TDNet Discover

The purpose of this quantitative study is to identify the extent of the differences in the frequency and severity of academic misconduct reporting before and after the COVID-19 pandemic at a particular higher education institution in the southwestern United States. The number of case files were tallied for each of the nine semesters preceding the pandemic (2017- 2019) and the nine semesters following the pandemic (2021-2023) and analyzed using regression analysis and a t-test to determine differences in frequencies. The results of the t-test for the original data set (t(16) = 0.794, p = 0.44, d = 0.37) and the t-test for the data that included only the spring and fall semesters (t(10) = 1.645, p = 0.13, d = 0.95) indicated no statistical significance in the differences in frequency before and after the pandemic. Therefore, the first null hypothesis failed to be rejected. The sanctions were mapped to the associated level of severity based on the university’s academic integrity policy and then analyzed using regression analysis and a chi-square test for independence to determine differences in severity. The results of the chi-square test for independence (𝜒2 = 85.349 > critical value of 7.815, V = 0.22) indicated that the difference in severity of academic misconduct reporting before and after the pandemic was statistically significant. Therefore, the second null hypothesis was rejected. These findings indicate that the increased numbers of academic misconduct reports seen during the COVID-19 pandemic have not persisted post-pandemic, but the higher level of severity indicates that adjustments to interventions may be appropriate. Further research could include the semesters during the COVID-19 pandemic, analyze whether the results are independent of individual student characteristics, type of infraction, or course modality, compare characteristics of reporting and non-reporting faculty members, and expand the study to include other institutions.