Objective "In this project I would like to contribute to our understanding of extent, determinants and possible countermeasures against violations of academic integrity. I will focus on research fraud as well as cheating and plagiarism among undergraduates. There are two major contributions. First, I develop and implement a number of new non-survey (thus non-hypothetical) techniques. This is important, because vast majority of past studies used questionnaires. Albeit useful, this methods has limitations; in particular, we can never be sure to what extent our subjects report their (and their colleagues') wrongdoing truthfully. Instead I will investigate exam cheating in undergraduates by means of a field experiment, in which examinees, unaware of being subject to study, will be reminded, depending on the treatment, that cheating may bring about serious sanctions, that it is unethical etc. Actual cheating behavior will be (albeit imperfectly) observed by means of indexes of similarity of responses to exam questions (Frary et al., 1977). Prevalence as well as social and cultural determinants of plagiarism will be investigated using data obtained from Turnitin - an international provider of text similarity detection tools. Two types of violations of research integrity will also be investigated (using real data from a large body of published work in social sciences): fraudulent and ""strategic"" reporting of statistical results and insufficient scrutiny in theoretical work, resulting in flaws in models. I also plan to run a lab study aiming at finding which countermeasures (sanctions, moral appeal, “honor codes”…) are likely to work. The second contribution is that I plan to include in my studies the under-researched Eastern European countries, in which, partly because of recent transformation of socio-economic transformation (resulting i.a. in dramatic broadening of student base and certain ambiguity of social norms after the institutional clash) exam cheating is a serious issue." Fields of science social sciences Keywords Cheating Deception Ethics in social sciences Methodology of social sciences Plagiarism Research fraud Research integrity University eductaion Programme(s) FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) Topic(s) PEOPLE-2007-2-2.ERG - Marie Curie Action: "European Reintegration Grants" Call for proposal FP7-PEOPLE-ERG-2008 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MC-ERG - European Re-integration Grants (ERG) Coordinator UNIWERSYTET WARSZAWSKI EU contribution € 45 000,00 Address KRAKOWSKIE PRZEDMIESCIE 26/28 00-927 WARSZAWA Poland See on map Region Makroregion województwo mazowieckie Warszawski stołeczny Miasto Warszawa Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Administrative Contact Edyta Czerwonka Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Total cost No data
