Reasons for academic dishonesty during examinations among nursing students: Cross-sectional survey
Introduction
“Academic dishonesty”, along with “cheating” and “misconduct”, have been used for describing students' intentional participation in deceptive practices with regard to their academic activities (McCrink, 2010; Klocko, 2014). These practices can take place during laboratory or clinical training, assignment writing or course examinations (Arhin and Jones, 2009).
In Nursing, the significance of identifying and preventing academic dishonesty is twofold. First, ethical issues constitute an integral part of nursing education (McCrink, 2010) since nursing has been rated as the most honest profession (Saad, 2006). However, a continuous increase of cheating has been reported among nursing students (Balik et al., 2010; Macale et al., 2017), combined with a decrease in their perceived severity of dishonest behaviors (Farnese et al., 2011). As a result, high proportions of nursing students, similar or even higher to those of the general student population, have admitted that they or their peers engage in cheating (McCabe, 2009; Khalaila, 2015; Birks et al., 2018).
Second, academic dishonesty has been related with unethical professional practice, considering that cheating during studies is followed by manipulating clinical data in professional positions, such as recording patients' vital signs that were not taken or medicines that were never administered (LaDuke, 2013; Park et al., 2014; Macale et al., 2017). Moreover, students who cheat are expected to lack prerequisite knowledge and skills to practice with safety in clinical areas (Baxter and Boblin, 2007). Negative effects of academic dishonesty have also been speculated for students' relationships with their educators and peers, considering that mutual trust is impaired (Klocko, 2014).
Academic dishonesty is explained on the basis of moral development (Rest and Narvaez, 1994). To act morally, individuals consider possible implications of their actions for themselves and others. Then, they decide whether these actions are morally right and prioritize to act according to what is right rather than personally valuable. Finally, they act on the morally right plan of action. In this context, unethical behavior emerges when individuals are unable to challenge their own reasoning to develop morality.
Rationalization constitutes a key element for understanding how students incorporate academic dishonesty into their normal culture. During rationalization, unethical behavior is justified by constructing a seemingly rational reason to avoid the true one (Arvidson, 2004). This path from self-deception to justification and acceptability allows students to compromise their internal values while maintaining an outward image of integrity (Henning et al., 2014). Nursing students often rationalize cheating by perceiving it as commonplace, pleading time constraints, or shifting the blame to their educators (McCrink, 2010).
The way students perceive academic dishonesty may partly explain respective behaviors. Students may be confused about what constitutes cheating, since its various forms are often interpreted differently by educators and students (Macale et al., 2017; Smedley et al., 2015). Arhin and Jones (2009) reported that many students did not perceive accessing hidden notes during examinations as dishonest, but as “just using available resources”. Moreover, peers' behavior and societal values provide normative support for dishonest behaviors (Arhin and Jones, 2009; Farnese et al., 2011) and, since such behaviors become more common, students come to consider them as ethically acceptable (Macale et al., 2017). According to previous studies (Park et al., 2013; Krueger, 2014), perceived prevalence of cheating among peers significantly predicted students' cheating behavior. Alternatively, students may justify academic dishonesty by denying its negative effects on their educators, peers or patients (Baxter and Boblin, 2007; Henning et al., 2014).
The role of academic personnel is another determinant of students' dishonest behaviors. Faculty members are responsible for promoting students' moral development, maintaining high ethical standards, informing students about the consequences of being caught cheating, and minimizing opportunities for cheating, e.g. by ensuring sufficient number of proctors and using multiple test forms during examinations (Baxter and Boblin, 2007; Woith et al., 2012). In this context, academic personnel's disregard to promote integrity and take appropriate disciplinary actions for cheating are expected to favor dishonest behaviors, since students will not afford to be disadvantaged by those who cheat and remain unpunished (Woith et al., 2012).
Other reasons for academic dishonesty are related to students' perception of the examination process. Prevalence of cheating is positively associated with high demand disciplines, increased competition for high grades, and focus on perfection and success at any cost (Montuno et al., 2012; Woith et al., 2012). On the other hand, students less persistent in their tasks and those with low self-efficacy may decide to cheat due to fear of failure, especially in case this fear exceeds fear for disciplinary actions (Farnese et al., 2011; Henning et al., 2014). Possible additional reasons for cheating during examinations include students' excitement for violating rules, time constraints for studying and beliefs that what they learn is not professionally relevant, along with raters' non-realistic expectations and unfair evaluation methods (Arhin and Jones, 2009).
According to reports, male and junior students, as well as those with low grade point average exhibit deceitful behaviors more frequently than female (Kececi et al., 2011; Krueger, 2014) and senior ones (Bultas et al., 2017; Birks et al., 2018), and those with high grade point average (Abdulghani et al., 2018) respectively. These differences in the prevalence of academic dishonesty have been attributed to underlying factors, such as self-control and moral beliefs (Gibson et al., 2008), and possibly indicate that students with different characteristics may cheat for diverse reasons (Henning et al., 2014).
Determining appropriate strategies for preventing and substantially decreasing academic dishonesty behaviors renders necessary the understanding of why nursing students engage in such behaviors (Macale et al., 2017). Thus, the aims of this study were to (a) explore the prevalence of academic dishonesty behaviors during examinations by nursing students, (b) develop and validate a questionnaire for investigating nursing students' perceptions about the reasons they exhibit academic dishonesty during examinations, (c) identify the main perceived reasons for academic dishonesty during examinations, and (d) detect differences among these reasons according to students' gender, year of study and degree grade.
Section snippets
Design, Participants and Data Collection
This was a descriptive, cross-sectional survey conducted in the Nursing Department of the Western Greece University of Applied Sciences. Students from all four years of study were invited to participate, and a convenience sample was recruited. The investigators presented and explained study aims and methods to students. After study presentation, students willing to participate were gathered in a laboratory room (Laboratory of Pregraduate and Continuing Nursing Education) in groups and were
Data Extraction and Participants' Demographics
All registered students (1321 in total) were invited to participate; 660 questionnaires were completed and used for data analysis, corresponding to a response rate of 50.0%. In the second questionnaire section, unanswered items were rated as 3 (“unsure”). Most participants were female (566, 85.6%) and junior students (362, 54.8%), while their mean age was 21.8 ± 5.8 years. Participants' degree grades ranged between 6.56 and 9.05, and most of them had degree grade ≤ 7.4 (379, 57.4%).
Prevalence of Academic Dishonesty During Examinations
Discussion
This study was the first that investigated nursing students' perceptions about the reasons they exhibit academic dishonesty during examinations through the development of a structured questionnaire. Based on factor analysis, the questionnaire consisted of 17 items grouped into three factors. Moreover, this study confirmed previous reports (Khalaila, 2015; Birks et al., 2018) about the high prevalence of academic dishonesty among nursing students. Likewise, in agreement with previous findings (
Conclusions
The present study confirmed that the reasons for academic dishonesty during examinations, which is particularly common among nursing students, can be grouped into three factors. Study findings offered knowledge about which reasons are perceived by students to be the most important. These reasons were mainly grouped into the perception of academic personnel's role and the perception of the examination process, and their identification can guide preventive strategies. Differences among reasons
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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