Prevalence of Premeditated Academic Dishonesty at University Level. A Case Study

Academic dishonesty is a fundamental issue for the academic integrity in higher education institutions, and one that has lately been gaining increasing unwanted attention. This study reports on a survey of 128 students from a University in Selangor state of Malaysia on student academic misconduct and the efforts of institutions in curbing premeditated examination dishonesty. The aim of the survey was to determine the prevalence of academic misconduct, and to investigate the extent to which perceptions of dishonesty are shared between students and institutions, as preliminary steps toward developing effective IoT based strategies to deal with the academic dishonesty/misconduct problem. Results indicate a higher tolerance for academic misconduct by students in comparison to staff, particularly with respect to cheating in final examinations, as well as considerable underestimation by staff of the prevalence of virtually all forms of student academic misconduct. Overall, the study‟s findings confirm the fact that there are so many push factors towards academic dishonesty and also there is little done to prevent this phenomenon. The results also highlighted a certain level of ignorance towards the effects of cheating as well as less levels of awareness campaigns against cheating by institutions. The survey also suggests that students cheat because they know nothing serious comes with being caught cheating. The findings motivate the need for deterrent mechanisms to make it difficult for students to plan for cheating activities in examinations. Focus should shift from hunting cheaters to preventing cheating.