Handle with Care: Implementation of the List Experiment and Crosswise Model in a Large-scale Survey on Academic Misconduct

Abstract

This research analyzes the effectiveness of the list experiment and crosswise model in measuring self-plagiarism and data manipulation. Both methods were implemented in a large-scale survey of academics on social norms and academic misconduct. As the results lend little confidence about the effectiveness of the methods, researchers are best advised to avoid them or, at best, to handle them with care.

Functionality of the Crosswise Model for Assessing Sensitive or Transgressive Behavior: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis as well as quality assessment of empirical applications of CM Coutts et al, 2011;Jann et al, 2012;Korndörfer et al, 2014;Hoffmann et al, 2015Hoffmann et al, , 2017Höglinger et al, 2016;Kundt et al, 2017;Heck et al, 2018;Nasirian et al, 2018;Hopp and Speil, 2019;Lehrer et al, 2019;Safiri et al, 2019;Schnapp, 2019;Walzenbach and Hinz, 2019;Meisters et al, 2020b;Özgül, 2020Özgül, k = 7 Kundt, 2014Höglinger and Diekmann, 2017;Höglinger and Jann, 2018;Atsusaka and Stevenson, 2020;Hoffmann et al, 2020;Meisters et al, 2020a;Jerke et al, 2021 CM prevalence (k =18) Nakhaee et al, 2013;Kazemzadeh et al, 2016k = 9 Eslami et al, 2013Waubert de Puiseau et al, 2017;Banayejeddi et al, 2019;Klimas et al, 2019;Vakilian et al, 2019;Jensen, 2020;Lacker et al, 2020;Mieth et al, 2021k = 7 Shamsipour et al, 2014Vakilian et al, 2014Vakilian et al, , 2016Gingerich et al, 2015;…”

“…In order not to discard these items from our analysis, and considering it is not unrealistic to assume that the prevalence in the population is not exactly 0, we set the z score for these items to −3.5 which is a little below the z score of −3.1 for the items with a DQ and CM prevalence estimate of 1%. Additionally, four items with negative CM prevalence estimates Jerke et al, 2021) were truncated at 0. To account for the nesting of items within studies, we performed a multilevel analysis on the difference scores.…”

“…Of these, 49 pairs used specific birthday months with P ranging between 0.08 (1/12 months) and 0.25 (3/12 months). In five cases (Eslami et al, 2013;Nakhaee et al, 2013;Khosravi et al, 2015;Nasirian et al, 2018;Safiri et al, 2019), season (e.g., spring) was used which is open for interpretation Substance use and misuse Nakhaee et al, 2013;Shamsipour et al, 2014;Höglinger et al, 2016;Mirzazadeh et al, 2018;Banayejeddi et al, 2019;Safiri et al, 2019;Özgül, 2020;Canan et al, 2021Shamsipour et al, 2014Mirzazadeh et al, 2018;Safiri et al, 2019 Academic misconduct Coutts et al, 2011;Jann et al, 2012;Höglinger et al, 2016;Hopp and Speil, 2019;Jerke et al, 2021Coutts et al, 2011Jann et al, 2012;Jerke et al, 2021 Corruption, tax evasion, and theft Korndörfer et al, 2014;Kundt, 2014;Gingerich et al, 2015;Höglinger and Jann, 2018;Hopp and Speil, 2019;Oliveros and Gingerich, 2020 Health and STDs Mirzazadeh et al, 2018;Nasirian et al, 2018 Sexual behavior and infidelity Mirzazadeh et al, 2018;Klimas et al, 2019;Lacker et al, 2020 Substance use and misuse Khosravi et al, 2015;Kazemzadeh et al, 2016;Heck et al, 2018;…”

“…For studies employing items with uncertain probabilities such as name of friend or relative (Vakilian et al, 2014(Vakilian et al, , 2019, number of main family members and owning a vehicle (Nasirian et al, 2018), conference attendance and research proposal writing (Jerke et al, 2021), authors relied on population statistics for probabilities. The probability of a "yes" answer for the innocuous items in these studies ranged from P = 0.08 to P = 0.7, with P = 0.33 being most frequent.…”

“…Online questionnaires (k = 21) Korndörfer et al, 2014;Kundt, 2014;Hoffmann et al, 2015Hoffmann et al, , 2017Höglinger et al, 2016;Höglinger and Diekmann, 2017;Waubert de Puiseau et al, 2017;Höglinger and Jann, 2018;Hopp and Speil, 2019;Klimas et al, 2019;Lehrer et al, 2019;Schnapp, 2019;Walzenbach and Hinz, 2019;Atsusaka and Stevenson, 2020;Jensen, 2020;Lacker et al, 2020;Meisters et al, 2020a;Canan et al, 2021;Jerke et al, 2021;Mieth et al, 2021 Paper questionnaires (k = 18) Coutts et al, 2011;Jann et al, 2012;Nakhaee et al, 2013;Shamsipour et al, 2014;Vakilian et al, 2014Vakilian et al, , 2016Vakilian et al, , 2019Khosravi et al, 2015;Kazemzadeh et al, 2016;Heck et al, 2018;Mirzazadeh et al, 2018;Nasirian et al, 2018;Banayejeddi et al, 2019;Safiri et al, 2019;Hoffmann et al, 2020;Meisters et al, 2020b;Özgül, 2020 Interviews (k = 4) Gingerich et al, 2015;Kundt et al, 2017;Oliveros and Gingerich, 2020 Interviews and questionnaires (k = 2) Eslami et al, 2013;Jerke e...…”