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Who teaches academic integrity and how do they teach it?

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Abstract

Whose role is it to teach academic integrity to university students? We explored academics’ conceptions about their role in promoting academic integrity in two countries, namely New Zealand and Finland. We used Q methodology to find common configurations of perspectives that can help us understand the premises based on which academics approach the tasks and roles associated with teaching academic integrity. The 56 academics in our sample were asked to sort 42 statements highlighting a broad spectrum of perspectives on academic integrity and the teaching of it, and answer some related interview questions. A centroid factor analysis using PQMethod software resulted in five configurations of views with distinctive characteristics. We used three frameworks to interrogate these differences: (1) possible narrative from a students’ perspective, (2) Biggs’s levels of thinking about teaching, and (3) an ethical interpretation. Academics at our institutions appear united in respecting the importance of academic integrity, but not of one mind about what it is, how it should be taught, whether or not it can be taught, whose responsibility it is to teach it, and how to handle cases of misconduct. The results suggest that teachers are confused about integrity policies extant in higher education and about their roles within these.

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Notes

  1. The research did not involve intervention in the physical integrity of research participants; deviate from the principle of informed consent, involve participants under the age of 15 being studied without parental consent; expose participants to exceptionally strong stimuli; cause long-term mental harm beyond the risks encountered in normal life; or signify a security risk to subjects (Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity 2009, 3).

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland under Grant 252813 to the first author and a University of Otago Committee for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching 2013 Grant to the second and fourth author. The authors thank the two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions to improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Research and Development of Higher Education, University of Helsinki, PO Box 9, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Erika Löfström

  2. Division of Humanities, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Tiffany Trotman

  3. Higher Education Development Centre, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Mary Furnari & Kerry Shephard

Authors
  1. Erika Löfström
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  2. Tiffany Trotman
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  3. Mary Furnari
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  4. Kerry Shephard
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Correspondence to Erika Löfström.

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Löfström, E., Trotman, T., Furnari, M. et al. Who teaches academic integrity and how do they teach it?. High Educ 69, 435–448 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9784-3

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