Introduction

Professionals are expected to display traits of honesty, integrity and respectability. Studies have found that dishonest behaviour is common amongst medical students (1,2,3) where up to 56% would consider engaging in scenarios considered plagiarism, dishonest or unethical by the university (1). Anecdote suggests plagiarism occurs in pharmacy students; this study aims to investigate the attitude and behaviour of pharmacy undergraduates at two schools of pharmacy.

Method

Focus groups were conducted with staff and students to identify incidents of academic dishonesty. From this, a questionnaire was constructed with twelve scenarios of a fictitious student engaging in academically dishonest behaviour. Three closed questions investigated student attitude, behaviour and belief of prevalence of such activities. After piloting, questionnaires were distributed to all undergraduate students at the both Schools of Pharmacy during a specified week. To prevent bias, the survey was not publicised to the student body before being conducted.

Results and Discussion

50.7% of questionnaires were returned from both Schools of Pharmacy of which 69.0% were female. 91.2% of students at School 1 and 80.4% at School 2 admitted to at least one incident of academic dishonesty with males more likely to admit to academic dishonesty at both schools (U=13338.5;p<0.005), concurring with the findings for medical students (3). Summed scores of admitted academic dishonesty for individual students displayed a uniform distribution. Median score at School 1 was significantly higher than at School 2 (U=16501;p=0.006). There was a small but significant correlation between admission of dishonest behaviour and students in higher years at School 1 (rho=0.291;p<0.001) but not for School 2.

Students at School 2 were more likely to agree that photocopying another students work "with permission" constituted academic dishonesty (c²=25.3;df=1;p<0.001) but 87.7% of all students agreed that photocopying work "without permission" did constitute dishonest behaviour. 29.9% of all students agreed that website "cut and paste" with citation of the website address to be dishonest, 26.5% were unsure if this was dishonest yet 32.3% admitted to having done something similar. Using journals as reference material but neglecting to cite the reference was viewed as dishonest by 56.0% of students. However, 23.5% had undertaken something similar. 50.0% of students agreed that "making up" a laboratory result is dishonest yet 59.6% had undertaken something similar in their degree programme.

Conclusions

Academic dishonesty is common amongst students at both institutions. Students are unclear about the conduct expected from them regarding coursework, citation of references or the Internet. As curricula transform to include more coursework assessments, students need to understand what is acceptable behaviour in terms of citation and sharing of work. Further studies are needed to investigate reasons for dishonest behaviour, differences between schools of pharmacy and if all incidents of academic dishonesty are significant.

References

1. Rennie SC, Crosby JR. Are "tomorrow's doctors" honest? Questionnaire study exploiting medical students' attitudes and reported behaviour on academic misconduct. British Medical Journal 2001; 322:274-275.
2. Anderson RE, Obenshain SS. Cheating by students: findings, reflections and remedies. Academic Medicine 1994; 69:323-332.
3. Baldwin DC Jr, Daugherty SR, Rowley BD, Schwarz MD. Cheating in medical schools: a survey of second year students at 31 schools. Academic Medicine 1996; 71:267-273.