Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Dialogic Problematization of Academic Integrity Education

  • Regular Article
  • Published:
Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Many university educators have argued for a need for academic integrity education as an alternative to a focus on students’ and scholars’ compliance with academic rules and conventions (Brimble, 2016; Christensen Hughes & Bertram-Gallant, 2016; Hutton, 2006). I argue that the universal ethical-moral discourse of academic integrity disciplines subjects to comply with frequently alienating academic practices. This ethical discourse focuses on individual responsibility, in turn rendering invisible the authority of sometimes dysfunctional and oppressive instructional and summative assessment practices. Taking a Bakhtinian dialogic authorial perspective, the paper calls on students, scholars, instructors, and academic advisors to engage in critical ontological dialogue on diverse responses and motivations in regard to academic demands and deeds. Dialogue on situated instead of universal ethics in academic settings contextualizes and problematizes not just individual actions but also the ethics of the summative assessment regime, the instruction, the curriculum, authority dynamics, and the educational system as a whole. This discussion on academic integrity violations calls on educators to consider the ethical value of separating summative assessment from instruction.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The development of universally applicable and agreed upon ethical values are thought to have an important societal impact beyond the academic context. Consider this argument from a chapter in the Handbook of Academic Integrity: "

    Questions concerning what is ethical or moral clearly represent ongoing debates in academe and society, with different cultures and religions extolling different values, and shifts in ethical judgments taking place over time; witness changing views on smoking or gay marriage, for example. That said, there are arguably universal, core values such as honesty, fairness, compassion, integrity, responsibility, respect, and fairness; attributes that have been found to be both highly valued and enduring in most cultures around the world" (Christensen Hughes & Bertram-Gallant, 2016, p. 1062).

  2. The patchwriting of essays has also been argued not to preclude multilingual students from learning academic English and experimenting with unfamiliar vocabulary, morphology, or syntax (East, 2016).

  3. One could presume, for instance, that plagiarism would be a more significant problem in purely online instruction since students may not readily receive communal validation for their work (cf. Moore & Kearsley, 2012).

  4. This popularity of this article is noted in a footnote of the re-issue of the article on the Chronicle’s web site in November 2016 (Dante, 2016).

  5. One year after the initial publishing of the article, the author revealed his identity and published a popular press book on the subject (Tomar, 2012).

  6. As is noted by Ashwill & West (2018), “The fatal flaw in commissioned recruitment is that most agents prioritise their partner schools’ interests over those of the students and parents they advise” (Ashwill & West, 2018, n.p.).

  7. However, it is possible even in these educational environments for students to “love learning”. Students who have participated in innovative schooling environments, for instance, learn to “smuggle authentic learning” into these educational environments (DePalma et al., 2009).

References

  • Anderman, E. M., & Murdock, T. B. (2007). Psychology of academic cheating. Amsterdam: Elsevier Academic Press

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ashwill, M. A., & West, E. (2018, October 26). An ethical approach to commissions-based recruitment. University World News. Retrieved from https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20181023153107599

  • Ashworth, P., Bannister, P., & Thorne, P. (1997). Guilty in whose eyes?: University students’ perceptions of cheating and plagiarism in academic work and assessment. Studies in Higher Education, 22(2), 187–203. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079712331381034

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bakhtin, M. M. (1999). Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics (8 vol.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Becker, H. (1953). Becoming a marihuana user. American Journal of Sociology, 59(November), 235–242

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blum, S. D. (2009). My word!: Plagiarism and college culture. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Brimble, M. (2016). Why students cheat: An exploration of the motivators of student academic dishonesty in higher education. In T. Bretag (Ed.), Handbook of Academic Integrity (pp. 365–382). Singapore: Springer Singapore

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, C. (2014). Assessment overload? (Letter to the editor). Medical Teacher, 37(3), 301. doi:https://doi.org/10.3109/0142159X.2014.940874

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Calabrese, R. L., & Cochran, J. T. (1990). The relationship of alienation to cheating among a sample of American adolescents. Journal of Research & Development in Education, 23(2), 65–72

    Google Scholar 

  • Christensen Hughes, J., & Bertram-Gallant, T. (2016). Infusing ethics and ethical decision making into the curriculum. In T. Bretag (Ed.), Handbook of Academic Integrity (pp. 1055–1073). Singapore: Springer Singapore

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Coyne, R. (2005). Wicked problems revisited. Design Studies, 26(1), 5–17. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2004.06.005

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Currie, P. (1998). Staying out of trouble: Apparent plagiarism and academic survival. Journal of Second Language Writing, 7(1), 1–18. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S1060-3743(98)90003-0

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dante, E. (2016). The shadow scholar. Chronicle of Higher Education, 63(11), 93–96

    Google Scholar 

  • DePalma, R., Matusov, E., & Smith, M. P. (2009). Smuggling authentic learning Into the school context: Transitioning from an innovative elementary to a conventional high school. Teachers College Record, 111(4), 934–972

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Devine, O. P., Harborne, A. C., & McManus, I. C. (2015). Assessment at UK medical schools varies substantially in volume, type and intensity and correlates with postgraduate attainment. BMC Medical Education, 15(1), 146. doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-015-0428-9

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Duff, D. (2002). Intertextuality versus genre theory: Bakhtin, Kristeva and the question of genre. Paragraph, 25(1), 54–73. doi:https://doi.org/10.3366/jsp.2002.25.1.54

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • East, J. (2016). Educational responses to academic integrity. In T. Bretag (Ed.), Handbook of Academic Integrity (pp. 481–496). Singapore: Springer Singapore

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Eodice, M. (2002). Plagiarism, pedagogy, and controversy: A conversation with Rebecca Moore Howard. Issues in Writing, 13(Fall/Winter), 6–26

    Google Scholar 

  • Finn, K. V., & Frone, M. R. (2004). Academic performance and cheating: Moderating role of school identification and self-efficacy. The Journal of Educational Research, 97(3), 115–121. doi:https://doi.org/10.3200/JOER.97.3.115-121

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fishman, T. (2016). Academic integrity as an educational concept, concern, and movement in US institutions of higher learning. In T. Bretag (Ed.), Handbook of Academic Integrity (pp. 7–21). Singapore: Springer Singapore

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage Books

    Google Scholar 

  • Freeman, A. C., & Ricketts, C. (2010). Choosing and designing knowledge assessments: Experience at a new medical school. Medical Teacher, 32(7), 578–581. doi:https://doi.org/10.3109/01421591003614858

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gourlay, L., & Deane, J. (2012). Loss, responsibility, blame?: Staff discourses of student plagiarism. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 49(1), 19–29. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2012.647780

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hampel, R. L. (2014). Paul Diederich and the progressive American high school. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing

    Google Scholar 

  • Himmelbauer, M., Koller, D., Bäwert, A., & Horn, W. (2019). Der prüfungsmix an der Medizinischen Universität Wien. Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift, 169(5), 101–109. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10354-018-0662-y

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Howard, R. M. (1999). Standing in the shadow of giants: Plagiarists, authors, collaborators. Stamford, CT: Ablex

    Google Scholar 

  • Howard, R. M. (2001). Forget about policing plagiarism: Just teach. Chronicle of Higher Education, 48(12), B24–B24

    Google Scholar 

  • Hutton, P. A. (2006). Understanding student cheating and what educators can do about it. College Teaching, 54(1), 171–176

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • John, D. (2013). Long lost civil rights speech helped inspire King’s dream. WBEZ Chicago Public Media. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20160213003045/http://www.wbez.org/news/culture/long-lost-civil-rights-speech-helped-inspire-king’s-dream-108546

  • Kubik, G. H., & Harkins, A. M. (2010). “Ethical” cheating in formal education. On the Horizon, 18(2), 138–146. doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/10748121011050487

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Labaree, D. F. (1997). How to succeed in school without really learning: The credentials race in American education. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Laing, R. D. (1970). Knots. New York: Pantheon Books

    Google Scholar 

  • Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Lave, J. (1992). Learning as participation in communities of practice. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA

  • Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Leask, I. A. N. (2012). Beyond subjection: Notes on the later Foucault and education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 44(s1), 57–73. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2011.00774.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leki, I. (2017). Undergraduates in a second language: Challenges and complexities of academic literacy development. London: Routledge

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewin, K., Lippit, R., & White, R. K. (1939). Patterns of aggression in experimentally created “social climates”. The Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 271–299. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1939.9713366

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li, Y. (2012). “I have no time to find out where the sentences came from; I just rebuild them”: A biochemistry professor eliminating novices’ textual borrowing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 21(1), 59–70. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2012.01.001

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu, D. (2005). Plagiarism in ESOL students: Is cultural conditioning truly the major culprit? ELT Journal, 59(3), 234–241

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lockton, D. (2018). Old rope: Laing’s knots and Bateson’s double binds in systemic design. Paper presented at the RSD7, Relating Systems Thinking and Design, Turin, Italy

  • Martin, D. E., Rao, A., & Sloan, L. R. (2011). Ethnicity, acculturation, and plagiarism: A criterion study of unethical academic conduct. Human Organization, 70(1), 88–96

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matusov, E. (2009). Journey into dialogic pedagogy. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers

    Google Scholar 

  • Matusov, E. (2015). Legitimacy of non-negotiable imposition in diverse approaches to education. Dialogic Pedagogy, 3(December), A174–A211. doi:https://doi.org/10.5195/dpj.2015.110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matusov, E. (2018a). Chronotopic analysis of values in critical ontological dialogic pedagogy. In A. U. Branco, & M. C. Lopes-de-Oliveira (Eds.), Alterity, values, and socialization: Human development within educational contexts (pp. 1–29). Cham, Switzerland: Springer

    Google Scholar 

  • Matusov, E. (2018b). Mapping dialogic pedagogy: Instrumental and non-instrumental education. In A. Rosa, & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology (2 ed., pp. 274–301). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Matusov, E. (2020). Envisioning education in a post-work leisure-based society. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Matusov, E. (2021). The relationship between education and learning and its consequences for dialogic pedagogy. Dialogic Pedagogy, 9, E1–E19

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matusov, E., Bell, N., & Rogoff, B. (2002). Schooling as cultural process: Shared thinking and guidance by children from schools differing in collaborative practices. In R. Kail, & H. W. Reese (Eds.), Advances in Child Development and Behavior (29 vol., pp. 129–160). New York: New York: Academic Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Matusov, E., & Brobst, J. (2013). Radical experiment in dialogic pedagogy in higher education and its centauric failure: Chronotopic analysis. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers

    Google Scholar 

  • Matusov, E., & Marjanovic-Shane, A. (2017). Promoting students’ ownership of their own education through critical dialogue and democratic self-governance. Dialogic Pedagogy, 5(March), doi:https://doi.org/10.5195/dpj.2017.199

  • Matusov, E., & Marjanovic-Shane, A. (2018). Beyond equality and inequality in education: Bakhtinian dialogic ethics approach of human uniqueness to educational justice. Dialogic Pedagogy, 6, E1–E38. doi:https://doi.org/10.5195/dpj.2018.236

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matusov, E., & von Duyke, K. (2010). Bakhtin’s notion of the internally persuasive discourse in education: Internal to what?: A case of discussion of issues of foul language in teacher education In K. Junefelt & P. Nordin (Eds.), Proceedings of the Second International Interdisciplinary Conference on Perspectives and Limits of Dialogism in Mikhail Bakhtin (pp. 174–199). Stockholm, Sweden: Stockholm University

  • McCabe, D. L. (1999). Academic dishonesty among high school students. Adolescence, 34(136), 681–687

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • McCabe, D. L. (2016). Cheating and honor: Lessons from a long-term research project. In T. A. Bretag (Ed.), Handbook of Academic Integrity (pp. 187–198). Singapore: Springer Singapore

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • McCabe, D. L., Trevino, L. K., & Butterfield, K. D. (2001). Cheating in academic institutions: A decade of research. Ethics & Behavior, 11(3), 219–232. doi:https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327019EB1103_2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McGowan, S. (2016). Breaches of academic integrity using collusion. In T. A. Bretag (Ed.), Handbook of Academic Integrity (pp. 221–248). Singapore: Springer Singapore

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • McNeil, L. M. (1986). Contradictions of control: School structure and school knowledge. New York: Routledge & Paul

    Google Scholar 

  • Merkel, W. (2021). Collage of confusion: An analysis of one university’s multiple plagiarism policies. System, 96, 102399

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mori, M. (2018). Our speech is filled with others’ words: Understanding university student and instructor opinions towards paraphrasing through a Bakhtinian lens. Ampersand, 5, 45–54. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amper.2018.11.002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morson, G. S. (2004). The process of ideological becoming. In A. F. Ball, & S. W. Freedman (Eds.), Bakhtinian perspectives on language, literacy, and learning (pp. 317–331). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Nielsen, G. (1995). Bakhtin and Habermas: Toward a transcultural ethics. Theory and Society, 24(6), 803–835. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00994066

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nikulin, D. V. (2010). Dialectic and dialogue. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Pecorari, D. (2003). Good and original: Plagiarism and patchwriting in academic second-language writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12(4), 317–345. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2003.08.004

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pennycook, A. (1996). Borrowing others’ words: Text, ownership, memory, and plagiarism. TESOL Quarterly, 30(2), 201–230. doi:https://doi.org/10.2307/3588141

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pennycook, A. (2006). Language education as translingual activism. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 26(1), 111–114. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/02188790600608141

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Redden, E. (2018, June 19). As pathway market expands, enrollment outcomes diverge. Inside Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/06/19/more-colleges-hire-corporate-partners-international-student-pathway-programs-mixed

  • Reed, D. A., Shanafelt, T. D., Satele, D. W., Power, D. V., Eacker, A., Harper, W., & Dyrbye, L. N. (2011). Relationship of pass/fail grading and curriculum structure with well-being among preclinical medical students: a multi-institutional study. Academic Medicine, 86(11), 1367–1373. doi:https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0b013e3182305d81

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, C. R., & Freiberg, H. J. (1994). Freedom to learn (3rd ed.). New York: Merrill and Maxwell Macmillan International

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogoff, B., Turkanis, C. G., & Bartlett, L. (Eds.). (2001). Learning together: Children and adults in a school community. New York: Oxford University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Roth, K., & Suprenant, C. W. (2012). Introduction: The highest good: The moral endeavor of education. In K. Roth & C. W. Surprenant (Eds.), Kant and Education: Interpretations and Commentary (pp. ix-xxiv). New York: Routledge

  • Saddiqui, S. (2016). Engaging students and faculty: Examining and overcoming the barriers. In T. Bretag (Ed.), Handbook of Academic Integrity (pp. 1009–1036). Singapore: Springer Singapore

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Sartre, J. P. (1963). Search for a method (1st American ed.). New York: Knopf

  • Schuwirth, L., Bosman, G., Henning, R. H., Rinkel, R., & Wenink, A. C. G. (2010). Collaboration on progress testing in medical schools in the Netherlands. Medical Teacher, 32(6), 476–479. doi:https://doi.org/10.3109/0142159X.2010.485658

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Shor, I. (1987). Critical teaching and everyday life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Sidorkin, A. M. (2002). Learning relations: Impure education, deschooled schools, & dialogue with evil. New York: P. Lang

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, M. P. (2011). The parallel discursive universes of teachers and students. (D.Ed.). University of Delaware, Ann Arbor. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I database. (3443298)

  • Smith, M. P. (2019). Bullying and intepersonal conflict from a “dialogic event” perspective. Dialogic Pedagogy, 7, A101–A142. doi:https://doi.org/10.5195/dpj.2019.259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, J., & Scott, J. (2016). UK perspectives of academic integrity. In T. Bretag (Ed.), Handbook of Academic Integrity (pp. 39–53). Singapore: Springer Singapore

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Tomar, D. (2012). The shadow scholar: How I made a living helping college kids cheat (1st U.S. ed.). New York: Bloomsbury

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomlinson, M. (2017). Student perceptions of themselves as ‘consumers’ of higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 38(4), 450–467. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2015.1113856

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tran, L. T. (2012). The perceptions and attiudes of international students toward plagiarism. The ACPET Journal for Private Higher Education, 1(2), 15–23

    Google Scholar 

  • van den Hoven, M. A. (2006). A claim for reasonable morality: Commonsense morality in the debate on the limits of morality. Utrecht, Netherlands: Utrecht University

    Google Scholar 

  • Waller, W. W. (1932). The sociology of teaching. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wangaard, D. B. (2016). Practices to support developing academic integrity in secondary school students. In T. Bretag (Ed.), Handbook of Academic Integrity (pp. 429–448). Singapore: Springer Singapore

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Zhao, Y. (2009). Catching up or leading the way: American education in the age of globalization. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)

    Google Scholar 

  • Zwagerman, S. (2008). The scarlet P: Plagiarism, panopticism, and the rhetoric of academic integrity. College Composition and Communication, 59(4), 676–710

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, M. G., & Kearsley, G. (2012). Distance education: A systems view of online learning (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kean University, Union, NJ, USA

    Mark Philip Smith

Authors
  1. Mark Philip Smith
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark Philip Smith.

Ethics declarations

Declarations

The author did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work. No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript. No funding was received for conducting this study. No funds, grants, or other support was received. The author has no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. The author has no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. The author certifies that he has no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. There was no research involving human participants or animals, and thus informed consent was not necessary. Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Smith, M.P. Dialogic Problematization of Academic Integrity Education. Integr. psych. behav. 58, 649–674 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-022-09722-3

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-022-09722-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation