Abstract

This paper presents the report of a survey of staff and students’ expression of preference for, and willingness to engage in three approaches to curbing the menace of academic dishonesty in the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. The study also explored the possible connections between gender and the respondents’ responses. The sample comprised 87 staff and 232 final year undergraduate students, randomly drawn from five faculties in the university; and data were collected using a researcher-designed questionnaire patterned after Hinman’s (2000) ‘Police‘, ‘virtues‘ and ‘prevention‘ approaches to curbing academic dishonesty. The study employed frequency counts, percentages and the chi-square statistics to establish the degree of significance of observed differences between the responses of staff and students with regard to preference and engagement for each approach. Findings of the study showed that while the ‘Police’ approach was the most preferred by staff, the students expressed preference mostly for the ‘Virtues’ approach; significant differences existed between the staff and students in the degrees of their expressed willingness to engage in the ‘Police’ and ‘Virtues’ approaches; however, gender had no significant influence on respondents’ preference for or willingness to engage in any of the three approaches. The implications of the findings for integrated approach to curbing academic dishonesty and for instituting academic integrity policy in Nigerian universities were highlighted.

Key words: Academic dishonesty, curbing approaches.