Dishonest conduct and corrective measures. Business university student perspective

Abstract

University life should be governed by honesty, that is, by the academic integrity of all the agents involved. However, the literature shows the existence of dishonest academic conduct on the part of the students. The first objective of this paper is to identify which forms of conduct are considered dishonest by university students and how often they are observed. Subsequently, the second objective is to identify the measures that could prevent this type of conduct and would be most suitable and effective from the students' perspective. In order to achieve the proposed objectives, a quantitative, cross-sectional and descriptive study was carried out. Between January and March 2020, a questionnaire was sent to undergraduate students at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Zaragoza. The questionnaire refers to dishonest conduct during the preparation of assignments, exams and classroom activity along with the measures to avoid them. The analysis and tests to achieve the proposed objectives are applied to the 333 valid cases. The results show that university students adequately identify dishonest conduct, albeit with different degrees of seriousness. This does not prevent them from observing that some of them, whether serious or not so serious, appear more frequently than desirable. As regards the measures, they consider it necessary to apply corrective measures, whether through training or regulation, although they show a preference for regulatory measures. These results can serve as a basis for establishing Spanish university regulations that transpose the recently approved University Coexistence Act.

Key words: student, university, evaluation, measure, regulations, plagiarism, dishonest practices, academic integrity, evaluation, measure, regulations.