Lost Integrity: When Nursing Students Cheat

Academic integrity, or cheating, is any act or behavior that gives a student an unfair advantage for the sake of improving academic performance. Cheating is not new in colleges and continues to be a problem in nursing programs. Previous surveys of enrolled nursing students report between 75% to 90% have engaged in dishonest acts at some point in their nursing program. The International Center for Integrity and McCabe surveyed 71,300 undergraduate nursing students between 2002-2015, excluding first year and two-year programs. The survey results are eye-opening with 39% admitting to cheating on tests, 62% admitting to cheating on written assignments, and 68% admitting to both cheating on both tests and written assignments. McCabe (2009) found the individual level of cheating in nursing programs is lower than other disciplines, but collaborative cheating is significantly higher.

It’s Not Cheating, It is Justified

Research has shown a correlation between the rationalization or deflecting blame and academic dishonesty. Examples of students justifying their cheating behavior include:

• Everybody does it.
• No one understands references and APA citations.
• It is not stated in the syllabus.
• The faculty want us to fail.
• Not sure if it is cheating or not.
• I won’t be kicked out- I am paying to be in this program.
• The instructors have favorites and I am not one of them.

Because of the stress and time in nursing programs, forming close bonds and loyalty to one or a group of students is common. Cheating may also be justified by “helping the group” through sharing what was on an exam to other students who have not taken. Students may also share answers to assignments to a group because “no one understood this assignment”.

Student Collusion

The most common form of cheating among nursing students is plagiarism and collusion. Academic collusion is when more than one person contributes to a work (exam, paper, assignment, clinical paperwork etc) that is submitted as the work for one person. Group work, assigned with the intention of multiple contributors is different from assignments faculty intend to be completed individually. Examples of collusion include:

• Three students in a clinical group are assigned to write a care plan for the patient they were assigned. Three friends in the group decided to pick the same nursing diagnosis so they could “collaborate” on the care plan.
• Students were assigned an essay describing 5 nursing theories. The essay assigned is 8 pages and 5 students decide to each take a theory and share research with the others.
• A case study is assigned for 5% of the overall grade. One student completed the assignment and shared with other students to give them a “point of reference”.

Discussing lecture and class content with other students is usually encouraged and beneficial. However, sharing your work with another student as part of their assignment or using the work of another student as your own crosses diminishes academic honesty and is collusion.

Forms of Academic Dishonesty

Students commonly engage in these four types of academic dishonesty:

1. Cheating- unauthorized use of information in completing academic activities (crib notes, texting someone outside of an exam for answers, signaling or whispering during a test).
2. Plagiarism (intentional and unintentional)- taking another person's words or ideas and passing it off as your own (cut and pasting of material, failure to cite a source, poor quoting).
3. Fabrication or falsification- unauthorized creating, altering or reporting information in an academic activity (fabricating sources and references, the omission of information, using someone else's login ID and password).
4. Sabotage- disrupting or destroying another person’s work so the other person cannot successfully complete an academic activity (not contributing to a group assignment, stealing another’s property i.e. computer, textbook).

It is important to understand the different types of academic dishonesty. Even if a student unintentionally engages in a form of cheating, they are still guilty and may face the same consequences as if their actions were intentional. It is also important to be familiar with the college’s and/or program’s specific policies addressing academic dishonesty.

The second part of this series will discuss why students risk the potential sanctions and penalties to engage in academic dishonesty. We will also explore the potential moral, ethical and academic consequences of cheating.

How have you been impacted by academic dishonesty?

References and Resources:

ACPA College Student Education International, The cheating epidemic: Reducing academically dishonest behaviors amongst college students (2015)

Edmunds, M. & Scudder, L. (2009). Academic dishonesty: what does cheating say about our future nurses article review. Medscape article review and commentary

Wideman, M. (2011).  Caring or collusion? Academic dishonesty in a school of nursing. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 41(2), 28-43

Northern Illinois University Tutorial- Academic Integrity