Level of Awareness of the Havoc and Consequences of Academic Dishonesty among College of Education Students in Nigeria

Luka Tambaya¹, Magdalene Victor² and Victor Markus^{3, 4,}

¹Department of Social Studies, Kaduna State College of Education, Gidan Waya PMB 1024 Kafanchan, Kaduna State, Nigeria

²Department of Visual Communication Design, Cyprus International University, 99258 Nicosia, North Cyprus

³Department of Medical Biochemistry, Near East University, 99138 Nicosia, North Cyprus

⁴Avram and Stella Goldstein-Goren Department of Biotechnology Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653, Be’er Sheva 8410501, Israel

Cite this paper:
Luka Tambaya, Magdalene Victor and Victor Markus. Level of Awareness of the Havoc and Consequences of Academic Dishonesty among College of Education Students in Nigeria. American Journal of Educational Research. 2020; 8(3):168-172. doi: 10.12691/education-8-3-7

Abstract

It is expected that students from Colleges of Education will lead learning for the next generation. For this reason, any unchecked dishonest behavior in these students may have far-reaching consequences. This study assesses the awareness of the havoc and consequences of Academic Dishonesty (AD) among students of Federal College of Education Zaria Nigeria. The students were administered valid questionnaires using purposive sampling technique and the data collected was analyzed by relevant statistics tools. Overall, the results indicated that Students’ Poor Awareness of the Havoc and Consequences of AD (SPAHCAD) significantly (p<0.05) predict AD. The findings in this study corroborate Becker’s Crime Theory and suggest that improving students’ awareness of institutional policies, serving severe penalties to defaulters and reviving interest in honor codes could better bring down the menace of unethical academic behaviors in our schools.

Keywords:
academic dishonesty Becker’s crime theory colleges of education awareness Nigeria

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References:

[1]	Haladyna, M.T. and Amrein-Beardsley, A, “Validation of a research-based student survey of instruction in a college of education,” Educational Assessment Evaluation and Accountability, 21(3). 255-276. August 2009.
[2]	Aldhafeeri, F. and Male, T, “Investigating the learning challenges presented by digital technologies to the College of Education in Kuwait University,” Education and Information Technologies, 21. 1509-1519. 2016.
[3]	Bayaa M.S.B.S., Ablordeppey, E., Mensah3 J.N. and Karikari, K.T, “Academic dishonesty in higher education: students’ perceptions and involvement in an African institution,” BMC Research Notes, 9. 234. April 2016.
[4]	Nonis, S. and Swift, C.O, “An examination of the relationship between academic dishonesty and workplace dishonesty: A multicampus investigation,” Journal of Education for Business, 77. 69-77. March 2010.
[5]	LaDuke, R.D, “Academic dishonesty today, unethical practices tomorrow?’ Journal of Professional Nursing, 29 (6). 402-406. November 2013.
[6]	Bunn, D., Caudill, S. and Cropper, D, “Crime in the classroom: An economic analysis of undergraduate student cheating behavior,” Journal of Economic Education, 23. 197-207. 1992.
[7]	Kerkvliet, J, “Cheating by economics students: A comparison of survey results”, Journal of Economic Education, 25, 121-33. 1994.
[8]	Nowell, C., and Laufer, D, “Undergraduate Student Cheating in the fields of Business and Economics,” The Journal of Economic Education 28(1). 3-12. 1997.
[9]	Kerkvliet, J. and Sigmund L.C, “Can We Control Cheating in the Classroom?” The Journal of Economic Education 30 (4). 331-343. Fall 1999.
[10]	Becker, G, “Crime and punishment: An economic approach,” Journal of Political Economy, 76 (2). 168-217. March -April 1968.
[11]	McCabe, D. L. and Trevino, L. K, “What We Know About Cheating In College Longitudinal Trends and Recent Developments,” Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 28(1). 28-33. 1996.
[12]	Brown, D. L, “Cheating Must Be Okay-Everybody Does It!” Nurse Educator, 27(1). 6-8. January-February 2002.
[13]	Ryan, G., Bonanno, H., Krass, I., Scouller, K. and Smith, L, “Undergraduate and postgraduate pharmacy students’ perceptions of plagiarism and academic,” American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 73 (6). 105. October 2009.
[14]	Jordan, E.A, “College Student Cheating: The Role of Motivation, Perceived Norms, Attitudes, and Knowledge of Institutional Policy,” Ethics & Behavior, 11(3). 233-247. 2001.
[15]	Henning, A.M., Malpas, P., Manalo, E., Ram, S., Vijayakumar, V. and Hawken, J.S, “Ethical Learning Experiences and Engagement in Academic Dishonesty: A Study of Asian and European Pharmacy and Medical Students in New Zealand,” Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 24(1). 201-209. March 2015.
[16]	Hilbert, G. A, “Involvement of nursing students in unethical classroom and clinical behaviors’, Journal of Professional Nursing,” 1 (4). 230-234. 1985.
[17]	Newstead, S. E., Franklyn-Stokes, A. and Armstead, P. “Individual differences in student cheating,” Journal of Educational Psychology, 88(2). 229-241. June 1996.
[18]	Theart, C.J. and Smit, I, “The status of academic integrity amongst nursing students at a nursing education institution in the Western Cape,” Curationis, 35(1). 27. June 2012.
[19]	Birks, M., Smithson, J., Antney, J., Zhao, L., Burkot, C, “Exploring the paradox: A cross-sectional study of academic dishonesty among Australian nursing students,” Nurse Education Today. 65, 96-101. June 2018.
[20]	Ismail H. K, “Perceptions of Plagiarism among Medical and Nursing Students in Erbil, Iraq,” Sultan Qaboos University Med J , 18 (2). 196-201. May 2018.
[21]	McClung, L.E. and Schneider, K.J, “Dishonest Behavior in the Classroom and Clinical Setting: Perceptions and Engagement,” Journal of Nursing Education, 57 (2). 79-86. February 2018.
[22]	Emmerton, L., Jiang, H. and McKauge, L. “Pharmacy Students’ Interpretation of Academic Integrity,” American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 78(6). 119. August 2014.
[23]	Kaiser, H. F, “An index of factorial simplicity,” Psychometrika, 39(1). 31-36. 1974.
[24]	MacCallum, R. C., Widaman, K. F., Zhang, S. and Hong, S, “Sample size in factor analysis” Psychological Methods, 4(1). 84-99. 1999.
[25]	Yong, A. G., and Pearce, S, “A Beginner’s Guide to Factor Analysis: Focusing on Exploratory Factor Analysis,” Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology 9 (2), 79-94. 2013.
[26]	Hilbert, G.A. “Academic fraud: prevalence, practices, and reasons,” Journal of Professional Nursing, 3: 39-45. 1987.
[27]	Bultas, M. W., Schmuke, A. D., Davis, R. L. and Palmer, J. L, “Crossing the “line”: college students and academic integrity in nursing,” Nurse Education Today, 56. 57-62. September 2017.
[28]	Thomas, A. and Zyl, A.V, “Understanding of and attitudes to academic ethics among first year university students,” African Journal of Business Ethics, 6(2). 143. May-August 2012.
[29]	Devine A.C. and Chin, D.E, “Integrity in nursing students: A concept analysis,” Nurse Education Today, 60, 133-138. January 2018.
[30]	Sekaran, U, Research Methods for Business: A Skill Building Approach, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 2003.
[31]	Roig, M, “Ethical writing should be taught,” British Medical Journal, 333 (7568). 596-597. September 2006.
[32]	Okonta, P. and Rossouw, T, “Prevalence of scientific misconduct among a group of researchers in Nigeria,” Developing World Bioethics 13(3), 149-57. December 2013.
[33]	Orim, S.M. “Perspectives of Academic Integrity from Nigeria,” In: Bretag T. (eds) Handbook of Academic Integrity. Springer, Singapore, 2015.
[34]	McCabe, D.L., Treviño, L.K. and Butterfield, K.D, “Honor Codes and Other Contextual Influences on Academic Integrity: A Replication and Extension to Modified Honor Code Settings” Research in Higher Education, 43. 357-378. June 2002.