Examining if a Character Education Program Would Reduce Cheating and Plagiarism in Higher Education

Overview & Synopsis

Many institutions of higher education within the United States and throughout the world encounter one of the largest nemeses they have on their campus--student cheating and plagiarism. Almost all colleges and universities have some type of honor code, but some form of student dishonesty continually occurs. The purpose of this qualitative research focuses on the characteristics, motivations, concerns, and advantages of the implementation of a character education program into higher education. In addition, because higher education institutions primarily use honor codes to curb the amount of academic dishonesty, this study looks at the possibility of the use of a character education program. A survey was used based on Lickona, Schaps, and Lewis's (2010) "Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education," to probe whether a character education program was needed in higher education. This showed the different responses pertaining to cheating and plagiarism and indicated if a character education program were initiated, would the dishonest work subside. The primary population for this study consists of two public universities in the North Texas area. Participation for this study was voluntary. Permission to use an adjusted version of Lickona et al.'s survey was sent to their office in New York City for approval. Student email addresses were gathered by the appropriate department at each of the universities and the surveys sent to all sophomore students. The character education and integrity survey information was accumulated by an online assessment. Each survey answer was collected to assimilate if cheating exists and if a character education program would help. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]