Digital Darkness Redux: Academic Dishonesty Through the Lenses of Strain and Neutralization in GroupMe Chatrooms

• In Event: Expanding Control Theory: An Exploration of Social Control, Self-Control, and Neutralization Strategies to Explain Crime

Abstract

Advances in technology make cheating more tempting for students and harder for faculty to identify. While certain online resources provide access to course materials, it is only through group chat applications (e.g. GroupMe, Discord) that students can solicit academic dishonesty from their classmates--and obtain answers to the exact exams and assignments they are assigned. Drawing on N = 30 GroupMe chatrooms associated with undergraduate classes at a mid-sized Southern State University, the present study examines the causes of academic dishonesty where and when it happens. Consistent with previous research, solicitations for academic dishonesty as well as responses to those solicitations correlate with variables suggested by techniques of neutralization and general strain theory, accounting for relevant control variables. The present study also shows that some arguments are more compelling than others and that, for certain strain situations, solicitations can have the opposite effect, reducing the amount of academic dishonesty observed.

Authors

• Micah Brown, Southeastern Louisiana University

• Kailyn Duncan, Southeastern Louisiana University

• William Avram Chernoff, Southeastern Louisiana University

• Young Ju Chae, Southeastern Louisiana University

• Lisa Olson, Southeastern Louisiana University

• Michael Bisciglia, Southeastern Louisiana University

• Kenneth Bolton, Southeastern Louisiana University

• Christina Ainsworth, Children's Advocacy Center - Hope House