Relationship between Ethical AI Awareness and Students’ Academic Integrity Behaviour: The Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement at University Level in Punjab

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has opened doors for learning but also new ways to cheat. This study looked at how ethical AI awareness connects to students’ academic integrity behaviour and whether moral disengagement bridges that link among university students in Punjab. Researchers used a correlational survey design. They chose 200 students through stratified random sampling from the Education, Psychology, Sociology and Political Science departments of four public universities. Data came from a five‑point Likert‑type questionnaire that measured ethical AI awareness, moral disengagement and academic integrity behaviour with statistics Pearson correlation analysis. Results showed that students had ethical AI awareness and high academic integrity behaviour while moral disengagement was moderate. Ethical AI awareness was strongly linked to academic integrity behaviour. Weakly linked to moral disengagement. Moral disengagement was linked to academic integrity. Moral disengagement partially mediated the link meaning that ethical AI awareness helps integrity both directly and by reducing the excuses students make for misusing AI. The findings say that just being aware of ethics is not enough; integrity education must also tackle the excuses students use for actions. The study recommends institutional AI policies, scenario‑based ethics teaching and long‑term research to confirm the causal order of these relationships. Keywords: ethical AI awareness; academic integrity; moral disengagement; mediation; university students; Punjab