Creating a Culture of Academic Integrity: a Toolkit For Secondary Schools

In their research covering six diverse high schools in the northeast, authors David Wangaard, Ed.D., and Jason Stephens, Ph.D., discovered that over 90% of students participate in some form of cheating during the average school year. Creating a Culture of Academic Integrity aims to reverse this trend, and it provides the following:

• A research-based justification for schools and communities to make academic integrity a priority.
• Tools, resources, and strategies to improve studentsÍ sense of scholastic honesty and help them resist cheating.
• A discussion of plagiarism and tips to prevent it.
• Activities on reproducible handouts (also included on an enclosed CD-ROM).

In addition, Wangaard and Stephens give instructions for establishing an Academic Integrity Committee—with representatives from the school administration, teachers, students, and the parent community—to plan and implement policies that support a climate of honesty and hard work.