Click to Cheat: Unraveling Internet-Facilitated Academic Misconduct Among Undergraduate Students

Yuehua Wu (), Yuchen Wang and Sandra Asantewaa Mensah
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Yuehua Wu: Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Yuchen Wang: Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Sandra Asantewaa Mensah: Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Research in Higher Education, 2025, vol. 66, issue 7, No 1, 22 pages

Abstract: Abstract While the internet has revolutionized academic study and research, it has also facilitated academic misconduct, presenting new challenges in maintaining academic integrity worldwide. This study, primarily drawing on the social cognitive theory, surveyed undergraduates at three universities in China to examine the status and working mechanism of undergraduates’ internet-facilitated academic misconduct (IFAM). The results revealed notable disparity in IFAM across different academic disciplines and highlighted the distinctive roles of personal and environmental factors in predicting IFAM behaviors. Specifically, moral attitude towards IFAM negatively predicted both IFAM actual and response behaviors. Peer IFAM demonstrated a significant positive effect on IFAM actual behavior and a marginally significant effect on response behavior. A restrictive school environment was found to predict only IFAM actual behavior, while academic self-efficacy predicted only IFAM response behavior. Surprisingly, the personal trait of dishonesty was found not predictive of IFAM behaviors. This study advances existing research on academic misconduct in the digital age, offering a nuanced understanding of IFAM among undergraduates and providing actionable insights for fostering academic integrity in contemporary higher education.

Keywords: Internet-facilitated academic misconduct (IFAM); Social cognitive theory; Personal factors; Environmental factors; Response behavior; College students (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s11162-025-09859-1

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