NR 351 Week 2 Discussion Maintaining Academic Integrity (Graded)

Sample Answer

Academic integrity entails the submission of original work by students for all coursework. Failure to maintain academic integrity leads to plagiarism, which is a serious academic offense. Despite knowing the consequences of an academic integrity infraction, some students can still falsify their academic work for various reasons. The reasons may include fear of failure in coursework or fear of taking risks in their coursework (Kiekkas et al., 2020).

The students may also yield to the pressure from their peers to split the assignments or work collaboratively on the assignments when the course policies forbid helping peers or collaborating in executing course assignments. Some students also fail to recognize the essence of the course and the course assignments and consider academic dishonesty as a simple issue.

Moreover, some students have poor skills in managing time, making them plan poorly for the time and endeavor needed for the coursework. As such, when the deadline for the coursework is due, they are left with no choice but to cheat (Chiang et al., 2022). Other reasons include the failure of institutions and instructors to report academic dishonesty and enforce penalties (Amigud & Pell, 2021), the presentation of highly generic assignments to students, and performance anxiety.

The most challenging APA formatting issue for me is in-text citation (Ciarocco & Strohmetz, 2022). The challenging parts in in-text citations include the appropriate use of ampersands and commas, incorrect use of ‘et al.’, inappropriate order of multiple citations in one parenthesis, and spelling inconsistencies. The other challenging issue is referencing (Ciarocco & Strohmetz, 2022).

I have always made mistakes in formatting APA references such as erroneous use of italics, ampersands, commas, full stops, or general wrong formatting of various types of references. The resources that can be used to overcome these challenges include the use of referencing software such as Google Scholar to do the referencing, utilizing the APA textbook, the University’s writing center, and consulting with my instructors.

References

• Amigud, A., & Pell, D. J. (2021). When academic integrity rules should not apply a survey of academic staff. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 46(6), 928-942. https //doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2020.1826900
• Chiang, F. K., Zhu, D., & Yu, W. (2022). A systematic review of academic dishonesty in online learning environments. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 38(4), 907-928. https //doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12656
• Ciarocco, N. J., & Strohmetz, D. B. (2022). Teaching APA style Missing the forest for the trees? Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 8(4), 399. https //psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-01211-001
• Kiekkas, P., Michalopoulos, E., Stefanopoulos, N., Samartzi, K., Krania, P., Giannikopoulou, M., & Igoumenidis, M. (2020). Reasons for academic dishonesty during examinations among nursing students Cross-sectional survey. Nurse Education Today, 86, 104314. https //doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2019.104314