Cutting the vicious circle: Addressing the inconsistency in teachers’ approaches to academic integrity breaches

Abstract

Dysfunctional educational system has been identified as one of the causes of academic dishonesty in Eastern Europe. This case study combines quantitative self-reported data and qualitative data from students and teachers with hard data from the disciplinary committee, collected at one Czech university. We analyse cases and types of breaches, identify characteristics of students that incline them toward cheating and investigate some of the reasons why. Our research confirms that the inconsistent approach of teachers is a contributing factor to students’ propensity to violate academic integrity rules and identifies reasons for such behaviour. Teachers play a key role in prevention, it is their duty to report cases of suspected misconduct, but they need tools to improve the culture of academic integrity. The contribution of this paper is to provide an inspiration for policy makers how to tackle the inconsistency of teachers’ approaches to student misconduct.