https://academicintegrity.org/2020-annual-conference-icai/
This Saturday, I am presenting a session with Rick Robinson at the 2020 International Conference for the International Center for Academic Integrity. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to travel to Portland, Oregon to be there in person.
Problem: Academic integrity is a major concern in Canadian postsecondary environments. Estimates suggest that 50% of undergraduate students commit some form of academic misconduct, 70,000 postsecondary students in Canada may engage in contract cheating, but academic integrity remains both under-reported and under-researched (Eaton, 2020).
Research question: What does the MHC faculty experience entail and feel like when faculty choose to formally report academic integrity violations?
Aims and objectives: The purpose in discussing the formal reporting involves the time, energy, and effort required to take formal, rather than informal action. The reason for including only faculty who have formally reported academic integrity violations is because we want to study the group of faculty who have taken this issue so seriously that they add burden to their work, risk formal legal action, retaliation from students, and engage with official policy responses that may be perceived to be too harsh or too lenient with learners (Stowe, 2017). Formal reporting involves a public (formal) rather than a private (informal) resolution that involves other college departments and processes in the college. This involves a higher level of seriousness and the interaction with bureaucratic process.
By all accounts, academic integrity violations are commonplace, and advancements in technology enable students to cheat more easily than ever before.
Faculty who choose to address student violations of academic integrity voluntarily add misery and emotional labour to their life, which explains why few faculty take action against it (Thomas & De Bruin, 2012). Dealing with academic integrity violations invokes Bob Dylan’s famous question, “How does it feel?” The psychological discomfort, bureaucracy, leadership support (or perceived lack of), and the work overload involved in enforcing academic integrity policies (when many other faculty frequently look the other way) often feels awful (Biswas, 2015). The range of emotions that instructors feel when students violate academic integrity policies is vast, and it is important to acknowledge the faculty experience and give them the chance to voice their emotions to show their experiences are valued, and so that the teaching and learning community can develop the appropriate supports.
To better understand the faculty experience of formally reporting academic integrity violations, the researchers plan to interview a purposive, homogenous sample of faculty at a small community college who chose to report academic integrity violations to protect the quality and reputation of their academic programs. A small, purposive, homogenous sample is necessary so that themes can be realized from certain groups of people who have shared particular experiences.
These faculty experiences should shed a deeper understanding of the personal and institutional barriers that may discourage faculty from taking action to address violations of academic integrity, and the structural supports that need to be in place when faculty choose to report academic integrity violations.