the two cultures by focusing on a wider range of academic behaviors. The purpose of this study was to explore the potentially different sets of norms related to beliefs toward academic dishonest behaviors amongst undergraduate students from the U.S. and Ukraine. Specifically, this study aimed at addressing two questions: What behaviors related to academic dishonesty do the majority of U.S. and Ukrainian undergraduate students believe to be wrong? Furthermore, are there differences between U.S. and Ukrainian undergraduate students in terms of their beliefs toward academic dishonesty? Based on the research outlined above, it was hypothesized that U.S. students will be more likely to indicate that various forms of academic dishonesty are wrong than their Ukrainian counterparts. Furthermore, these differences will be statistically significant.
Study Design Questionnaire A survey instrument was used to collect a variety of data from each student sampled. The first part consisted of 22 statements asking about students’ personal beliefs related to dishonest academic behaviors. Students ranked each statement with respect to their perception of wrongness associated with each statement on a five-point Likert scale, with one presented as “strongly believe that it is wrong” and five presented as “strongly believe that it is not wrong.” The statements were adopted from Rawwas et al. (2007), comprising only one part of the subset of items to the total survey used by the authors. The original instrument was used before with undergraduate students in and outside the U.S., particularly China and Hong Kong (Rawwas et al. 2004, 2007). The second part collected basic demographic information that consisted of gender, academic year, and typical grades. For the Ukrainian subsample, the survey instrument was translated into and administered in Ukrainian, the native language of the students. In both cultures, students completed the survey in a paper-based format during a class period. Given the nature of the survey questions, students were guaranteed that their responses are anonymous and voluntary. After reading the consent agreement in front of the whole class in the native language of students, each student received a copy of an information sheet with details about the study and the survey questions. Once students completed the surveys, they personally put the surveys in the envelope. Only the researcher oversaw the administration and collection of the surveys. Instructors of the classes were not present during the data collection, and the results of the survey were not shared with them. The Sample In both countries, all students completed and returned the survey. Five invalid surveys were eliminated due to incompleteness, and the effective sample for the study included 270 undergraduate students from the U.S. and Ukraine. Out of this sample, 174 students were from northeastern Ukraine and 96 students were from the northeastern U.S. A brief demographic profile of the students is presented in Table 1. Gender distribution in the two subsamples was matching. Participants from Ukraine were, on average, 1 year younger with
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Table 1 Profile of students by culture Demographic characteristic
Age
United States (n=96)
Ukraine (n=174)
M (SD)
20.20 (1.39)
19.13 (1.25)
Range
18–29
16–22
Gender
Percent male
17.71 %
17.34 %
School year
Freshman (1st)
6.25 %
26.44 %
Sophomore (2nd) Junior (3rd)
17.71 % 55.21 %
6.90 % 29.89 %
Senior (4th)
20.83 %
36.78 %
Mostly As
28.13 %
9.41 %
Mostly As and Bs
51.04 %
42.94 %
Mostly Bs
15.63 %
14.12 %
Mostly Bs and Cs
5.21 %
31.76 %
Mostly Cs and below
0.00 %
1.76 %
Typical grades
For Ukrainian sample, typical grades were: A=5 “excellent;” B=4 “good;” C=3 “satisfactory;” and D=2 “unsatisfactory”
the age range narrower than the U.S. subsample. This is primarily an artifact of the different educational systems. In Ukraine, this cohort of students attended primary school for 10 years, being 16 to18 years old upon graduation. Typically, Ukrainian students enter postsecondary education immediately after graduation from high school, encountering a 1-year delay on rare occasions. At the time of the survey administration, the university in Ukraine used a traditional 5-point scale: 5 (excellent), 4 (good), 3 (satisfactory), and 2 (unsatisfactory). The grades 3 through 5 can be described as “passed,” and the grade 2 as “failed.” In this study, A was equivalent to 5, B– to 4, and C– to 3 for the convenience of comparing the subsamples.
Results Preliminary Analysis Items were grouped in five categories and included (a) unilateral cheating behaviors (e.g., using answers of other students without their knowledge, using unpermitted notes during a test), (b) collaborative cheating (e.g., comparing homework assignment with classmates, receiving or communicating information about a test), (c) fabrication of information (e.g., using a faked illness as an excuse, having someone else to take a test for you), (d) gaining favoritism without doing academic work (e.g., brown-nosing the instructor, receiving a higher grade through familial or personal connections); and (e) receiving or improving one’s grade by doing additional work (e.g., attending commercial courses, visiting a professor’s office frequently). A preliminary analysis on items by country indicated that missing data ranged from 0 % to 3.1 % for the U.S. subsample, and from 0 % to 2.3 % for Ukrainian subsample. Next, items were examined with regards to the standardized values for skewness
