Academic Integrity In Undergraduate Physics: A Department-Level Analysis Open Access
Weaver, Ada (Spring 2025)
Abstract
This study approaches physics education research from the lens of academic integrity by evaluating the integrity culture of undergraduates in the Emory physics department. Because students take such a large number of classes with peers who share their major, departments have a great opportunity through their policies and personalities to shape the integrity of their students. This study ultimately seeks to gain a better understanding of academic integrity in undergraduate physics and provide the Emory physics department with information about its students and suggestions to further their learning in a physics context. Specifically, this study sought to characterize the current state of the integrity culture of the physics department, explain how physics students navigate academic integrity concerns on physics assignments, and determine how academic integrity in physics compares with other STEM departments. This study employed surveys, given to physics majors and non-physics STEM majors, as well as interviews with physics majors to investigate these interests. The surveys were designed, based on methods developed in previous literature, to ask students questions about their own opinions and behaviors regarding academic integrity and the opinions and behaviors of their peers, professors and department. The interviews were designed to tease out what makes physics unique and how students go about solving physics problems, as well as more information about when and why physics students cheat. Finally, based on previous academic integrity and physics education literature and the results of our surveys and interviews, we provided suggestions to the physics department and its professors of policies that they could employ to address academic misconduct in the department, with the ultimate goal of helping physics students become better physicists, better problem-solvers, and ultimately better people. These suggestions focused on realistic, tangible changes professors could make to their syllabi or assignment policies with the goal of incorporating previous physics education research to make recommendations that directly support physics students’ learning, where possible.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1 Introduction . . . 1
1.1 Physics Education Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The Problem of Academic Dishonesty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Literature Review . . . 1
2.1 Founding Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2.2 Motivations and Justifications for Cheating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3 Academic Major-Related Predictors of Academic Dishonesty . . . . . . . . 6
2.4 Environment and Peer Attitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.5 Instructional Methods to Decrease Cheating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.6 Use of Learning Tools & Problem Solving in Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3 Methods . . . 15
3.1 Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.2 Thirteen Specific Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.3 Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.4 Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.5 Honor Council Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4 Analysis & Results . . . 29
4.1 Survey Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.1.1 Physics: Background Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.1.2 Background Information: Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.1.3 Exams and Courses: Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.1.4 Exams and Courses: Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.1.5 Department Culture & Policies: Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.1.6 Department Culture & Policies: Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.1.7 Peer Attitudes & Behaviors: Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.1.8 Peer Attitudes & Behaviors: Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.1.9 Personal Attitudes: Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.1.10 Personal Attitudes: Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.1.11 Incidents of Cheating: Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.1.12 Incidents of Cheating: Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.2 Honor Council Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.3 Interview Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5 Discussion . . . 70
5.1 Research Question 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.2 Research Question 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.3 Research Question 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.4 Recommendations to the Physics Department & Faculty . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.5 Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
A Survey Questions . . . 86
B Interview Questions . . . 100
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