Honesty in institutions

Institutions that promote high standards of honesty in their tutors and students produce high-quality professionals. However, growing student cheating, whether through the internet, during exams, or even on their assigned class assignments, is a threat to education quality (Ward, 2016). During the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, the results of these unethical practices were visible. According to a 2009 article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, business schools' high rates of cheating may be directly responsible for Wall Street's unethical behavior. According to the article, 57% of business students engaged in academic dishonesty, as opposed to 47% of non-business students. The statistics were considered alarming, and the dean of Bayview University embarked on researching Bayview University students to assess these findings. The research was anonymous through the use of questionnaires. The study sample involved 90 business students in their final year. The questionnaires had a simple “yes or no” format with students expected to confirm or reject cheating through the internet, copied on the exam or having collaborated on what was meant to be individual projects. This managerial report is meant to provide a statistical analysis of the findings based on descriptive statistics. A comparison of the findings at Baywatch will also be compared with the findings by the Chronicle of Higher Education. The final part of the report will provide a summary of the findings and provide recommendations to the Dean of the College of Business at Bayview University.

Data Summary and Analysis

The above table indicates that of the population studied 47 were female numbering 42 while 53% were male numbering 48. There were only six students that copied at all the allotted levels and represented 7% of the study populous. The remaining 84% did not cheat at all, cheated in one segment or cheated in two segments. Of those that cheated completely, four were girls, but only two were boys. In essence, 10% of the girls were involved in complete cheating while only 4% of the boys were involved in total cheating habits. There were only 37 students that were involved in cheating. That represented 41% of the total population which is lower than the 57% that was suggested by the article. The number of female students that cheated was 26 representing 62% of the female population. Only 27 male students cheated representing 56% of the male population. Even though only 26 female students cheated compared to 27 male students, the occurrence is higher in females than in males. That is proved by the fact that the 26 females represent 62% of the female population while the 27 cheating male students only represent 56% of their population.

Table 1

Table 2

The above tables show the number of students that copied per segment and the number of students that copied per segment in percentile. Nine female students copied from the internet while only seven male students did the same. The total was 18% of the students copied from the internet. The number of females that copied in exams was equal to that of boys. However, a higher percentage of girls copied in that medium at 21% compared to only 19% of boys. 11 females copied on group projects and 18 boys copied on group projects.

More male students colluded at group projects compared to 26% of females. It is apparent that the group projects collaboration is the only cheating segment that males participated more than females. The lowest instances of cheating were observed on the internet segment at only 18%. The highest cheating was observed in the collaboration segment representing 32 % of the study sample. On average 23% of the female population cheated in each segment while it was 24% of the male population. The average in the male population is higher than the female sample since they were highly involved in cheating in the collaborated projects. The average cheating level was at 23% in the individual segment. This cheating level per segment at 23% is considerably lower than identified overall cheating level at 41%. That is because some students only cheated in one or two segments.

Confidence Intervals

The table above indicates the confidence intervals developed at 95% for Bayview University students. The confidence coefficient used to get 95% confidence intervals is 1.96.

The standard deviation of the proportion of students involved in cheating is 0.0778 and the margin of error of 0.0161. Using the confidence coefficient of 1.96, the 95% confidence interval for the proportion of students involved in cheating is 0.2172-0.2494 (21.72%-24.94%) (Farnsworth, 2016).

The standard deviation of the proportion of male students involved in cheating is 0.1221 and the margin of error of 0.0345. Using the confidence coefficient of 1.96, the 95% confidence interval for the proportion of male students involved in cheating is 0.2016-0.2706 (20.16%-27.06%).

The standard deviation of the proportion of female students involved in cheating is 0.0275 and the margin of error of 0.0311. Using the confidence coefficient of 1.96, the 95% confidence interval for the proportion of students involved in cheating is 0.1990-0.2613(19.90%-26.16%).

Hypothesis test at 56%

The p-value was assessed using a t-test. The test was performed to determine if the proportion of business students that copied in Bayview University was less than that of business students reported in the article. The significance level is at 0.05. The main hypothesis is that cheating at Bayview University is less than 56%. The null hypothesis does suggest that cheating at Bellevue University is greater than 56%. The P-Value from the t-test is 0.0092 which is less than 0.05 and thus disqualifying the null hypothesis. Therefore, the main hypothesis is valid in a sense that cheating cases in Belleview University are less than those suggested in the article of 56%.

Hypothesis test at 47%

The p-value was assessed using a t-test. The test was performed to determine if the proportion of business students that copied in Bayview University was less than that of non-business students reported in the article. The significance level is at 0.05. The main hypothesis is that cheating at Bayview University is less than 47%. The null hypothesis does suggest that cheating at Bellevue University is greater than 47%. The P-Value from the t-test is 0.0171 which is less than 0.05 and thus disqualifying the null hypothesis (Brown, 2014). Therefore, the main hypothesis is valid in a sense that cheating cases in Belleview University are less than that of non-business students as suggested in the article of 47%.

Conclusion

The number of business students cheating at Bayview is at 41% which is less than 56% of business students and 47% of non-business students as suggested in the article. The proportion of females cheating was identified to be higher than that of male students. Though the rate is lower than the article’s average, the 41% is still high and indicates high levels of academic fraud in the institution. It is recommended that the dean should increase the number of exams taken in class and reduce those taken outside of class. The cases will further reduce if the assignments are tailored to each student such as requiring students to pursue project topics that are different to reduce collaboration in assignments. The dean should further consider increasing the teaching on exam ethics, increase supervision in exam times and increase the scrutiny of papers submitted by students (Ward, 2016). From the results, the dean should prioritize addressing the problem with female students since they are the ones that are greatly affected. The school, however, needs to perform a survey using actual cases of cheating that are court by the administration. The research will eliminate the bias created by the possible lies by the respondents in the questionnaire.

References

Brown, T. A. (2014). Confirmatory factor analysis for applied research. Guilford Publications.

Farnsworth, D. L. (2016). CONFIDENCE INTERVALS INSTEAD OF HYPOTHESIS TESTS. Mathematics and Computer Education, 50(2), 130.

Ward, K. (2016). Book Review: A Call to Create a Culture of Ethics in Colleges and Universities: University Ethics: How Colleges Can Build and Benefit from a Culture of Ethics by James F. Keenan, SJ. Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education, 49(1), 24.