Faculty Perceptions on Cheating in Exams in Undergraduate Engineering

Abstract

Cheating in examinations transpires in every-country of the world, and it is a fraudulent-behavior that involves some-form of deception, in which a candidate’s efforts, or the efforts of other-candidates, are altered; it has negative educational, social and psychological-effects. Even though cheating is widespread, it has been observed that some-faculties rarely-discuss rules and consequences of academic-dishonesty with their-students. The main-objective of this-study is to comprehend, cheating-phenomena, on a deeper- level, by evaluating perception of the-trend from the faculty’ perspective, so that ways could be proposed for preventing it from happening. This-study is a fraction of a larger-research on cheating at the School of Engineering (SOE). The study-design used a descriptive-survey-approach and a document-analysis. A designed confidential self-report-questioner was used as the main-instrument for this-study, with the sample-size of 25-subjects and response-rate of 84%. The tool was pre-tested to ensure its validity and reliability. The study focused on the Attribution-Theory and Constructivist-paradigm of research that view knowledge as socially-constructed from the context of cheating in examinations. The data collection-instrument was subjected to the statistical-analysis to determine its reliability via Cronbach’s alpha-coefficient, and found high inter-item consistency (a > 0.9). The results of the survey, where 81% of the respondents agreed that students frequently indulge in examination-malpractice, clearly revealed that cheating, indeed, is a significant-problem in the SOE. The challenge for the school is, therefore, to tailor effective-strategies to prevent cheating-opportunities, and to establish and enforce valuable-means of dealing with particular-patterns and types of cheating. Specific-recommendations on how to deal with cheating in examinations are also highlighted.

Keywords: cheating, engineering, faculty, questioner, integrity