How perceptions of academic honesty at the University correlates with student engagement: Conceptualization and empirical research opportunities

Abstract

Academic dishonesty among university students is a major problem for higher education and has negative economic impacts in many countries including Russia. While exploring why students choose dishonest ways of obtaining good grades instead of getting engaged in the learning process and acquiring as much knowledge and experience at the university as possible, most researchers focus on academically dishonest practices, ignoring the reasons for and factors of honest learning behavior. We regard student engagement as the opposite of academic dishonesty and propose a conceptual model of how academic honesty at the university influences various aspects of student engagement in learning activities. We conduct an empirical study totest the hypothesis on the correlation between the characteristics of honesty at the university and parameters of student engagement suggested as part of the conceptual model. We use data collected by the Monitoring of Student Characteristics and Trajectories carried out in universities included in the Russian Association of Leading Universities in Economics and Management. Having analyzed the data on students of management and economics in eight Russian universities, we conclude that the suggested hypothesis has been largely confirmed, and the proposed conceptual model may serve as a productive basis for empirical research on the correlation between academic environment parameters and student learning behavior.