PurposeThis exploratory study aims, firstly, to analyse and categorise judgements on ethical behaviour and actual behaviour of university educators. Secondly, the study addresses the impact of demographic data, such as gender, age and role on these issues.Design/methodology/approachWe utilised online survey data from academic employees of four leading universities in Russia, who are involved in teaching activities. In this study, we used correlation, regression and factor analyses.FindingsOur results demonstrate that teaching, while too distressed to be effective, is a common experience among university educators. By contrast, the rarest categories include teaching under the influence of drugs or alcohol. In addition, there is a high congruence between beliefs and respective behaviours. Females are typically more ethical in both judgements and actual behaviour. Factor analysis of behaviours yielded 16 interpretable factors.Practical implicationsFirstly, the salary of the university educators should be adequate and competitive and match with their workload. Secondly, the work of the educators should be given recognition that may become their stimuli for improvement in university teaching. Thirdly, universities should develop ethics centres, which help faculty members and students to take the right decisions in situations involving questionable behaviour in the classroom. Lastly, the development of ethical codes, for faculty members and students, may become their guidance in situations with ethical dilemmas.Originality/valueThis study contributed to the very limited research on the ethical aspects of higher education in Russia.
This study presents a comprehensive analysis and classification of existing theoretical approaches for conceptualization of academic dishonesty that has helped to understand the reasons and socio-psychological mechanisms for dishonest behaviour. This paper also considers practical methods of how to combat student dishonesty that were proposed based on the results of empirical studies. According to the proposed methods, theories can be divided into two groups. The first group includes theories that provide preventing methods of student academic dishonesty for faculty members. The second group of theories provides ways for preventing academic cheating at the university level. Based on the systematization of theories, additional methods have been proposed to combat dishonest behavior, which can be useful for both teachers and researchers of academic dishonesty.
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