During the global recession of 2008 and 2009, there were many accusations of unethical behavior by Wall Street executives, financial managers, and other corporate officers. At that time, an article appeared that suggested that part of the reason for such unethical business behavior may stem from the fact that cheating has become more prevalent among business students. The article reported that 86% of business students admitted to cheating at some time during their academic career as compared to 77% of non-business students.
Cheating has been a concern of the dean of the College of Business at Rocky University for several years. Some faculty members in the college believe that cheating is more widespread at Rocky than at other universities, while other faculty members think that cheating is not a major problem in the college. To resolve some of these issues, the dean commissioned a study to assess the current ethical behavior of business students at Rocky. As part of this study, an anonymous exit survey was administered to a sample of 90 business students from this year’s graduating class. Responses to the following questions were used to obtain data regarding three types of cheating.
During your time at Rocky, did you ever present work copied off the Internet as your own? Yes/No
During your time at Rocky, did you ever copy answers off another student’s exam? Yes/No
During your time at Rocky, did you ever collaborate with other students on projects that were supposed to be completed individually? Yes/No
Any student who answered yes to one or more of these questions was considered to have been involved in some type of cheating. The complete data set is in the file named Rocky.
Managerial Report
Prepare a report (see below) for the dean of the college that summarizes your assessment of the nature of cheating by business students at Rocky University. Be sure to include the following seven (7) items in your report.
1. To summarize the data, compute the proportion of all students, the proportion of all male students, and the proportion of all female students that presented
a. Work copied off the internet as their own
b. Copied answers off another student’s exam
c. Collaborated with other students on projects that were supposed to be completed individually.
Then comment on your findings.
1a. Work copied off the Internet as their own
Proportion of all students:
Proportion of male students:
Proportion of female students:
1b.Copied answers off another student’s exam
Proportion of all students:
Proportion of male students:
Proportion of female students:
1c. Collaborated with other students on projects that were supposed to be completed individually.
Proportion of all students:
Proportion of male students:
Proportion of female students:
These proportions show that the incidence of cheating is fairly high, with just under 47% of the students reporting that they have copied from the Internet, over 53% reporting that they have copied from others’ exams, and 50% reporting that they have collaborated on projects that were supposed to be completed individually.
When the survey responses are separated by both gender and the type of cheating, it is seen that 39% or more in each group admitted to that particular form of cheating. In four of the six cases, the incidence of cheating was greater than 50%. While female students were more prone to collaboration, the male students were more like to use the Internet or copy from another’s exam.
2. Develop 95% confidence intervals for the proportion of all students, the proportion of all male students, and the proportion of all female students who were involved in some type of cheating.
For a 95% confidence interval of a proportion, use
The 95% confidence interval of the proportion of all students who were involved in some type of cheating is:
The 95% confidence interval of the proportion of male students who were involved in some type of cheating is:
The 95% confidence interval of the proportion of female students who were involved in some type of cheating is:
3. Develop 95% confidence intervals for the proportion of all students, the proportion of all male students, and the proportion of all female students who were involved in copying off the Internet.
The 95% confidence interval of the proportion of all students who were involved in copying off the Internet is:
The 95% confidence interval of the proportion of male students who were involved in copying off the Internet is:
The 95% confidence interval of the proportion of female students who were involved in copying off the Internet is:
4. Develop 95% confidence intervals for the proportion of all students, the proportion of all male students, and the proportion of all female students who were involved in copying off another's exam.
The 95% confidence interval of the proportion of all students who were involved in copying off another’s exam is:
The 95% confidence interval of the proportion of male students who were involved in copying off another’s exam is:
The 95% confidence interval of the proportion of female students who were involved in copying off another’s exam is:
5. Develop 95% confidence intervals for the proportion of all students, the proportion of all male students, and the proportion of all female students who were involved in collaborating on individual project.
The 95% confidence interval of the proportion of all students who were involved in collaborating on what was meant to be an individual project is:
The 95% confidence interval of the proportion of male students who were involved in collaborating on what was meant to be an individual project is:
The 95% confidence interval of the proportion of female students who were involved in collaborating on what was meant to be an individual project is:
6. Conduct a hypothesis test to determine if the proportion of all business students at Rocky University who were not involved in some type of cheating is less than that of all business students elsewhere. Use α = 0.05.
The proportion of business students elsewhere who are not cheating is:
The proportion of business students at Rocky University who are not cheating is:
The hypothesis test is as follows:
Hypotheses:
Null:
Alternative:
Critical value:
For a left tailed test at = 0.05, the critical value is zcrit = -1.645
Test statistic:
The corresponding p-value is 0.1371.
Decision:
Since the test statistic is less extreme than the critical value, the decision is to fail
to reject the null hypothesis.
Alternatively, since the p-value is greater than the value of , the decision is to
fail to reject the null hypothesis.
Summary:
There is insufficient evidence to support the claim that the proportion of business
students at Rocky University who are not cheating is less than the proportion of
business students elsewhere who are not cheating.
7. What advice would you give to the dean based upon your analysis of the data?
It is clear from the data that Rocky University has a significant problem with cheating among the business students. A staggering 90% of those surveyed report that they have participated in at least one of the three forms of cheating. In addition, the proportions of cheating were close to, or over, 50% for each of the individual forms of cheating.
The hypothesis test shows that Rocky University’s proportion of non-cheating business students is not significantly less than that of other universities. This may indicate that the school is experiencing a typical amount of cheating. While this does not mean that this cheating is acceptable, it may say more about the students than it does about the university. In other words, there may not be anything in particular that the university is doing, or not doing, that is contributing to the reported amount of cheating.
This study does not address how often any particular student committed a cheating offense. As a result, the survey gives a picture of the overall moral character of the student body, but does not necessarily accurately reflect the total amount of cheating that is taking place on campus. It is possible that those students who reported incidents of cheating may have engaged in this behavior only once, or relatively few times. In that case, while the percentage of students who admitted cheating is high, the actual prevalence as a percentage of opportunities may still be low.
It should also be considered that the data may not be completely reliable. If there were no repercussions for answering “yes” to any of the three questions, some students may have been inclined to answer dishonestly and say “yes” solely for the purpose of “messing with” the system. College students can be immature. It is also possible that the actual numbers are higher, as some students may have been disinclined to be completely forthright concerning their academic honesty, even with a promise of an absence of repercussions.
At this point, the dean has legitimate cause for concern, but likely needs more data before an informed decision can be made. The university should consider performing a new survey in an attempt to discover how often students are committing these acts of academic dishonesty.