Investigating Academic Integrity: The Role of Cheating and Satisfaction in Distance Education

This study pursues two primary objectives. First, it aims to uncover the role of factors, learner satisfaction, cheating, and the perception of peer dishonesty in predicting perceived academic integrity. Second, it endeavors to explore additional reasons behind cheating behavior. The study is exploratory, and a survey method was employed to gather student data. The survey included open-ended questions as well as Likert-type questions. Quantitative data underwent multiple regression analysis, while the open-ended questions were scrutinized using qualitative content analysis. The results indicated that online education satisfaction and perceived peer cheating make the strongest unique contributions to predicting perceived academic integrity (explaining 17% and 16% of the total variance, respectively). The qualitative analysis uncovered three key themes: students’ perception of their peers cheating, measures implemented to combat cheating, and instructors’ attitudes toward students shaped by the instructors’ beliefs about cheating prevalence as perceived by students. Students expressed a belief that their peers engage in cheating, highlighted potential dysfunctionality in overly strict measures as perceived by them, and noted that instructors’ beliefs regarding the prevalence of cheating may influence their attitudes toward students. This paper discusses the implications for instructors, as their perceived attitudes can impact students’ attitudes toward online education. Furthermore, students may perceive measures as overly strict and dysfunctional.