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DOI 10.1515/libri-2014-0009

Libri 2014; 64(2): 109123

Amanda B. Click

Taking Something That Is Not Your Right:

Egyptian Students Perceptions of Academic
Integrity
Abstract: This study explores the perceptions of Egyptian undergraduate students at The American University
in Cairo, an American-style private university in Egypt,
as related to academic integrity. The research questions
were developed in order to discover how these students
perceive the scholarly environment in which they learn,
if they engage in dishonest behaviors, and if so, why. The
qualitative results of this mixed-method study were collected via online survey and photovoice interviews, an
ethnographic method in which participants take photographs in response to prompts provided by the investigator. In the survey, students were asked to define academic
integrity and explain how they learned about the concept,
and also respond to statements about the scholarly environment on campus. The photovoice participants took
photographs in response to the following prompts, and
others related to their research processes: something that
shows how you feel about plagiarism, something that
shows how you feel about cheating, something that shows
how you learned about academic integrity. The results include the responses to 114 completed surveys, supported
by the photographs and content of the eight photovoice
interviews. The qualitative data was coded line by line,
and larger themes were identified. Students indicate that
their colleagues engage in academically dishonest behavior regularly, and pointed to poor time management,
pressure for high grades, and helping friends as reasons
for this. The paper argues that academic librarians are in
a unique position to promote academic integrity on campus, and provides some suggestions for advocacy.

Amanda B. Click: PhD Student and ELIME-21 Fellow, School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America
Email: amanda.click@gmail.com

Introduction
Teaching college and university students about academic
integrity and supporting an ethical scholarly environment
is a cross-campus endeavor, and academic librarians can
and should play a significant role in supporting these efforts (Lathrop and Foss 2005; Caravello 2008; Madray
2008; Germek 2009; Gibson and Chester-Fangman 2011;
Wrenn and Kohl 2012). This exploratory study will contribute to the body of literature on academic integrity by
providing librarians and other educators with information
about the ways that Egyptian students at The American
University in Cairo (AUC) approach these issues. AUC is
a private, American-style liberal arts university in Egypt.
The language of instruction is English, and AUC offers undergraduate, graduate and professional programs. In the
fall of 2012, 6,600 degree-seeking students were enrolled
at AUC and 92% of them were Egyptian (AUC Office of Institutional Research 2013, 16). This study utilizes both qualitative data gathered from an online survey and photovoice
interviews to provide insight into how Egyptian students
at one university actually conduct their academic work,
and how they avoid or engage in academically dishonest
behaviors in the process.
Certainly it is impossible to make sweeping generalizations about Arab students or even Egyptian students, and in fact the findings of this study should not
be extrapolated to students at other universities in Egypt,
the Middle East and North Africa, or elsewhere. This exploratory study is simply an early step in the process of
understanding how culture effects perceptions of academic integrity. There are, however, some cultural differences
that might be taken into account when conducting this
type of research. For example, Western-style education
values creativity, critical thinking and research, and the
education systems in many Arab cultures focus more on
the memorization of texts and lecture notes (UNDP 2011)
requiring little or no use of the library (Lesher and AbdelMotey 2009). It is important to note that this emphasis on
memorization is becoming less common in the countries
that have been working toward education reform (Galal

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Amanda B. Click, Taking Something That Is Not Your Right

2008). In addition, Arab cultures tend to value collectivism over individualism, which may affect the way that
students learn and approach tasks (Hofstede 2001). This
paper attempts to take into consideration cultural differences, while answering the following questions: How do
Egyptian students at AUC perceive academic integrity?
What do they think about the culture of academic integrity at their university? Do these student engage in academic misconduct, and why?

Literature Review
Why do students cheat? Why do they plagiarize? These
and similar questions have been asked often, by researchers and scholars in numerous fields. Studies have found
that students engage in academic dishonesty because
they have certain personality traits (Kisamore, Stone, and
Jawahar 2007), because they see others cheating (McCabe
and Trevio 1997), because they have strong relationships
with classmates and weaker relationships with professors
(Stearns 2001), because they are unlikely to be forced to
face the consequences (Hutton 2006), and because they
think that faculty do not care if they cheat (McCabe, Butterfield, and Trevio 2006). Clearly there is no simple answer.
While there is much literature about academic integrity in North America, there appears to be a dearth of literature addressing this topic in the Middle East and North
Africa (MENA) region. Note that only English-language
publications are included in this literature review as a result of the authors language limitations.

Social Learning Theory

In a seminal work from the mid-1990s, McCabe and Trevio (1997, 379), two leading scholars in the study of
academic integrity on college and university campuses,
conducted a multi-campus investigation on the influences of individual and contextual factors on self-reported
academic dishonesty.. Their most important finding was
that contextual or situational factors, particularly factors
that were peer-related, have a stronger effect on behavior
than individual or personal characteristics of students.
McCabe and Trevio suggest that social learning theory
might provide the most appropriate context for educators
to approach issues of academic integrity. Social learning theory, developed by Bandura (1986), suggests that
much of human behavior is learned through the influence of example and that people learn and change their

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behavior based on their observation of credible others in

the environment and the consequences of their behaviors (McCabe and Trevio 1997, 392). Learning by observation is one of the most powerful means of transmitting
values, attitudes, and patterns of thought and behavior
(Bandura 1986, 47), making it a potentially useful tool for
understanding student choices related to academic integrity. Similarly, Imran and Nordin (2013, 105) found that
students who perceive that social norms permit cheating engage in academic misconduct more often than
other students, although this observation is made under
a different theoretical framework.
McCabe also worked with faculty at the American University of Beirut to conduct a study of students in Lebanon
(McCabe, Feghali, and Abdallah 2008). They found that
the perceptions of behaviors of ones peers with regard
to academic integrity showed a very strong relationship
with a students individual decision on whether to engage
in academic integrity (McCabe, Butterfield, and Trevio
2012, 63), indicating that social learning theory can explain choices related to academic integrity in non-American student populations as well. A more thorough discussion of this study can be found below.

Personality and Relationships

While Kisamore, Stone, and Jawahar (2007, 390) agree
that studying situational variables is important, they suggest that investigating the ways that situational factors
interact with personality constructs to influence perceptions of and intentions relating to academic dishonesty
would also be useful to educators. They studied the ways
in which the personality constructs from the Hogan Personality Inventory (Hogan and Hogan 2007), which focuses on qualities related to successful performance, affects
how students perceive academic integrity culture and
behave within this culture. They found that students who
have high scores on Prudence, which is related to responsibility and conformity, and Adjustment, which is related
to confidence and composure, are less likely to perceive
or engage in academic dishonesty (Kisamore, Stone, and
Jawahar 2007, 391).
Relationships also play an important role in academic
integrity on college and university campuses. Student
evaluations of instructor classroom behavior and perceptions of student-instructor relationships affect ethical
behavior. For example, students who admit to academic
dishonesty tend to have lower evaluative perceptions of
their instructors (Stearns 2001, 278). In addition, some
research has shown a faculty versus students mental-

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Amanda B. Click, Taking Something That Is Not Your Right

ity that is detrimental to the culture of academic integrity

(Kidwell, Wozniak, and Laurel 2003). Social network theory indicates that because relationships between students
have strengthened as a result of multiple modes of social
interaction, relationships between students and faculty
have weakened, and dishonest behavior is promoted as
students observe one another making unethical choices
(Hutton 2006).

Research in the Middle East

There is little published research in English on academic
integrity among student populations in the MENA region,
or Arab populations in North America. Of the few articles
that do exist, most utilize weak methodology and provide
little insight. Elzubeir and Rizk, however, conducted an
interesting study of medical students at United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain. They found that students are
genuinely confused about plagiarism and are reluctant to
report colleagues for academic misconduct. The students
viewed unethical practices such as marking an absent
classmate present for a lecture less seriously than other
aspects of educational misconduct, such as falsifying
information on a medical chart (Elzubeir and Rizk 2003,
593-594). This indicates that students may have a different
perspective than faculty or administrators when it comes
to defining ethical behavior. The most interesting observation from this article suggests that Islamic values such as
co-operation, support, brotherhood, and benevolence in
all aspects of social life may shed some light on students
hesitancy to report unethical behavior, and makes this the
only research to discuss Islam at all (Elzubeir and Rizk
2003, 594). It should be noted, though, that this approach
to academic integrity is not unique to students in the
MENA region. Students surveyed in North America have
also indicated that they do not believe it is the responsibility of the student body to monitor unethical behavior
(Hendershott, Drinan, and Cross 2000).
McCabe, Feghali, and Abdallah (2008) compared
the perceptions of academic dishonesty of Lebanese and
American students at the American University in Lebanon. Their research is particularly useful because it utilizes McCabes model to study the connection between
contextual factors and student behaviors, and includes
a discussion of the potential impact of Lebanese culture
on academic integrity. Although they found that Lebanese
students engage in academically dishonest behavior more
often than American students, they suggest that judging
the cheating behavior of students in non-Western contexts
using Western standards may be problematic (McCabe,

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Feghali, and Abdallah 2008, 464) because of the collectivist nature of Lebanese society. The concept of collectivism versus individualism is one of the four dimensions of
Hofstedes (2001) cultural framework, and Arab cultures
tend to be highly collectivistic. Individualism versus collectivism is illustrated in the ways that people within a
particular society live together and define relationships
with others. A collectivistic society is one in which people from birth onward are integrated into strong, cohesive
in-groups (Hofstede 2010, 515), and often students in this
type of culture prefer to answer questions or create knowledge collectively, working together to manage a challenging task. McCabe, Feghali, and Abdallah (2008, 465)
suggest that students that function in this type of culture
may be more prone to behaviors that would be considered
dishonest within the frame of Western academia, and suggest the development of a collectivist honor code, which
would emphasize some of the elements found in a typical
honor code such as particularly high levels of student involvement, [and] a clear statement of community expectations regarding academic integrity.

Academic Integrity and Library Instruction

The Association of College and Research Librarys definition of information literacy requires that individuals are
not only able to locate and evaluate information, but also
to use it in an ethical manner (ACRL 2000). This would
indicate that librarians should make it a priority to teach
students and other library users about issues of academic
integrity, and some literature exists to support this statement. Caravello (2008), in her extensive literature review
about academic integrity and graduate students, offers
ways that librarians can contribute to the cross-campus
discussion of these issues, including:
Actively collaborating with faculty and deans to initiate, situate, and develop better training that is coordinated with the students research experiences and
graduate curriculum.
Experimenting with techniques to incorporate academic integrity contents tailored to the discipline into
information literacy instruction and course assignments.
Partnering with writing programs and centers to develop, publicize and disseminate training materials
for graduate students (Caravello 2008, 163-164).
Most of the literature in the library and information field
focuses on plagiarism. Jackson (2006, 418) calls for plagiarism instruction to be infused throughout students

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Amanda B. Click, Taking Something That Is Not Your Right

everyday academic lives, perhaps by integrating librarian-developed online tutorials into courses across the curriculum. Lampert (2004) encourages librarians to embed
academic integrity instruction in specific courses and to
provide discipline based academic integrity instruction.
More generally, Wood (2004, 238) notes that librarians
want to foster respect for the work of scholars from whose
work we draw wisdom and should encourage students
to create their own ideas and contribute to [the] professional canon or body of knowledge.

Methods
Multiple methods were used to collect data in this study.
First, an online survey was distributed to students in six
sections of LALT 101, a required information literacy course
that is taught by instruction librarians. Then a small number of photovoice interviews were conducted with students.
Photovoice is an ethnographic method in which participants take photographs in response to prompts provided
by the investigator (McIntyre 2003). In the spring of 2012,
this study was piloted and survey and focus group data
were collected. Although the data is not included here, the
experience of running the pilot study supported the development of the survey for the fall 2012 study. For example, a
distinction was made between cheating and plagiarism as
behaviors that fall under academic dishonesty in the final
version of the survey, as a result of participant comments in
the pilot study focus group. Participants demonstrated that
they viewed, for example, cutting and pasting text from a
website and copying exam answers from a classmate as
distinctly different behaviors. They were also surprisingly
open about students actions and choices, and thus it
seemed appropriate to include straightforward questions
like, Why do you think AUC students cheat?

Sampling
All participants were recruited from LALT 101, because all
AUC students are required to take this course (except for a
small percentage that pass an exemption exam) and thus
the sections are populated with students from all classes and majors. Students in six sections of LALT 101 were
asked to complete the survey. Because this is an exploratory study, purposeful sampling was deemed to be appropriate. Students who completed the survey were asked
if they were interested in participating in the photovoice
segment of the study. These students were instructed to

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contact the primary investigator directly, so that interview

responses and photos could not be correlated with survey
responses. Thus, all photovoice participants were self-selected; this was not a random sample of students.

Survey Method
Because of the sensitive nature of the topic, an anonymous
online survey was selected as the best option for gathering
larger amounts of data. Surveys also provide standardized
measurement, so that data is comparable and consistent
across respondents, and often are the only way to ensure
that all the data needed for a given analysis are available
and can be related (Fowler 2002, 4). The survey developed for this study included both qualitative questions,
e.g. Please briefly describe academic integrity in your
own words, and quantitative, such as asking students to
indicate their level of agreement with a statement like I
believe that my professors encourage ethical behavior.
The survey was distributed to six sections of LALT 101 during class time, and students were asked to participate only
if they wished to do so. The full survey instrument can be
found in Appendix A.

Photovoice Method
Participants who volunteered to participate in the photovoice part of the study were asked to take a series of
photographs and then describe them to the primary investigator. The ethnographic method of photovoice is well
suited to research in which the participants perception is
sought, because it allows participants to record aspects
of their daily lives from their own perspectives (McIntyre
2003, 48), and to interpret the intentionally vague project
instructions as they best see fit. The semi-structured interview provides rich data, although researchers must be
particularly careful in conducting these interviews, and
strike a delicate balance between their goal of collecting
data and retaining compassion for participants (ClarkIbez 2004, 1517). Viewing photographs can allow the researcher into spaces to which she would not usually have
access, particularly when studying a sensitive topic like
academic dishonesty.
Participants were given a week to take the photographs for ten prompts, all of which were related to completing academic assignments and research. The three
prompts directly related to academic integrity were:
Something that shows how you feel about plagiarism
Something that shows how you feel about cheating

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Figure 1: Ages of survey respondents (N=114)

Something that shows how you learned about academic integrity

The photovoice information sheet, including all the photo
prompts, can be found in Appendix B. All interviews were
audio recorded, with the permission of the participant.
The interview prompts are listed in Appendix C.

Data Analysis
Qualitative responses in the survey data were analyzed with
a coding process that involved identifying recurring themes
in responses. For example, when students were asked to describe academic integrity in their own words, concepts like
not stealing other peoples work, rules/codes/policies,
and respect, honesty, trust came up again and again.
Photovoice interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. The transcriptions were analyzed in a similar
manner; recurring themes were identified and categorized. Transcripts were reviewed two to three times each,
in order to catch all instances of themes that were identified in transcripts examined later in the analysis. In some
cases, a significant theme might not be recognized as such
until it appeared more than once, thus revisiting the interviews was an essential part of the process.

Limitations
As previously noted, this is an exploratory study that
utilizes non-random sampling and findings should not
be considered generalizable. This study was conducted
entirely in English, which limits the respondents to par-

ticularly well-educated students, most of whom are of a

higher socio-economic status than the majority of their
countrymen. The group is not representative of Arab culture, or even Egyptian culture. Future research might be
expanded to include interviews, or at least survey instruments, in Arabic, to include students from other universities Egypt, the Middle East and North Africa. In addition,
academic integrity can be a delicate topic, and gathering
truthful data may be challenging. The way students discuss their classmates behaviors is very different from the
way they discuss their own, and while this research allowed me to develop some theories to explain behaviors,
contradicting data may make drawing conclusions difficult. In addition, when discussing a potentially sensitive
subject like unethical behavior, participants may be uncomfortable responding truthfully. Particularly if participants feel that the interviewer is in a position of authority,
the researcher may influence the nature and content of the
data produced (Morgan 1997, 15).

Results
Participant Characteristics
The survey was attempted by 137 students, and completed
by 114 after removing graduate students and those under
18 years old. Only three graduate students completed the
survey, and the decision was made to focus on the undergraduate population. Respondents were 65% female and
35% male, and ages can be found in Figure 1.
Students areas of study are divided by school in the
following table. Respondents could select more than one

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Amanda B. Click, Taking Something That Is Not Your Right

Table 2: Definition of academic integrity, most common themes

(N=27)

Table 1: Areas of study (N=135)

School of Study

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Frequency

Percentage

33
34
22
26
20
135

24.4%
25.2%
16.3%
19.3%
14.8%
100.0%

Business
Humanities and Social Sciences
Global Affairs and Public Policy
Sciences and Engineering
Undeclared
Total

option in the case of a double major, which is why the

number of respondents adds up to 135 instead of 114.
Eight undergraduates participated in the photovoice
study, including six female student and two males. The
sample included two freshmen, one sophomore, one junior, and four seniors. Three students had not yet chosen
their majors (undeclared), two were majoring in communication and media arts, and one each in political science,
journalism, and art.

Defining Academic Integrity

Participants were asked to describe academic integrity in
their own words. Only 27 students answered this 23.7%
of respondents. It is unclear whether this low response
rate is related to the burden of the open-ended question,
or respondents actual inability to define the phrase. Of
the 27, four seemed to misunderstand the question and
gave answers that described academic dishonesty. For example, they gave definitions like violating the rules, and
it is all about taking something that is not your right or
in other words it is cheating. The most common response
theme was no cheating, followed by proper use of others work and honesty. Note that proper use of others
work was phrased in many different ways, since this was
a qualitative question: indicating when using someone
elses work/ quote or even ideas, whenever you use outside sourcesyou have to quote them. Most of the photovoice participants (5 out of 8) defined academically dishonest behavior as taking advantage of others work or failing
to give credit where it is due. An undeclared sophomore explained that for disorganized classmates, the easiest thing
is just to copy anything off the net or use someone elses
ideas and not give credit. The most commonly occurring
themes of all survey responses (N=27) can be found in Table 2. In some cases, more than one theme appeared in the
same response, and so the frequency total is greater than
the total number of responses.

Theme
No cheating
Proper use of others work
Honesty
Originality of work
Morality/Ethics
Respect

Frequency

Percentage of
Total Responses

14
10
8
6
3
3

51.9%
37.0%
29.6%
22.2%
11.1%
11.1%

The Academic Integrity Environment

Respondents were given a series of statements related to
the environment of academic integrity on campus and
asked to agree or disagree. Almost 90% of students indicate that they understand the concept of academic integrity, although only 23.7% were willing to define the concept
for the previous question. Very few would be willing to report a classmate to the Academic Integrity Committee for
cheating (12.1%) or plagiarism (12.3%), but a higher percentage would be willing to report academic dishonesty to
a professor 20.3% for cheating and 22.8% for plagiarism.
Students believe that their professors encourage ethical
behavior. When asked if their professors seemed to care
about academic integrity, four of the eight photovoice participants responded that they absolutely did, while three
hedged and said that some of their professors cared. Reponses to I think that AUC students in general are ethical
students are spread out: 29.5% disagree, 33.0% are neutral, and 37.5% agree. There is no clear trend here; student
opinions vary. More than half of respondents (52.6%) are
satisfied with the academic integrity environment at AUC,
and only 6.0% think that AUC students engage in cheating
more often than students in other universities in Egypt.
The responses to all eleven statements can be found in
Table 3. Respondents were not forced to answer any survey questions, aside from the question to determine age
(and thus participant eligibility). For this reason, there
are fewer than 114 responses to each of the sub-questions.
The numbers indicate, for example, that some students
did not feel able to compare AUC students to students in
North America.

Learning about Academic Integrity

When asked how they learned about academic integrity,
survey respondents credit their professors the most often,

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Table 3: Responses to statements about academic integrity

Sub-Question

I understand the concept of academic integrity.

I think that AUC students in general are ethical students.
I am satisfied with the atmosphere of academic integrity on the AUC
campus.
I think AUC students cheat more than students in other universities
in Egypt.
I think AUC students cheat more than students in universities in
North America.
I would report a classmate to the Academic Integrity Committee for
cheating.
I would report a classmate to the Academic Integrity Committee for
plagiarizing.
I would I would report a classmate to the professor for cheating.
I would I would report a classmate to the professor for plagiarizing.
I believe that my professors encourage ethical behavior.
During my time at AUC, I have been taught about academic integrity.
Table 4: How students learn about academic integrity (N = 95)
Theme
Professors
Freshman Year Experience (FYE)
Specific Classes
High School
Family

Frequency

Percentage of
Total Responses

56
38
28
9
8

58.9%
40.0%
29.5%
9.5%
8.4%

and many also mentioned the Freshman Year Experience

(FYE) orientation program. Specific classes were named
as well, including Rhetoric and Composition (11 times)
and LALT 101, the information literacy course taught by
library faculty (9 times). Students indicate that they often encounter conversations about academic integrity in
the classroom: throughout my time at AUC almost every
professor has emphasized the importance of academic integrity, and since I took the FYE First Year Experience
and weve been told a LOT about academic integrity. The
most common themes can be found in Table 4.
Most of the photovoice participants acknowledged
that they learned about academic integrity in class, noting
specific examples such as Rhetoric and Composition and
LALT 101. A female political science major demonstrated
this concept with a photograph of a syllabus from one
of her courses (Figure 2). One respondent explained that
he learned about academic integrity from his parents,
who are both academics. He took a photograph of his
mothers hand to illustrate his point (Figure 3), explaining

Strongly
Disagree

Disagree

Neither
Agree nor
Disagree

Agree

Strongly
Total
Agree Responses

3.6%
5.4%
6.1%

1.8%
24.1%
14.9%

5.4%
33.0%
26.3%

44.6%
32.1%
44.7%

44.6%
5.4%
7.9%

112
112
114

17.0%

45.0%

32.0%

5.0%

1.0%

100

6.5%

22.1%

42.9%

23.4%

5.2%

77

21.4%

30.6%

35.7%

11.2%

1.0%

98

22.7%

28.9%

36.1%

11.3%

1.0%

97

18.4%
18.8%
1.8%
1.8%

26.2%
24.8%
3.6%
3.6%

35.0%
33.7%
8.2%
9.8%

18.4%
18.8%
44.5%
47.3%

1.9%
4.0%
41.8%
37.5%

103
101
110
112

that if I ever copy and pasted or anything they would

be so disappointed in me. Half the students note that
they were not really familiar with the concept of academic
integrity until they started at AUC; it seems that this is
rarely or only briefly discussed in high schools in Egypt.
One student said that they were given a cursory Dont
cheat! from their high school teachers, another explained that turning in essays copied from the Internet
was accepta-ble.

Frequency of and Reasons for Academic

Misconduct
When asked how often their AUC classmates cheat, just
over half of respondents (50.5%) believe that they cheat
often, meaning 2-3 times per semester, weekly or daily.
But 72.7% think that their classmates plagiarize often.
These same students state that they never or rarely (once
or twice a year) engage in cheating behaviors. Half of the
eight photovoice participants indicated that their classmates engaged in academically dishonest behavior often.
A freshman noted that she had witnessed cheating two or
three times in her first semester. Survey results are summarized in Table 5.
Both males and females believe that their peers are
cheating quite often, and very few think that AUC students
never cheat. Female respondents were adamant that they
do not cheat 80.6% made this claim while only 54.1%
of male respondents say the same.

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Amanda B. Click, Taking Something That Is Not Your Right

Figure 2: How I learned about academic integrity. Female, junior,

political science.

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Figure 3: How I learned about academic integrity. Male,

sophomore, undeclared.

Table 5: Frequency of academically dishonest behavior (N=109, N=110)

Question

Never

Once a year

Once a
semester

2-3 times per

semester

Weekly

Daily Total Responses

I think AUC students

plagiarize...
I think AUC students
cheat...
I plagiarize...
I cheat...

7.3%

14.7%

27.5%

35.8%

11.9%

2.8%

109

5.5%

9.1%

12.7%

43.6%

20.9%

8.2%

110

78.0%
71.6%

14.7%
12.8%

4.6%
10.1%

2.8%
5.5%

0.0%
0.0%

0.0%
0.0%

109
109

Table 6: Frequency of cheating by gender (N=109, N=110)

AUC students cheat

Male

Female

Totals

Often
Rarely
Never
Totals

30 (78.9%)
7 (18.5%)
1 (2.6%)
38 (100.0%)

50 (69.4%)
17 (23.6%)
5 (6.9%)
72 (99.9%)

80 (72.3%)
24 (22.3%)
6 (5.4%)
110 (100.0%)

I cheat
Often
Rarely
Never
Totals

Male
5 (13.5%)
12 (32.4%)
20 (54.1%)
37 (100.0%)

Female
1 (1.4%)
13 (18.1%)
58 (80.6%)
72 (100.1%)

Totals
6 (6.3%)
25 (22.5%)
78 (71.2%)
109 (100.0%)

Ninety-seven students responded when asked why

their classmates cheat or plagiarize, and the most common
answer to the question was that students just want to take
the easy way out. Two students used this exact phrase in
the photovoice interviews to explain why classmates cheat
and plagiarize. Pressure to keep grades high, a lack of interest in learning, and laziness were also common themes.
Some respondents see this sort of behavior as culturally
accepted it is unfortunately a part of the Egyptian cul-

ture. One student, a senior communication and media arts

major, believes that AUC students do not take their coursework seriously, and that this is the Egyptian way of dealing
with things, unfortunately. Interestingly, while the literature on cultural aspects of academic integrity often relates
academic misconduct plagiarism in particular to a lack
of English-language proficiency (Hayes and Introna 2005;
Heitman and Litewka 2011), this concept did not come up
in either the survey or photovoice findings.

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Figure 5: How I feel about plagiarism. Female, senior, art.

Figure 4: How I learned about academic integrity. Female,

freshman, undeclared.

In the photovoice interviews, three students mentioned that poor time management is a problem, and that
this issue causes students to engage in dishonest behavior. Two of the participants emphasized that some of these
actions are just doing favors for friends, and two believe
that when it comes to cheating, the giver of information
is innocent of wrongdoing while the taker is guilty. Figure 5 shows a photograph that illustrates a friend asking
for help with an assignment. Photovoice participants also
noted that there was signage all over campus encouraging academically ethical behavior, and several took photographs of these messages (Figure 4), but doubted the
effectiveness of the campaign. When asked about the
signage, a junior majoring in communication and media
arts responded, if you want to cheat then you know its
wrong, and you dont need someone to remind you its
wrong.
The final survey question asked, Why do you cheat
or plagiarize? Students were asked this question unless
they stated that they never cheat or plagiarize when responding to a previous question. There were 40 responses

to this question total, but many were so vague as to be

unclassifiable. It is interesting to note that 25% of the respondents claimed that they do not cheat, but they would
not have even been asked this question if they had chosen
never when asked how often they cheat or plagiarize.
Students also often qualified these statements: I dont
cheat but if I do it will be for a very serious reason, I
never do plagiarize, nor cheatbut I do help others sometimes in tests, I dont but when I do its only because I
dont have much time.
In the photovoice study, students were more than
willing to discuss specific behaviors, telling anecdotes
about themselves, their friends, classmates and professors. They spoke of buying papers written by instructors
at other universities, photographing the pages of an exam
for a friend, and students blatantly copying answers from
the classmate next to them. Smartphones are considered
crucial, particularly for cheating in class; a senior journalism major called them the gateway for cheating. Interviewees explained that phones are used to access reading
notes and lecture slides during tests, and students borrow
a second phone from a friend or relative in cases where
professors collect phones before an exam. Below are
photographs that represent specific behaviors: using a
smartphone and sneaking notes into an exam (Figures 6
and 7).

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Amanda B. Click, Taking Something That Is Not Your Right

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Figure 7: How I feel about cheating. Male, senior, journalism

Figure 6: How I feel about cheating. Female, senior,

communication and media arts

Discussion
This research is important because academic integrity in
undergraduate work is important. As one of the photovoice
participants observed, If you lie in something small, you
will lie in something bigger. The goal of this study is not
to identify the Western academic integrity standards as the
best or only system, but to discover whether a particular
group of students are meeting expectations within their
scholarly environment. In this case, Egyptian students are
expected to adhere to American standards, because they
are earning an American university degree.

Cultural Issues
Some survey respondents and photovoice participants
described academic dishonesty as a cultural problem. In
describing classroom behavior, a senior explained that
people somewhere like the States or Englandeveryone
obeys, everyone respects while Egyptians sit and talk,
go talk on phones, cigarette break. Respondents refer a

lack of interest in academics and casual attitudes towards

academic integrity. However, blaming dishonest behavior on Egyptian culture would be unfair and inaccurate,
as studies have found high levels of cheating elsewhere
in the world as well. In what is considered to be the first
major study on cheating behaviors in the United States,
Bowers (1964) surveyed over 5,000 college and university
students, and found that 83% of them self-reported engaging in one or more of the academically dishonest behaviors included in the study. In similar studies conducted
by McCabe, Butterfield and Trevio (2012, 70), the number increased to 87% in 1994, and then declined to 65%
in data collected between 2002 and 2010. While self-reported data on cheating behaviors should be approached
with caution, the numbers clearly indicate that academic
dishonesty is prevalent to an alarming degree in Western
cultures as well. The survey and photovoice results described here in no way prove that Egyptian culture is more
or less ethical than other cultures. The question of why
Egyptian students choose to engage in academic misconduct, however, may provide cultural insight. For example,
during interviews, several students framed cheating in
terms of helping friends. Within Hofstedes cultural dimension theory, Egypt is considered a collectivist culture
in which all members of an in-group feel responsible for
one another (The Hofstede Centre 2013). This aspect of
Egyptian culture does not predict a higher or lower presence of academic misconduct, but may help explain why
student choose dishonest behavior when they do so. Perhaps, as social learning theory would suggest, Egyptian
students make these choices simply because they observe
their peers making similar choices. In addition, the survey
data presented here and in Cheating in College shows that
Egyptian and American students cheat for similar reasons; for example, the pressure to maintain high grades
(McCabe, Butterfield, and Trevio 2012, 20).

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Amanda B. Click, Taking Something That Is Not Your Right

119

Unclear Expectations

What Can Librarians Do?

In many ways, students are unsure what exactly is expected of them regarding academic integrity. The data indicates that Egyptian students tend to arrive at university
having been taught little or nothing about academic integrity during secondary education. McCabe, Butterfield and
Trevio found that cheating is prevalent among American
high school students, noting that cheating habits develop long before college (McCabe, Butterfield, and Trevio
2012, 33). Less than 10% of the Egyptian survey responses
mentioned learning about academic integrity during high
school. The transition from secondary to tertiary education is made more complicated by the varying experiences
of AUC students with issues of academic misconduct prior
to entering university.
The student respondents also receive conflicting, or
at least confusing, information from their professors. Students spoke of professors that ignore plagiarism, that give
failing grades for papers, that encourage plagiarizing students to drop the course, and that report students to the
Academic Integrity Committee for infractions. Professors
also utilize Turnitin in different ways. Turnitin allows students to upload their papers to the system, and receive a
score that shows the percentage of sentences and phrases
that appear elsewhere in print including published documents such as journal articles and the database of uploaded papers compiled by Turnitin itself. Sometimes students
have only one opportunity to upload the final version of
a paper; sometimes they can upload multiple versions as
they make adjustments to decrease the plagiarism percentage. Five of the photovoice participants discussed
at length the use of Turnitin, an online plagiarism detector, and two of them included photographs of the website
in response to the How I feel about plagiarism prompt.
Students are clearly focused on the plagiarism percentage
that the software provides, and one expressed frustration
that she had found herself before the Academic Integrity
Committee for a score of 5% when others in the class had
received scores in the twenties.
Indeed, just understanding exactly what plagiarism
means can be difficult. In My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture, Blum (2009, 12) calls the definition of this
concept murky and differentiates between intentional
and inadvertent plagiarism. Students describe some professors that explain plagiarism and teach skills like citation and paraphrasing, and others that include a brief
integrity statement on the syllabus and leave it at that. It
seems unreasonable to expect students to have a clear understanding of academic integrity under these inconsistent circumstances.

Because librarians assist students with conducting academic research and finding appropriate sources, it makes
sense that librarians should also teach students to use information properly. Academic librarians are in a unique
position to become promoters of academic integrity,
through advocacy and cross-campus collaboration. Wood
(2004, 239) argues that librarians should fill this particular role because they have multiple roles as defenders of
intellectual and academic freedom, as facilitators of information, and as teachers of using the Internet effectively.
The literature supports integrating academic integrity
issues into information literacy instruction, both in the
classroom and at the reference desk (Lampert 2004; Wood
2004; Germek 2009; Gibson and Chester-Fangman 2011).
Librarians need to consider the old rules and new kinds
of information; students may struggle to give appropriate
credit when citation guides do not include e-books or blog
posts (Gray et al. 2008). It is also essential that students
learn why we cite, and not just how. Librarians can, and
should, help students negotiate new information beyond
simply pointing them to the appropriate database. In addition, library instruction sessions should be designed
to approach some aspects of academic integrity as discipline-specific (Lampert 2004). Journalism students may
need to function within a set of requirements different
from those expected of biology majors. While some skills,
such as paraphrasing, will be useful for all students, different fields may view the ethical use of information in different ways.
Becoming an academic integrity proponent also provides opportunity for collaboration with faculty, staff and
administrators. Libraries can host workshops for each
stakeholder group on campus, promoting a unified perspective on appropriate scholarly behavior (Bombaro
2007; Madray 2008; Gibson and Chester-Fangman 2011).
In addition, librarians can work with faculty to design assignments that help students learn about the ethical use
of information (Embleton and Helfer 2007; Madray 2008).
Expanding advocacy efforts off-campus via outreach to
local high schools may also be a viable and valuable
option. Librarians at Centenary College in Louisiana
worked with local college-bound high school students to
help them develop information literacy skills, understand
plagiarism, and learn how to integrate research into academic writing (Wrenn and Kohl 2012).
A senior art major who participated in the photovoice
study described a transition during her time at AUC, as
she recognized that she benefited from researching and
writing papers. Once she realized that she had the ability

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Amanda B. Click, Taking Something That Is Not Your Right

to write a great paper, that feeling of pride prevailed over

the temptation to take an easier option. Supporting this
type of student growth should be a priority for librarians.

Conclusion
The survey and photovoice results from this study indicate
that AUC students are engaging in academic misconduct,
and provide some insight as to why they are making these
choices. Students feel pressured to achieve impeccable
grades, they want to help out their friends, and they manage their time poorly. Moreover, they may not truly understand what the concept of academic integrity really entails
or how to adhere to these scholarly standards. While this
research might be used to inform changes in the academic
integrity policy at AUC, future research might collect data
from students all over Egypt and the rest of the Middle
East and North Africa in order to be generalizable to other
student populations. With this type of dataset, broader
conclusions could be made about the way that Arab culture affects perceptions of academic integrity.
While the literature may not agree on the exact number of students that employ dishonest practices, or on
whether this number is increasing or decreasing, it is
clear that student are cheating and plagiarizing at alarmingly high rates all over the world. A campus-wide effort
is required to address this situation, and as information
professionals, librarians are well-situated to lead the campaign.

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received November 4, 2013
revised February 12, 2014
accepted February 18, 2014

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Appendix A: Survey Instrument

1.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.

How old are you?

17 or under
18
19
20
21
22 or older

2. What is your gender?

a. Male
b. Female
3.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.

What year are you?

Freshman
Sophomore
Junior
Senior
Graduate

4. What is your major? You can select more than one, if

you are a double major.
f. Undeclared
g. Accounting
h. Actuarial Science
i. Anthropology
j. Arabic Studies
k. Architectural Engineering
l. Art
m. Biology
n. Business Administration
o. Chemistry
p. Communication and Media Arts
q. Computer Engineering
r. Computer Science
s. Construction Engineering
t. Economics
u. Egyptology
v. Electronics Engineering
w. English and Comparative Literature
x. History
y. Integrated Marketing Communication
z. Journalism
aa. Management of Information and Communication
Technology
ab. Mathematics
ac. Mechanical Engineering
ad. Middle East Studies
ae. Music Technology
af. Musical Arts

ag. Petroleum Engineering

ah. Philosophy
ai. Physics
aj. Political Science
ak. Psychology
al. Sociology
am. Theater
an. Other, please specify.
5. Please briefly describe academic integrity in your
own words.
6. Please rate the following statements according to
whether you agree or disagree.

(strongly disagree disagree neutral agree
strongly agree)
a. I understand the concept of academic integrity.
b. I think that AUC students in general are ethical
students.
c. I am satisfied with the atmosphere of academic
integrity on the AUC campus.
d. I think AUC students cheat more than students in
other universities in Egypt.
e. I think AUC students cheat more than students in
universities in North America.
f. I would report a classmate to the Academic Integrity
Committee for cheating.
g. I would report a classmate to the Academic Integrity
Committee for plagiarizing.
h. I would I would report a classmate to the professor
for cheating.
i. I would I would report a classmate to the professor
for plagiarizing.
j. I believe that my professors encourage ethical
behavior.
k. During my time at AUC, I have been taught about
academic integrity.
7. How have you learned about academic integrity?
Who has talked to you about these issues?
8. Please respond by completing the following
statements.

(never once a year once a semester 23 times
per semester weekly daily)
a. I think AUC students plagiarize
b. I think AUC students cheat
c. I plagiarize
d. I cheat

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Amanda B. Click, Taking Something That Is Not Your Right

9. Why do you think AUC students cheat or plagiarize?

10. Why do you cheat or plagiarize?

Appendix B: Photovoice Information

Sheet
You are being asked to take part in a research study. To
join the study is voluntary. You may refuse to join, or you
may withdraw your consent to be in the study, for any reason, without penalty.
Thank you for agreeing to take photographs and participate in an interview for this study; I appreciate your contribution to my research. By agreeing to participate in this
study, you are agreeing to both take a series of photographs
and discuss these photographs in a follow up interview. If
you took the academic integrity survey, please be aware
that neither the photographs or interview responses will
be correlated with survey responses.
I will use the information you provide and combine it
with similar information from other student participants.
Then, we will interpret the data to draw conclusions about
how students conduct their academic work and how they
view the environment of academic integrity at The American University in Cairo.
You are asked to take a series of 10 photographs. I ask that
you exercise caution in carrying out this task, as current
technology makes it very easy to disseminate images in
ways that go against the confidential nature of this research project. We ask that you:
Bring the photographs to your scheduled meeting
within 7 days of completing the project.
Do NOT take photographs of peoples faces.
Instructions: Take the following photographs. Mark the
order of the photo in the space provided. Bring the photos
back at the scheduled time for your interview.

__
__
__
__
__
__
__
__
__
__

123

The computer you use most often

Your favorite place to study
The tools you use for writing assignments
The place where you work on a paper
The place where you keep your books
A place in the library where you feel confused
A place in the library where you feel comfortable
Something that shows how you feel about plagiarism
Something that shows how you feel about cheating
Something that shows how you learned about
academic integrity

Once you have taken these photos, you will meet with
principal investigator Amanda Click (aclick@live.unc.
edu) to discuss them. Thank you for your time and participation.

Appendix C: Interview Prompts

1. What is academic integrity?
What is cheating? Plagiarism?
2. Is this a problem at AUC?
Why? Why not?
Do you think this is representative of the larger culture in Egypt?
3. Would you report a classmate?
4. Is an academically ethical culture is important to
you?
Why? Why not?
5. Do you have friends that cheat?
How do they do it? Who cheats?
What about you?
6. Do you think your professors care if you cheat?
7. Who has talked to you about this before? Did you take
anything away from it? Did it change your behavior?

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