This document summarizes a presentation on academic honesty given by Laura Yoo at Howard Community College. The presentation discusses various forces that can influence student cheating such as poor time management, fear of failure, and peer pressure. It also notes that faculty perceptions of cheating rates and prevention efforts can impact student behavior. The presentation outlines Howard CC's academic honesty promotion project which included a student survey, faculty syllabus review, and resources created to strengthen honesty. It emphasizes an approach to academic work framed around honest and ethical use of information.

1. HONEST
WORK:
CAN WE
REALLY
EXPECT IT?
Laura Yoo
English and World Languages
Howard Community College
Lyoo@howardcc.edu
443-518-4281
Presented at
22nd AFACCT
At Montgomery College
January 6, 2012
9:00-10:10 am
Session 5.3

2. Agenda
• Discussion: What kinds of behavior do you
observe in class and out of class that may be
considered “less-than-honest” work?
• What driving forces are at work?
• Can we really influence student behavior?
• Strengthening academic honesty at HCC
• Information Literacy
• Discussion: What can we do?

3. Some of the forces behind cheating
• poor time management and planning skills
• lack of confidence
• “the thrill of rule breaking”
• “natural economizers”: “faced with too many
choices, they put off low priorities”
• BUT THIS IS STUFF WE KNOW…

4. Fear factor
“good grades make the difference between going to
medical school and being a janitor”
(qtd. in Callahan 29).

5. Another forces behind cheating
• Confusion
– Group work/projects
– Sharing information or sources
– Homework (“no big deal” assignments)
– Take-home quizzes/tests
– “Self-plagiarism”
– Use of online materials

6. Another force behind cheating
• the perceived goal of a college experience
learning building a solid
VERSUS
Okay
Less academic, person transcript that will to
likely to
cheat al, and get them to the next cheat
professional skills level

7. Another force behind cheating
• Contextual factors: McCabe, Trevino, and
Butterfield (2001)
– “contextual factors (peer cheating behavior, peer
disapproval of cheating behavior, and perceived
severity of penalties for cheating) were
significantly more influential than the individual
factors (age, gender, GPA, and participation in
extracurricular activities)” (222).

8. Hypothesis: “Social norms theory says
that people tend to maintain behavior
consistent with peer descriptive
norms, and that overestimating the
frequency that one's peers engage in a
behavior can lead to increases in that
Hard, behavior”
Conway, and
Moran
(2001)
Confirmed!

9. WHAT ABOUT FACULTY
PERCEPTION?
STUDENTS
FACULTY
“faculty beliefs about the frequency of student
academic misconduct were positively related to
two important faculty behaviors: prevention
efforts and efforts to challenge students
suspected of misconduct”
(Hard, Conway, and Moran)

10. WHAT ROLE DO
FACULTY PLAY IN
ALL THIS?

11. “Qualifying the Teacher”:
Philip Shon (2006)
 framing the professor as being unfair or difficult or
the course as impossible to pass
 “students ‘size up’ their teachers, testing their
vigilance, and establishing the behavior parameters
of permissible illicit action” (133).
 A student decides against cheating because the
professor was a department chair, who “would not
play any games” (Shon 133).
 Later this student does decide to cheat when he
realizes the professor is in a wheelchair which made
her less mobile in the classroom during exams.

12. “Qualifying the Teacher”:
Sandra Nadelson (2007)
• “Students reported that their propensity to
act in a dishonest manner was related to
instructors’ leniency and the perceived
probability of a faculty member’s acting on
observed misconduct” (2).

13. IT TAKES (AT LEAST) THREE TO TANGO
Students
Institution Faculty

14. Promotion Project: HCC (2008-2012)
• Survey students
• Review faculty syllabi
• Faculty development
– Report: Students survey and faculty syllabi
– Assignment design
• Resources for students and faculty (online)
• Future plans

15. Student Academic Honesty
Survey May 2010*
• 477 responses from
• English 087 (ESL developmental)
• English 097 (developmental)
• English 121 (College Comp I)
• English 122 (College Comp II)
* Some questions and statements were adapted from Kansas State University’s and Syracuse
University’s academic honesty surveys.

16. Academic Honesty Survey
Please read each statement carefully and mark the answer that best describe your opinion.
%Agree/Str Response
Answer Options
ongly Agree Count
1. Cheating is common at HCC. 12.9 481
2. Cheating is a serious problem at HCC. 16.4 481
3. Copying another student’s homework is cheating. 74.6 481
4. Using unpermitted notes or access to information during a quiz is cheating. 83.8 481
5. Using unpermitted notes or access to information during a test is cheating. 86.5 481
6. Using someone else’s ideas without proper citation (without naming the source) in 76.7 481
a paper is cheating.
69.2 481
7. Copying and pasting a few sentences from the internet into a paper is cheating.
8. If a student observes an incident of cheating by another student, he/she should 40.7 481
report it.
9. The faculty members at HCC seem to care about academic honesty. 81.9 481
10. The faculty members at HCC sometimes ignore cheating. 9.8 481
answered question 481
skipped question 0

17. Academic Honesty Survey
Read the following statements carefully and select the appropriate response. Since being a student at HCC,
have you ever …
%YES(On
3. More Response
Answer Options ce/More 2. Once
than once Count
than once)
11. copied someone else's homework? 35.6 105 65 477
12. allowed someone else to copy your homework? 47.6 131 96 477
13. bought a term paper from another individual? 4.2 15 5 477
14. bought a term paper from an internet source? 4.2 14 6 477
15. written a paper or a part of the paper for another student? 10.5 37 13 477
16. …copied material almost word for word from written source 15.5 55 19 477
(like a book or a website) and turned it in as your own work?
17. copied a few sentences from another source without citing 30.6 116 30 477
it(without naming the source)?
18. collaborated with another student for an assignment that was 39.4 101 87 477
not "group work"?
19. falsified or fabricated bibliography? 11.9 45 12 477
20. cheated on an exam by copying another student's answers? 11.1 38 15 477
21. cheated on an exam by using unpermitted notes or access to 9.6 31 15 477
information?
22. helped another student cheat on an exam? 11.9 40 17 477
23. cheated on a quiz by using unpermitted notes or access to 13.6 49 16 477
information?
24. helped another student cheat on a quiz? 13.6 43 22 477
25. reported an incident of cheating or plagiarizing? 7.8 27 10 477
answered question 477
skipped question 4

18. SYLLABI REVIEW:
FALL 2009
Full time Part time
faculty: 83 faculty: 94
syllabi from syllabi from
7 divisions 7 divisions

19. Full Time Faculty Syllabi
(83 syllabi from Fall 2009)
No
mention
Explains
26% (22)
41% (34)
Refer to
Handbook
33% (27)

20. Part-time Faculty Syllabi
(94 syllabi from Fall 2009)
Explains No mention
36% (34) 44% (41)
Refer to
Handbook
20% (19)

21. www.howardcc.edu/academichonesty

22. Guiding Principle:
“Honest Work” (Charles Lipson)
• “When you say you did the work yourself, you
actually did it.
• When you rely on someone else’s work, you
cite it.
• When you use their words, you quote them
openly and accurately and you cite them, too.
• When you present research materials, you
present them fairly and truthfully.”

23. Information Literacy
• Knowledge: What information do I need?
• Access: How can I get the information I need?
• Evaluation: Is my information
valid, current, and reliable?
• Use: How do I use this information to solve my
problem?
• Honesty: Am I using this information legally
and ethically?

24. Works Cited
Callahan, David. “On Campus: Author Discusses the ‘Cheating Culture’.” Plagiary 1.4 (2006): 25-32. Web. 12
Aug. 2007.
Hard, Stephen F., James M. Conway, Antonia C. Moran. “Faculty and College student beliefs about the
frequency of student academic misconduct.” Journal of Higher Education 77.9 (Nov-Dec 2006): 1058 (23).
Academic OneFile. Web. 12 May 2009.
Harris, Robert. “Anti-Plagiarism Strategies for Research Papers.” Virtual Salt. 27 Jul. 2005. Web. 1 Aug. 2007.
Lipson, Charles. Doing Honest Work in College. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
McCabe, Donald L., Linda Klebe Trevino, and Kenneth D. Butterfield. “Cheating in Academic Institutions: A
Decade of Research.” Ethics and Behavior 11.3 (2001): 219-232. Academic OneFile. Web. 12 May 2009.
Nadelson, Sandra. “Academic Misconduct by University Students: Faculty Perceptions and Responses.”
Plagiary 2.1 (2007): 1-10. Web. 12 Aug. 2007.
Shon, Phillip C. “How College Students Cheat On In-Class Examinations: Creativity, Strain, and Techniques of
Innovation.” Plagiary 1.10 (2006): 130-148. Web. 12 Aug. 2007.