Faculty and academic integrity: The influence of current honor codes and past honor code experiences

Abstract

This survey of faculty at honor code and non-honor code institutions investigated the influence of honor codes on faculty attitudes and behaviors. As hypothesized, we found that honor code faculty have more positive attitudes toward their schools' academic integrity policies and are more willing to allow the system to take care of monitoring and disciplinary activities. Faculty in noncode institutions have less positive attitudes and are more likely to take personal actions designed to both catch and deal with cheaters. We also investigated the potential influence of a student honor code experience on faculty attitudes. We found that, in noncode environments, faculty who had an honor code experience as a student were more likely to believe that students should be held responsible for peer monitoring and to say that they deal personally with cheating. Implications for higher education institutions are discussed.