Staff Perceptions of Academic Integrity among Medical Students: A Study Conducted in a Higher Education Institute in Sri Lanka

In the recent past that there have been several instances of breach of academic honesty among students which has resulted in much distress among teachers. The objectives of the study were to determine perception of staff on the frequency of certain dishonest acts, the attitude of staff to academic integrity issues, the perception of staff on adequacy of mechanisms available to minimize dishonesty and the opinion of staff on steps that can be taken to strengthen academic honesty A self-administered questionnaire was distributed among academic staff of a higher education institute in Sri Lanka, after obtaining ethical clearance.7 Responses were analyzed using the statistical package SPSS. Cheating at exams is an infrequent occurrence even though plagiarism on written assignments, copying assignments from seniors/previous groups, forging signatures and producing false medical certificates occur frequently. Almost one third of the teachers did not talk to the students about dishonest behavior and some had ignored a suspected incident of cheating while few had referred a suspected case of cheating to relevant authorities. Teachers perceive that efficacy of the existing system is low. Many felt that academic integrity may be improved by giving staff clear guidelines and advice regarding academic integrity issues and by providing clear instructions and information about the consequences of dishonesty to students. The teachers felt that it is necessary to strengthen aspects of academic integrity among students They felt that the present mechanisms inadequate and that it is necessary to be explicit about such issues with students and give staff and students clear guidelines.