¿Colusión o trabajo colaborativo?: percepción de la población estudiantil universitaria acerca de la integridad académica

Abstract

Universidad Nacional promotes academic integrity in its institutional regulations; however, it is necessary to consider other dishonest practices such as collusion, which lacks disclosure, and importance and, in some cases, is confusing or unknown to the university community. Paradoxically, collusion implies active cooperation with other people, a principle that is also an essential part of collaborative work; however, collusion induces fraud and is deliberate. This research considers first-year university students at the Secretarial School of Universidad Nacional and uses a mixed-method sequential explicative design. According to the findings, it was possible to determine that most students have optimal moral development according to Kohlberg stages, which helps them to identify collusion practices as a lack of academic integrity. Nonetheless, cognitive dissonance justifies these practices based on values ​​such as solidarity, loyalty, and compassion. Likewise, because of cultural normalization factors, due to thoughts such as "everyone does it," the students incur in collusion instead of carrying out collaborative work. In conclusion, acts of academic dishonesty must be approached from a formative and not a punitive approach, turning them into learning and reflexive experiences that lead to correct decision-making. The students must learn to live with academic integrity and act with responsibility, honesty, respect, trust, fairness, and courage in any activity related to academic work.