Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Frontiers in Education Conference, Boulder, CO
Abstract
A number of recent studies have found correlations between academic
dishonesty in higher education and unethical behavior in the work
settings. However, these studies have not explored the causal
relationship between the underlying factors that lead to this
dishonesty. This realization, and apparently high levels of cheating
among engineering students, has lead us to a research hypothesis that
decision making patterns about academic cheating among engineering
students are positively correlated with those individuals' decision
making patterns about work place ethics and responsibility. To test our
hypothesis, we have developed an exploratory survey that asks questions
about the respondent's decisions during opportunities to "cheat" in each
of two contexts: college classrooms and work-place settings (with a
special focus on engineering work settings). The survey was designed to
provide qualitative data that could be used to later develop a more
robust quantitative survey. This paper will present only the
preliminary quantitative results from this survey.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55260/3/2003 FIE WES.pd