The Impact of Faculty, Peers and Integrity Culture in the Academe on Academic Misconduct among Filipino Students: An Empirical Study Based on Social Cognitive Theory

A number of studies have provided evidence of the increasing prevalence of academic dishonesty in academic institutions. Such development is contradictory to the essence of an academic institution’s existence. In this regard, this study was undertaken to identify the factors that significantly influence the likelihood of committing academic misconduct. The results should guide school administrators and faculty in strengthening their school’s academic integrity culture through appropriate policies and other relevant strategies. Guided by Bandura’s social cognitive theory of moral thought and action, data from students of a State-funded university in Southern Philippines were subjected to factor analysis and subsequently, ordinal logistic regression. The factor analysis revealed two distinct factors for academic misconduct – those committed inside and outside the classroom – bringing novelty to the study. In several earlier studies, this construct was studied as a single variable. Results indicate that trust, one of the values of academic integrity culture as well as faculty and peers exhibit significant influence to students’ likelihood of committing academic misconduct providing initial empirical evidence on the determinants to students’ likelihood to commit academic misconduct in the Philippines. No difference was found among business and non-business students in their likelihood of committing academic misconduct.