Learning attitudes in higher education may be examined from several approaches: the fields of academic socialization, moral development, student well-being and most recently, the pedagogy of higher education. Since the 1990s, the focus on academic dishonesty has shifted to the concept of academic integrity by emphasizing a positive, community-oriented approach in higher education. From the perspective of the pedagogy and the didactics of higher education, academic integrity and academic dishonesty are seen as the two ends of the learning attitude continuum. Both concepts involve the educating, socializing and controlling roles of lecturers, which are united in the rarely applied approach of the pedagogy of higher education. We believe that only this approach (involving the didactics of higher education) is able to offer strategies and techniques with which lecturers are able to handle, manage and compensate “ready-made” factors that influence students’ learning attitudes. We consider academic integrity as a goal of higher education and academic misbehavior as a symptom of inappropriate learning attitude, thus applying a positive, constructive, proactive approach instead of the punishing, retroactive, problem-centered one.

Researchers have proven that the climate of classes, the quality of teaching and teaching material, students’ engagement, close and strong student-lecturer relations, understandably communicated rules are all factors that determine learning attitudes, especially attitudes toward academic misbehavior. Lecturers are essential actors in transmitting and controlling acceptable behavior patterns, shaping students’ attitudes, continuously confirm values and norms. Besides, peer group effect has been found to serve as the most determining factor related to learning attitudes and academic behavior itself as well. As lecturers are the ones that are responsible for establishing certain conditions of study work and classes in higher education (obviously within given legal and institutional frameworks) and also, they are able to affect students’ peers, lecturers are seen as key figures in a process aiming to foster academic integrity.

Based on previous research results and academic literature, we formed the following hypotheses:

1. Students with instable learning attitudes and accepting positions of academic misbehavior are prevalent.
2. Due to universal higher education, relation to lecturers is perceived as less supportive by students.
3. Students with positive learning attitude are surrounded by perceivably similar peers.  
4.  Students with positive learning attitude are surrounded by students with perceivably similar relation to lecturers.

Nowadays the pedagogy and didactics of higher education generally involves the topics of e-learning, distance education and ICT. Besides, currently no pedagogical or teacher qualification is required for anyone to work as a lecturer in higher education, although the organization and management of courses obviously necessitate pedagogical knowledge (curriculum development, classroom management, testing, assessment, feedback, etc). Given the altered needs of students and the above mentioned conditions, we wish to consider the work in higher education institutions as a pedagogical process and thus offer a contribution to researches in the pedagogy and didactics of higher education.

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