An examination of factors and attitudes that influence reporting fraudulent claims in an academic environment

Abstract

The study examined potential factors and attitudes associated with providing fraudulent academic claims. A total of 319 students completed an online survey which involved reading a vignette about an incomplete assignment. Participants reported whether they would contact their instructor to gain an extension, expressed their confidence in the believability of reasons for not completing an assignment, and answered questions about their attitudes toward academic excuse making. The results indicated that academic consequences of failing to turn in an assignment and communication medium did not affect the rate at which participants reported claims. Participants most commonly reported family emergency as a reason, and expressed higher confidence that the instructor would believe this reason if they or a classmate reported it. Furthermore, a survey about attitudes toward academic excuse making suggested that the belief that academic excuse making is not really a form of deception was associated with a greater likelihood of reporting a fraudulent claim, and that those who preferred email communication tended to endorse survey items that conveyed the ease of reporting academic excuses via email.

The Unbearable Lightness of Academic Fraud: Portuguese Higher Education Students’ Perceptions

“…According to these students, individuals have a blank slate when they move from one context to another and do not negatively judge colleagues who have achieved academic success through fraudulent behaviour. They tend to devalue fraudulent behaviour, a trend also identified in several studies [13,16,18,19,22,24,26,39]. Others make it clear that they would not trust some colleagues in a professional environment if they knew of their academic practices.…”

“…The diversity of nomenclatures and taxonomies will not make it easy for educational agents to identify clearly which fraudulent practices they should avoid and which behaviour they should prioritise, incorporating behaviour that respects academic integrity. The analysis of perceptions of academic fraud has therefore received attention from researchers [18,[22][23][24][25][26].…”

“…This can be related to peer pressure to adopt bad behaviour and the fact they may look bad if they do not do so, as everyone does [22]. Whether it is due to agreeing to enter the fraud game, not falling behind, or for other reasons, not all students see fraud as negative behaviour [13,16,18,19,24,26] or as a crime for which there are no victims [24]. Moral values weigh little on their propensity to report fraud committed by colleagues, with the distance between the complainant and the fraudster being what most favours reporting [26].…”

“…This does not dismiss the fact that different trends for different areas can be identified, raising the hypothesis that there are different levels of self-efficacy in students from different fields of study [26]. Additionally, the phenomenon of academic fraud is not confined to a particular country, and the problem can be found in Anglo-Saxon countries such as Canada [3] and the US [24]; in European countries such as Bulgaria [6], Portugal [4], Spain [33], Switzerland [34], and Slovenia [35]; in Asian countries such as China [26]; and in other parts of the world such as Saudi Arabia and New Zealand [5], Australia [21], Israel [9], and Russia [36]. However, there may be particularities and some differences between countries in their greater or lesser preponderance, as shown by some studies [37], highlighting the influence of cultural factors and the characteristics of education systems.…”

Intention to deceive: undergraduates' perception of fraudulent excuse-making

“…, 1992). According to Carmicheal and Krueger (2014), by giving excuses connected to family-related emergency, students believe that educators tend to accept this reason that justifies the granting of an extension on an assignment or other academic tasks. A survey conducted by Keith et al.…”