Academic integrity in higher education has been an increasing focus in recent years (Macfarlane et al. 2014), and this interest intensified with the pivot to emergency remote teaching and assessment during COVID-19 (Holden et al. 2020; Eaton et al. 2021). For those working and studying in Irish higher education, a perception of a rapidly expanding range and types of academic misconduct has prompted renewed institutional and sectoral efforts to safeguard academic integrity (e.g. QQI 2018a, 2018b; NAIN 2021a, 2021b). The project informing this paper explores the costs and benefits of using the ICAI-McCabe surveys, which are used in other countries to research students’ and academic staff’s behaviours, attitudes, and beliefs about academic integrity.

Central to dealing with the question of academic integrity, given the implications it can have on students and academic staff alike, is to initially explore what those working and studying in Irish higher education know and believe about academic integrity. As such, this talk will evaluate the challenges, costs, and benefits of adapting the ICAI-McCabe surveys of faculty and student attitudes and beliefs about academic integrity for use within the HEI sector in Ireland. The goal here is to explore how ‘academic integrity’ is understood in the Irish context specifically, and how these understandings may differ from the institutional and national settings in which these ICAI-McCabe surveys were developed and are currently in use.

The proposed approach to a cost-benefit analysis of using AIS in Ireland is informed by a virtue ethics philosophical perspective, extending the question of academic integrity beyond institutional and/or procedural viewpoints (Williams 2010). Such a perspective aligns with the ‘values-based’ approach to academic integrity, and draws on a body of work within academic integrity research that focuses on ‘virtue ethics’ approaches to what is consequently termed ‘educational integrity’ (Bretag 2016).

This open perspective avoids reducing ‘costs’ and ‘benefits’ to quantitative or monetary notions, and explores beliefs, attitudes and values. This innovative approach addresses the range of cultural and philosophical underpinnings of academic integrity in what would be a new national setting for the AIS, and with a view to the diversity of the Irish higher education context. Thus we propose a mixed-method approach with a significant qualitative component and a wider sampling perspective of the responsible actors - beyond those charged with institutional responsibility for quality assurance.

This project has a three-part, linked structure through which data is being generated: (i) a literature review; (ii) qualitative, semi-structured interviews; and (iii) focus groups. Full ethical approval in line with institutional requirements is being obtained for all stages. A broad and purposive sample of staff and students across Irish higher education will be taken for the interviews and focus groups. Interviews and focus groups can take place primarily online, but it would be worthwhile to undertake some in person. For the institutional dimension, representativeness is proposed: two universities, two technological universities, one institute of technology, one private (i.e. non-HEA funded) institution, and one college of education (seven HEIs in total). For each of these institutions, we propose interviewing relevant actors (senior academic officer, heads of school/faculty, and programme coordinators), aiming also for representativeness in terms of diversity of disciplinary backgrounds too. For the national dimension, we propose interviewing actors from across Irish higher education, both state and non-governmental. The focus groups with institutions and student representatives will engage informed participants to discuss both of the McCabe-ICAI Academic Integrity Surveys. The analysis will require interviews to be transcribed, and notes to be taken at focus groups. Qualitative data analysis software (e.g. NVivo) will serve both as repository and tool of analysis for data. The analytic framework will be informed by the intentionally open approach taken to the topic, aimed at eliciting a diversity of understandings. As such analysis will be informed by phenomenographic and grounded theory approaches, rather than simply ‘identifying themes’ (Larsson & Holmström 2007; Charmaz 2006; Bazeley 2009).

An initial projected outcome is that a clearer sense of the feasibility of using the McCabe-ICAI Academic Integrity Surveys in the Irish HEI sector will be developed, with the benefits and costs of introducing and/or adapting the surveys. An important contribution will be to the professional development of participants, in the subsequent discussion, through developing shared understandings of academic integrity in Irish higher education. It will do so by developing a critical exploration of how to determine and assess attitudes and beliefs among HE staff and students towards academic integrity in Ireland. One projected outcome is that these views can then inform institutional and national policy development. It will also produce a credible, robust, open-access evidence base to facilitate and inform future research initiatives in academic integrity in Irish HE. This will also facilitate the further development of the community of practice around academic integrity in Ireland, and for other countries considering their own approaches to academic integrity today.

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