University students reasons for commiting academic fraud and knowledge about regulations. A qualitative interview study

Abstract

The article focuses on university students reasons for commiting academic fraud and students knowledge about regulations concerning academic dishonesty. A qualitative study has been carried out with students from Estonia, Finland and USA, consisting of eight in-depth interviews. Qualitative inductive content analysis was used to analyze the data. A document analysis has been carried out to provide a comparative look into how different universities regulate academic fraud. The results indicate that students commit academic fraud mainly because of individual reasons such as not being able to memorize the necessary amount of material and that students are not very well aware or the regulations concerning academic dishonesty. The study shows the need for Estonian and Finnish universities to develop their strategies on dealing with academic dishonesty and promoting academic integrity.