Patterns of Academic Integrity Definitions among BA Romanian Students’. The Impact of Rising Enrolments

Abstract

In light of the increasing interest in academic integrity, this paper investigates how students from three major Romanian universities conceive academic integrity. We build up an argument of dependency of such definitions on existing academic culture, and on how fast universities, faculties, or fields of study grow with respect to number of enrolled students. The findings reveal that definitions of academic integrity offered by BA students were largely confused, with some of the students being completely unable to focus on the topic. The variation in definitions depends on the size and recent history of the department and university. The universities that experienced recent growths were found have students less likely to focus on academic integrity. The department size plays a buffering role through the inertia of organizational culture and increase in department size leads to better knowledge of academic integrity. Notably, no or very little impact was found across the fields of study in the patterns of defining academic integrity. Policy makers and academic leaders should therefore be aware that in fast-growing universities, academic integrity needs careful instillment among students, and promoting it in terms of knowledge might be rewarding for the health of the organization.