Relationship Between Academic Integrity And Writing

Elsevier

Current Research in Behavioral Sciences

Under a Creative Commons license

open access

Highlights

•: The relationship between culture and academic integrity: It cannot be ignored that a body of studies argued the impact of cultural factors on academic dishonesty incidents (Maxwell, et al., Ayyash-Abdo, 2001, Martin, 2012, Razek, McCabe, et al., 2008, 2014, Rawwas, et al., 2004). Nonetheless, also, Current work considers that, that the impact of cultural constituents on students and researchers is not involuntary, but it is more allied to dual factors: First is the individual's awareness of these cultural constituents, whenever the researcher and student are aware of the culture to which they belong, they can reduce this effect. This awareness includes, on the one hand, the elements of this culture, and on the other, mechanisms of culture impact on researchers. Therefore, the researchers' critical thinking about their culture should, also, be studied in this aspect, and how they can employ it to avoid the impact of their culture on their academic productions, at least, in terms of academic integrity standards. In any case, culture is linked to the components of the ecosystem surrounding a researcher, and from this perspective, culture affects the originality of intellectual production of the researcher (ALAJAMI, 2020).
•: Cultural effects on academic dishonesty are intricate and conditioned. International students are influenced by the host culture, the length of their sojourn in the country, the values of academic integrity, practices within the institution, their studies, and the degree of their adaptation to the academic integrity policies of the host university (Gu & Brooks, 2008).
•: Ways to address cases of academic integrity lack: This paper consider that, it is better to differentiate cases from situations in which acts of academic dishonesty are committed before deciding on an appropriate punishment in accordance with academically dishonest conditions and circumstances. It can also be concluded that, there are two approaches to handle cases of academic dishonesty. First, a punitive approach: the logic of sanctions is used to deal with academic misconduct. Second: educational approach: it addresses incidents of academic dishonesty through capacity building and skill promoting. Adopting these two approaches should accord with the circumstances, severity, repetition, and the drives behind committing such act. In any case, the rigid or exaggerated application of the punitive approach may not always be helpful. Some faculty members might not report some cases of academic dishonesty because they are concerned about the consequences that students may face (Pincus & Schmelkin, 2003). Hence, it is preferred to adopt the two approaches, the punitive approach and the educational one. So, dealing with incidents of academic integrity should be done with regard to developing academic integrity practices.

Abstract

Academic integrity can be considered a form of social contract among academic community members. Thus, it occupies a prominent position in any research project. However, there has not been, so far, a standard definition for this term on which a student or researcher can rely. In addition, having been associated with some cultural variables and individual differences makes it, generally and from an academic perspective, difficult to define. Consequently, how to handle or cope with violations of academic integrity has become more complex. Therefore, ethical thinking skills will be discussed in this paper by reviewing some aspects and significant facets of academic integrity, determining the cultural effect on it, and suggesting two approaches to how to deal with cases of academic dishonesty. These approaches are: the punitive approach, and the educational one.

Keywords

Academic integrity

Plagiarism

Academic dishonesty

Cultural differences

Individual differences