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Expand the factors of International Students Academic Integrity in North America

Yang Zhou

627102

ENGL 101

Hessun Nam

March 26,2022

Expand the factors of International Students Academic Integrity in North America

“Help for international students!”—Langara College on handbook. In claiming that sentence in handbook, students must be integrity in all academic work. While the academic integrity of international students is not strange, it has become a profoundly genuine issue and rampant irresponsible behaviour, especially in North America. From a sociological perspective, the issue of academic integrity among international students in North America requires the attention of the higher education system because it is a fundamental problem due to the following causes: the issue of educational level, the impact of economic environment, the pressure from the family and the impact of growing environment.

Academic integrity can be defined as personal integrity in an academic environment. It is an act of falsification and deception in the academic area. It is not being trusted, respected, and lacking honesty and responsibility in academic work (Langara College,2021). “Academic misconduct of Chinese students in US Universities”: 8000 Chinese students expelled from US Universities for cheating on ESL exam and having bad grades. For the student’s integrity in academic work is considered honesty and trustworthiness. Personal morals and values give a reflection of character and credibility. International students are faced with unique challenges that put them at risk of academic misconduct violations, including the academic expectations, the language, the understanding of the policy, the cultural variations, and academic preparedness. The issue of academic misconduct greatly impacts the learners' success, thus leaving them susceptible to academic, social, and financial consequences of academic misconduct violations (McNeill, 2022). For international students who plan to attend United States universities, clear understanding of academic integrity is important for them to be successful in their academic work (Langara College,2021). There are various forms of mistakes that are considered as academic misconduct. One of them is plagiarism, which involves submitting a paper written by the student, cutting, and pasting the information, and failing to provide proper citation. The common and huge challenge for the international students and the academic integrity at the universities, especially in North America, is cultural. The culture is linked to how plagiarism and copying work as reviewed. Many students find it hard to understand these cultural differences (Langara College,2021). The aspect is not fully understood during the orientation, making some students find themselves on the wrong side without intention to engage in academic dishonesty.

Academic integrity in North America has become a fundamental problem because of the issue of education level of international students. Traditionally, North America has focused on quality work and academic honesty. In more detail, to help detect academic dishonesty, the educators have employed approaches like the strict examination protocol and plagiarism detection software like the SafeAssign and Turnitin (Bygrave & Aşık, 2019). Turnitin.com and SafeAssign are used as strategies to help reduce academic dishonesty by punishing the violators through reprimand or letters, course failures, probations, or dismissing them from the institution. According to Bygrave & Aşık (2019), the mitigation of academic dishonesty involves teaching the students the methods of proper citation and referencing of sources using suitable university-sanctioned protocols. This indicates that other institutions are also committed to preventing academic dishonesty. It is also considered the reactive approach towards reducing negative behaviours. In addition, the prevention of academic dishonesty in the first place requires the institution's involvement in the proactive increase of academic integrity behaviour through communicating the academic integrity guidelines during the learners-orientation workshops and course syllabi. “Due to the migration to North America and other world regions, the capacity to define the typical learners and their habits and values is becoming a challenge” (Bygrave & Aşık, 2019). Clearly, the reactive approaches aimed at preventing plagiarism are not suitable within the international student learning environment due to their focus on the habits and values of the typical, domestic North American learners. This is done based on the prior academic experience and familiarity with the academic integrity rules and sanctions. Instead, the international students' habits and values greatly differ from them. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the North American post-secondary teachers and the administration to ensure that there is a development of effective, ethical empathy to help promote the intercultural understanding of the international students and design new strategies to promote academic integrity.

Academic integrity in North America has become a fundamental problem because of the impact of economic environment of international students. These students are taken to universities with high expectations from their parents. In other words, they are a financial burden on their families, leading to the increase in pressure to perform well in their education (Eaton & Christensen Hughes, 2022). The pressure increases when the student faces disgrace, dishonour, or failure. It is also considered an economic loss to the families back home when these students fail to perform well. There are also financial stressors that affect the nature of their health, housing, or other upkeep while in a foreign nation. According to Fass-Holmess (2017), the stressors associated with the financial issues affect the overall performance due to the poor concentrations hence exposure to the risk of academic dishonesty. This indicates that the international students faced with the pressure from home where they considered themselves as a burden due to the financial support and the unique stress caused by the poor housing and health make them not compete effectively with the domestic learners who have the advantage of home support and understanding the academic integrity guidelines. The aspects of networking and support require stable finance. In addition, the economic impact is also linked to the pressure to attain higher academic qualifications that guarantee the procurement of professional employment and permanent residency. “A good job with a good salary is a dream of every student upon graduation, which is realized through successful academic performance” (Sheard et al., 2018). Clearly, the pressure to achieve professional employment for financial gains and prosperity plays a huge impact on the academic conduct of the students. Therefore, international students are under pressure to accomplish good academic performance, which sometimes leads to cheating and academic dishonesty as a shortcut approach.

Academic integrity in North America has become a fundamental problem because of the pressure from the family of international students. More Specifically, family expectations are amongst the factors that influence dishonesty among the learners. The pressure from their homes puts them at risk of violating academic integrity and failing to adhere to the guidelines on academic integrity (MacLeod & Eaton, 2020). Some students are under extreme pressure from their families to succeed or be punished for their academic failures. According to Liles (2019), the choice left for the students to pass or face penalties after failing is considered a rational choice. “These students may expect a reward that they would not be capable of achieving through their own intelligence and hardness, i.e., self-efficacy” (Liles, 2019). In addition, accepting the idea that academic dishonesty is normal in a culture of corruption is becoming endemic, therefore, “education is considered expensive” (Katlins,2018). Clearly, most international students commit academic dishonesty beyond their motivation based on their features. Therefore, high expectation from the family characterized by the financial burden increases the pressure, especially when the learner is faced with the dishonour for failure.

Academic integrity in North America has become a fundamental problem because of the impact of growing environment of international students. The globalization of higher education has offered unprecedented opportunities for access and diversity of perception for the international community. In more detail, there has been skyrocketing global student enrolment due to the internationally connected economy. Many countries have benefited from this international relationship; for example, it has expanded the international research collaboration and political positioning (Parnther, 2022). More specifically, the students have chosen the benefits from the international study as their path to social and economic growth hence forcing them to leave their home nations to acquire credentials that can give them a chance of accessing international firms and provide social capital that can later be used for the development of their home countries. Despite the benefits of international education, these students encounter many challenges that affect their academic success. These challenges are linked to the language, cultural variations, academic preparation, and policy understanding. According to Peters (2019), these barriers have exposed international learners to various violation of academic integrity for the past 30 years. The increase in the number of students seeking education abroad leads to the rise in poor understanding and confusion regarding plagiarism and the lack of consensus on the ethical underpinning of the academic integrity guidelines. “The conventional North American morals or ethics focus on the impacts of the actions that tend to be utilitarianism that emphasizes the beneficial impacts of the actions on the greatest number of individuals” (Jamieson, 2020). This indicates that the confusion and misunderstanding will continue to increase the issues of academic dishonesty if the guidelines on academic integrity are not effectively addressed to fit every culture. In addition, many universities in North America emphasize the detection, mitigation, and prevention of academic dishonesty. In North America, the strategies used to address academic dishonesty involves strict examination procedures and plagiarism detection using software like Turnitin and Safe Assign. “In other nations or universities, the mitigation of academic dishonesty involves teaching the learners on the methods of proper citations and references using suitable university-sanctioned protocols” (Morrow, 2022). Clearly, there are differences in the reactive strategy adopted by every university to help reduce negative behaviour. This causes more confusion to the learners since they are not aware of the best and standardized international academic integrity guidelines to prevent its violation. It is evident that the reactive strategies used by the universities are not effective in a global student environment. Therefore, North America and other institutions need to develop ethical empathy that is focused on developing and promoting the intercultural understanding of the international students and developing the new strategies used to promote the aspect of academic integrity.

There is rapid growth in the international students who seek higher education in other foreign countries. This has led to the challenges associated with academic integrity due to the lack of uniformity on the academic integrity guidelines. Based on the sociological perspective, the issue of academic integrity among international students requires the attention of the higher education system. The prevention of academic dishonesty such as plagiarism is based on the habits and the values of the typical domestic North American students who have background experience with and familiarity to academic integrity rules and sanctions. The habits and the values of the international students tend to be different from North America's. The intervention towards handling this issue involves the development of ethical empathy that is focused on promoting the intercultural understanding of learns worldwide and developing strategies to promote academic integrity.

References

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Eaton, S. E., & Christensen Hughes, J. (2022). Academic integrity in Canada: Historical perspectives and current trends. In Academic Integrity in Canada (pp. 3-24). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83255-1_

Fass-Holmes, B. (2017). International students reported for academic integrity violations: Demographics, retention, and graduation. Journal of International Students, 7(3), 644-669. Doi: 10.5281/zenodo.570026

Harris, L., Harrison, D., McNally, D., & Ford, C. (2020). Academic integrity in an online culture: do McCabe’s findings hold true for online, adult learners? Journal of Academic Ethics, 18(4), 419-434.

Jamieson, M. V. (2020). Keeping a learning community and academic integrity intact after a mid-term shift to online learning in chemical engineering design during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Chemical Education, 97(9), 2768-2772

Katkins, L. (2018). Contract cheating advertisements: What they tell us about international students’ attitudes towards academic integrity. Ethics and Education, 13(2), 268- 284.

Langara College. (2021). “Academic miscounduct of Chinese students in US universities”: 8000 Chinese students expelled from US universities for cheating on ESL exam and having bad grades.

Liles, L. A. A. (2019). Plagiarism in Higher Education. Voices in Education, 5(29-32).

MacLeod, P. D., & Eaton, S. E. (2020). The paradox of faculty attitudes toward student violations of academic integrity. Journal of Academic Ethics, 18(4), 347-362. 4

McNeill, L. (2022). Changing “hearts” and minds: Pedagogical and institutional practices to foster academic integrity. In Academic Integrity in Canada (pp. 487-503). Springer, Cham.

Morrow, L. (2022). Beyond the traditional: academic integrity in Canadian librarianship. In Academic Integrity in Canada (pp. 449-464). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83255-1_23

Sheard, J., Morgan, M., Petersen, A., Settle, A., & Sinclair, J. (2018, January). Informing students about academic integrity in programming. In Proceedings of the 20th Australasian Computing Education Conference (pp. 113-122).