Faculty Observables and Self-Reported Responsiveness to Academic Dishonesty
Presentation
Overview
Overview
Description
In the academic honesty literature there are several strands of research on how to reduce academic dishonesty; this paper takes a slightly different approach. Our research is based on a survey of faculty prior to a revision of the academic honesty policy at a large state institution in the southeast. The study uses characteristics observable to students and administrators to explain how strict faculty members are and how likely they are to detect and punish cheating. If students are maximizing a welfare function based on both certainty and severity of punishment, university wide data may be too broad as the students are most likely differentiating at the faculty level. This paper is the first to identify which characteristics dishonest students may be using to make decisions about which courses to take as well as examining how these signals changed following the revision. We find that while untenured faculty members and with longer employment at the institution were more likely to self-report themselves as being vigilant and giving harsh penalties when it comes to academic dishonesty, the value of those signals faded following the administrative push to revise the university’s honor code.
