UNDERSTANDING ACADEMIC INTEGRITY IN THE ONLINE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT: A SURVEY OF GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE BUSINESS STUDENTS

Increasingly, students are finding that taking courses online is a more convenient and flexible approach to earning a degree. For some, it is the only way to access desired degree programs and courses. As online education grows in popularity, how best to ensure academic integrity in the online learning environment becomes an important part of the dialogue surrounding the implementation of online instruction. Student surveys indicate that what constitutes academic integrity in the online learning environment is unclear. This study focuses on how business students view academic integrity in their online course work. Are the precepts of academic integrity the same in the online environment as in the classroom? To determine how students viewed the application of the principles of academic integrity in their course work, researchers surveyed three undergraduate and two graduate classes of business students in 2011-2012. Two of the undergraduate classes and one of the graduate classes were taught as partially online courses. One undergraduate and one graduate course were taught as fully online courses. The question was part of a broader survey of student satisfaction and use of social media to aid learning. There were statistically significant differences between males and females regarding perceptions of academic integrity, and between graduate and undergraduate students on the level of satisfaction with partially online courses. There were no statistically significant differences in the use of social media to enhance learning. The students were undergraduate business majors and MBA students at Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania.