Academic Integrity

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY The Professional Medical Journal www.theprofesional.com REVIEW PROF-3422 DOI: 10.17957/TPMJ/16.3422 1. MBBS, FCPS, MRCOG ACADEMIC INTEGRITY; Associate Professor FOSTERING A CLIMATE TO MINIMIZE ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT Obstetric & Gynecology Department Fatima Memorial College of AMONG MEDICAL STUDENTS [email protected] Medicine and Dentistry [email protected] 2. Assistant Director DME Dr. Farhat ul ain Ahmed1, Dr. Attia Sheikh2 Multan Medical & Dental College ABSTRACT: Academic misconduct is a serious and a common problem. The aim of this article Correspondence Address: Dr. Farhat ul ain Ahmed is to review the literature for different methods used to counteract this problem. My synthesis MBBS, FCPS, MRCOG is that the use of these mechanical methods of detecting and deterring dishonesty leads to Associate Professor a climate of us versus them between students and faculty and to an environment of polices Obstetric & Gynecology Department rather than a culture of integrity. Moral development can be integrated into curriculum through Fatima Memorial College of Medicine and Dentistry professional ethics courses with the purpose to develop academic integrity. [email protected] Key words: Cheating, academic integrity, honor code, Article received on: 25/04/2016 Accepted for publication: Article Citation: Ahmed F, Sheikh A. Academic integrity; fostering a climate to minimize 21/06/2016 academic misconduct among medical students. Professional Med J Received after proof reading: 08/08/2016 2016;23(8):902-906. DOI: 10.17957/TPMJ/16.3422 The terms academic misconduct and academic to forge teacher’s signature, 10.2% copied dishonesty are often used interchangeably in assignments from seniors, 18.2% asked teachers reference to a range of unethical behavior that for answers during OSPE, 44.02% admitted to students engage in at times during their academic writing fake histories and 5.1% paid someone to career. Mullen’s defines academic dishonesty pass exam.3 in an article in university affairs as: “Anything that gives a student an unearned advantage Kalsoom Ghais published another research article over another. It includes any of the following: in BMC Medical Ethics in 2014 on “Self reported purchasing an essay; plagiarizing paragraphs attitudes and behaviors of medical students in or whole test; impersonating another to take the Pakistan regarding academic misconduct”. It test; padding a bibliography; fudging laboratory was a cross sectional study, on a pre-coded results; collaborating for an assignment when the questionnaire about attitudes and behaviors professor asks for an individual work; or asking for regarding plagiarism, lying, cheating and a dead line extension by citing a bogus excuse.”1 falsifying documents, conducted in one private and one public sector medical college. Study At university of Guelph, academic misconduct is revealed that 26% of private medical college “broadly understood to mean offenses against students and 42% of public medical college academic integrity of the learning environment”2 students self reported this behavior. However 53% of private medical students also found that MAGNITUDE OF THE PROBLEM AND ITS copying an assignment is wrong as compared IMPLICATIONS to 35% of public medical students. Study also Looking at the prevalence in Pakistan, highlighted that male students as compared to Kamran Hafeez in 2013 conducted a survey to female students admittedly indulged more in determine the trends of academic misconduct in cheating.4 undergraduate students of different private and government section medical institutes. Results This is in contrast to 2% of incidence reported at showed that 55.1% of the students accepted that Dundee University and 27.4% in US fourth year they cheated at least once, 85.7% reported they medical students. marked proxy for their friends, 16.9% accepted Professional Med J 2016;23(8): 902-906. www.theprofesional.com 902 ACADEMIC INTEGRITY 2 RISK FACTORS programmable calculators) for help. The literature provides many reasons for high prevalence of academic misconduct, focusing REALISTIC PLAN TO AVOID CHEATING AND on student characteristics, faculty attitude and TO PROMOTE INTEGRITY: A LITERATURE behaviors, and some on institutional culture and SEARCH environment. Medical students and faculty both agree that cheating is unethical and has plagued medical Students offer following reasons as an explanation schools since their inception. It has ramifications of academic misconduct: Intense academic beyond graduation; producing incompetent and family expectations and pressures, societal doctors whom then treat patients. expectations, the pressure to get high grades, high levels of stress, the desire to excel, highly Strategies to deter and detect academic competitive environment, pressure of getting dishonesty are not enough; promoting a culture good job, laziness, apathy and lack of preparation. of academic integrity is integral to being part of Dishonesty may stem in the clinical year rotation academic community. in the fear of bad evaluation or from a desire to be a team player (incompetence, feelings of fear, HONOR CODE competition). To diminish this growing problem many universities, colleges and professional schools Burnout appears to be common among medical have developed student honor codes along with students and found to be independently policies and procedure for their implementation. associated with cheating and dishonest behavior. Prevalence of burn out in medical student is high, Through honor code, academic integrity is 90% of students felt stressed at one time or the created and students’ indulgence in cheating and other in a study carried out at Agha Khan, 73% plagiarism is reduced to 25- 50% in institutions and 61.4% among Spanish students in a survey.5,6 that have developed honor code as compared to those not having such codes at all. The Faculty that is aware of cheating in their course success of the honor code depends on defining and do nothing about exacerbates the problem the consequences of unethical behaviors, further. Faculty perception of finding the complaint communicating expectations with students, and process to cumbersome, finding penalties establishing a culture of integrity. inappropriate and fear of lack of institutional support for cases brought forward are also factors ESTABLISHMENT OF HONOR COUNCIL responsible for failure of faculty to deal with the Honor council shall be a body, dealing with the situation.7 duty of presenting the honor system to all new students and acting as a fact finding body for Institutional size influences the prevalence of determination of honor code violation.9 misconduct, as students feel more anonymous.8 The body investigates on receiving the report Institutional features such as the values embedded of violation, being impartial and fair, carries out in the hidden curriculum can promote cheating hearings and decides penalties accordingly. and dishonest behaviors. Further reduction is only possible through Learning technologies also challenge boundaries systemic changes. Colleges and universities of academic misconduct Like availability of online must implement strategies to deter and detect papers, options to copy- and paste, copying others academic misconduct and rigorous sanctions work by sharing electronic papers, hacking exam against these kinds of behaviors. or others assignments and using communication technologies (cell phones, pagers, email, internet, Professional Med J 2016;23(8): 902-906. www.theprofesional.com 903 ACADEMIC INTEGRITY 3 STRATEGIES TO DETER ACCADEMIC which are likely to promote academic honesty in MISCONDUCT students.11 Strategies best used to deter academic misconduct include early integrity training complemented with DECREASING OPPORTUNITIES FOR course level reinforcement, faculty role modeling, CHEATING application of testing strategies including honor In addition promote integrity and to create pledges and declaration. internal aversion to cheating, one should also adopt sensible procedures to make it very difficult REQUIRED INTEGRITY TRAINING FOR to cheat. Strategies like announcing not to cheat, STUDENTS constantly watching students, walking up an Moral development can be integrated into down the rows, use of limited or focused topic of curriculum through professional ethics courses research, use of alternate tests, (computerized) with academic integrity as a key component.10 random tests, exclusion of electronic devices and random seating can be used to deter cheating. The program could be based on following According to students the less liked deterrents learning outcomes: were announcing not to cheat, assigned seats, By the end of this course, students will be able to: leaving their belongings outside the classroom. 12 1. Define academic integrity and understand its fundamental values and principles. Strategies for effective written assignments: 2. Demonstrate an understanding of what While designing written assignments, following specific actions and behaviors constitute points should be taken into consideration: academic honesty and academic dishonesty. • Focusing on written process and end product. 3. Recognize the standards, policies, and • Change nature and topic of assignments. procedures in place to maintain academic • Assignments should be relevant to outcomes. integrity at the University. • Adding specific elements to assignments like 4. Identify their roles and responsibilities books, Internet source and primary sources. in maintaining academic integrity at the • Submission of assignment in steps for grading. University. 5. Access additional information and resources These measures may help deter cheating but do regarding academic integrity issues and not prevent students from considering cheating information. as an alternative prior to examination. Davis also 6. Apply their knowledge of academic integrity did a survey on response of students to “instructor to real-life scenarios by evaluating examples announced penalties” and found that 40% of men of acceptable and unacceptable academic and 10% of women responded “NO”, as it would behaviors. not prevent from cheating.12 These integrity training programs can be free STRATEGIES TO DETECT CHEATING AND standing and web- based. Where appropriate, PLAGIARISM student training on ethical writing and proper Recent research indicates that deterrence is sourcing should be included as a component of not enough to prevent student cheating and courses on information literacy. plagiarism. One can make use of Cizek’s observational and statistical approaches in FACULTY AS A ROLE MODEL detecting plagiarism by using the manual review Faculty as role models can help in promoting and use of plagiarism detection software.13 integrity. They should uphold and support the same honor code. McCabe and Pavela’s “Ten principles of Academic Integrity” can be used as guidelines to help identify faculty behavior, PLAGIARISM DECTECTING SOFTWARE AND Professional Med J 2016;23(8): 902-906. www.theprofesional.com 904 ACADEMIC INTEGRITY 4 SERVICES in long run. The problem can be solved by The faculty can employ comprehensive search development of internalized code of ethics. Davis and repository system, which not only searches also talks about Ludvigson model on “theory the Internet but also compares the work with of understanding” He highlighted six major the provided reference material. Internet only components of understanding: plagiarism search engines can be used check • Understanding is not rote memorization. student paper for unreferenced online source • Understanding is not learning isolated facts. material. • Understanding involves the creation of personal theory about something. File comparison/pattern matching software use • It permits generalization of inferences to new pattern matching algorithms and linguistic pattern situations. to access the uniqueness of individual’s writing • It involves perspectives. and to generate plagiarism probability score. • Understanding involves in knowing what is important and what is not. MANAGING BURNOUT Burnouts need to be addressed by student This highlights the fact that Understanding is advisors, peer education and counseling. The required for competence. Competence is required coping strategies commonly used are positive for success. Success is required for self-reliance reframing, planning, active coping, self-distraction and self-reliance is required for happiness and and emotional support. The living conditions cheating weakens the entire chain.12 of the students and their recreational facilities should be improved. ANNEXURE 1 HIDDEN CURRICULUM Ten Principles of Academic Integrity for Faculty Starting at the institutional level and filtering 1. Affirm the importance of academic integrity down to all the members 2. Foster a love of learning When the culture changes the Hidden curriculum 3. Treat students as ends in themselves also changes, though its slow and reiterative. The 4. Foster an environment of trust in the classroom most commonly described model for establishing 5. Encourage student responsibility for culture change in academic medical centers academic integrity involves Kotter’s eight steps: ‘‘establishing a sense 6. Clarify expectations for students of urgency, forming a powerful guiding coalition, 7. Develop fair and relevant forms of assessment creating a vision, communicating the vision, 8. Reduce opportunities to engage in academic empowering others to act on the vision, planning dishonesty for and creating short-term wins, consolidating 9. Challenge academic dishonesty when it improvements and producing still more change, occurs institutionalizing new approaches.’’14 This model 10. Help define and support campus-wide promotes diversity, redefine scholarship, and academic integrity standards. encourage primary care. Copyright© 21 June, 2016. CONCLUSION REFERENCES My synthesis is that the use of these mechanical 1. Mullens, A. Cheating to win. University Affairs, 2000;41 (10), 22-28. methods of detecting and deterring dishonesty leads to a climate of us versus them between 2. Undergraduste Program Services, University of Guelph, students and faculty and to an environment of Ed. Goody, A.H. Guelph, Ontario. Undergraduste polices rather than a culture of integrity. These Calender 2001-2002. https://www.uoguelph.ca/tss/tli/ mechanical methods will not prevent cheating tli02/AI_report_Final.pdf 3. Hafeez K, Khan ML, Jawaid M, Haroon S. Academic Professional Med J 2016;23(8): 902-906. www.theprofesional.com 905 ACADEMIC INTEGRITY 5 misconduct among students in medical colleges 8. http://ps.columbia.edu/education/honor-code-policies/ of Karachi, Pakistan. Pak J Med Sci. 2013 May-Jun; ps-student-honor-code. 29(3):699-702. 9. Glick SM: Cheating at medical school. Student BMJ. 4. Ghais K, Lakho GR, Asim H, Azam SA, Abdul 2001; 9:44–45. saeed S. Self reported attitudes and behaviors of medical students in Pakistan regarding academic 10. McCabe, D, Pavela, G. Some good news about misconduct: a cross-sectional study. BMC Medical academic integrity. Change, 2000 September/October: Ethics 2014, 15:43. 32-38. 5. Dyrbye LN, Massie FS Jr, Eacker A, et al. Relationship 11. Shaikh BT, Kahloon A, Kazmi M, Khalid H, Nawaz between burnout and professional conduct and K, Khan N, Khan S: Students, stress and coping attitudes among US medical students. JAMA. 2010; strategies: a case of Pakistani medical school. Educ 304:1173-1180. Health (Abingdon). 2004; 17:346-53. 6. Schneider, A. Why Professors Don’t Do More to 12. Saipanish R: Stress among medical students in a Stop Students Who Cheat. The Chronicle of Higher Thai medical school. Med Teach. 2003; 25:502-6. Education. 1999. 13. Cizek GJ. Cheating on Tests: How to Do It, Detect 7. McCabe D, Trevino L, Butterfield K. Academic integrity It, and Prevent It. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum in honor code and non-honor code environments: A Associates; 1999. qualitative investigation. Journal of Higher Education. 1999 March/April; 70(2): 211-234. 14. Kotter JP. Leading change: why transformation efforts fail. Harv Bus Rev 7. 1995; 73:59-67. AUTHORSHIP AND CONTRIBUTION DECLARATION Sr. # Author-s Full Name Contribution to the paper Author=s Signature 1 Dr. Farhat ul ain Ahmed Basic concept, Literature search, Writing review paper 2 Dr. Attia Sheikh Literature search Professional Med J 2016;23(8): 902-906. www.theprofesional.com 906