Academic Dishonesty Among Students in Russia: Institutional Versus Individual Factors

• In Event: 69.012 - Systemic Academic Corruption in Higher Education: A Global Perspective

Abstract

Since the 1990’s, student enrollments at Russian universities have grown tremendously. A postsecondary credential has become a social imperative for the absolute majority of young people; therefore, more than 70% of the population aged 17–22 is currently enrolled in a higher education institution (Chirikov, 2015). The skyrocketing increase in student numbers in the context of weak institutions and fragmented academic communities has led to the rise of academic corruption. Cheating is blossoming both among students and faculty and is reinforced by corrupt practices outside of academia. Recent surveys show that nearly two thirds of Russia’s student population are engaged in various cheating practices: from cheating during exams to the falsification of midterm and final term papers (Grove, 2015; Koshkin, 2011; Lupton & Chapman, 2002).
Utilizing two datasets of nationally representative samples of higher education students and their faculty members from the same institutions, this paper aims to explore the factors that contribute to the tolerance of academic cheating among students. On a theoretical level, this paper also considers the influence of individual student characteristics versus the institutional environment of the university. In summary, this paper interrogates the scope of academic corruption in Russia and calls into question the quality and competitiveness of the country’s higher education system.

Authors

• Igor Chirikov, University of California - Berkeley

• Evgeniia Shmeleva, National Research University "Higher School of Economics"