The relationship between academic dishonesty and ethical behavior in engineering practice

According to studies conducted over the past four decades, engineering students self-report high levels of academic dishonesty (cheating) while in college. Research on college students in all fields has indicated that such behavior is more common among students who participate in academic dishonesty at the high school level and that it is correlated with other deviant or unethical behaviors, such as petty theft and lying. If, in fact, such correlations do exist, one might hypothesize that there is also a relationship between academic dishonesty in college and deviant or unethical behavior in professional practice. Placing this relationship in the context of higher levels of academic dishonesty among engineering students only increases the seriousness of the problem for engineering educators, corporations and society. To examine this issue we have initiated a multi-university study on the attitudes, perceptions and behaviors of college-aged engineering students toward academic dishonesty and unethical professional behavior. A majority of the students in the sample work for a considerable period of time in an engineering setting during their college years, providing us with a unique opportunity to study the connection between academic dishonesty and professional behavior within the same sample of individuals. The survey used in this study asks questions about the respondent's decisions during opportunities to "cheat" in each of two contexts: college classrooms and work-place settings. In each case, respondents are asked to consider what opportunities to cheat presented themselves, whether they felt any pressure to cheat (or not to cheat), and ultimately what decision they made in this specific instance. The survey also asks respondents to report how frequently they have cheated in school or the work-place. Quantitative results are presented regarding the contexts within which students make decisions regarding temptations to cheat or violate work-place policies and whether or not they succumb to these temptations. Additionally, open-ended responses regarding the pressures and deterrents to deciding to cheat or violate work-place policies are discussed. These responses were grouped into themes by the authors and rank ordered according to number of responses for each theme. Comparison is made between both the nature and rank order of the themes found for both the classroom cheating case and work-place behavior case. Finally, common themes are examined in light of theories of planned behavior and moral development.