Design assessments that maximize integrity while being inclusive, authentic and able to measure students’ achievement of the intended learning outcomes.
Reasons students commit academic misconduct
As you're planning assessments in your course, consider the main reasons students engage in misconduct:
"Pressure
Academic and other pressures on students work against the goal of fostering academic integrity. Pressure can come from real or perceived requirements to pass or to achieve high grades. These pressures can be internal (from the student) or external (e.g., from maintaining scholarship or visa requirements; from meeting requirements for entrance to programs or co-op; or from satisfying parents). Pressure can also come from peers, such as in requests for help or following along with what others are doing. In many cases, pressure may cause students to behave in ways they would not otherwise (i.e., “panic cheating”), and issues of pressure are exacerbated as student stress increases and wellbeing diminishes.
"Opportunity
Opportunity refers to making academic integrity the easy choice for students, in light of all of the pressures they are facing. Relatively speaking, this means seeking ways to make engaging in academically dishonest behaviours more difficult than engaging in honest ones. Practically this is done through the presence or barriers to misconduct and mechanisms to detect and address misconduct if it happens.
"Rationalization
Rationalization is shown as the foundation to the triad above as it is also the foundation to academic integrity. Rationalization refers to ensuring students both understand and value academic integrity such that they choose a path of integrity even when pressures are high and barriers to academic misconduct are not present. Rationalizing academic integrity becomes easier for a student when they have clear guidance in terms of what behaviours are acceptable and expected, and when they perceived that violations of academic integrity are taken seriously and dealt with appropriately. A perception that other students are engaging in and getting away with dishonest behaviours makes it more difficult to rationalize integrity. In many ways, the key element of rationalization comes down to a student being able to make a choice that the risks and costs (both personal and external) are not worth any potential rewards of dishonest behaviour.
"The absence of any one of the three elements of the Academic Integrity Triad (i.e., there was high pressure on students, students had the opportunity to cheat without being caught, or students were able to rationalize cheating) has led to a statistically significant increase in cheating behaviours (Choo and Tan, 2008). They also found interaction effects: from a baseline propensity to cheat of approximately 20%, when none of the three elements were addressed, this climbed to 33%. When all of the elements were addressed (i.e., measures were taken to reduce pressure, opportunity, and the ability to rationalize cheating), the likelihood of cheating dropped to 8%."
Source: A misconduct framework, University of British Columbia, Assessment Guidebook, 2022, blogs.ubc.ca/assessmentguidebook/academic-integrity/the-fraud-model/.
Detecting and addressing misconduct
There are a number of ways to detect misconduct:
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The work may be very similar to already published work. You can use Ouriginal in Brightspace to check students’ work.
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Two students may submit similarly unusual answers to a question.
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You may see students copying each other. If so, try to have a second person observe the situation, as well.
If you detect misconduct, see Regulation 14 for the procedure to follow.
Your efforts matter!
Share your work and have it recognized:
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Let us know how you're helping improve academic integrity in your courses. We'd love to share your work (with appropriate credit).
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Gather your work in a teaching dossier (scroll down the page), approved by the Senate for use in tenure and promotion.
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Get involved! Become a reviewer for material on academic integrity or give a presentation about discussing academic integrity in your courses.