Educational Alternatives ISSN 1314-7277, Volume 18, 2020 Journal of International Scientific Publications www.scientific-publications.net Page 30 INVESTIGATING INDIVIDUAL AND SITUATIONAL FACTORS INFLUENCING ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY AMONG MEDICAL STUDENTS Heather Lea Harvey 1 *, Sanjai K Parahoo 2 , Sabiha Mumtaz 3 , Darwish Badran 4 , Kamal Bani Hani 5 1 Hashemite University, Faculty of Medicine, Zarqa, Jordan 2 Hamdan bin Mohammad Smart University, Dubai, UAE 3 University of Wollongong, Dubai, UAE 4 University of Jordan, Faculty of Medicine, Amman, Jordan 5 Hashemite University, President, Zarqa, Jordan Abstract The study investigated the impact of individual, cultural & contextual factors on academic integrity, conceptualized in terms of passive and active cheating, among medical students in Jordan. Using data collected from 353 students, it was determined through odds ratio analysis that cultural collectivism and academic integrity culture had no impact on either active or passive cheating. However, traits of both high conscientiousness and high agreeableness substantially reduced one’s risk of active cheating. Neither the cultural and personality variables, nor gender were found to increase one’s risk of passive cheating. These findings contradict current beliefs that collectivism impacts cheating among Middle East students. Various managerial and theoretical implications are discussed. Key words: academic integrity, cheating, collectivism, personality traits, medical students INTRODUCTION Academic dishonesty is a universal dilemma. Today, many faculty who have been in higher education have their own personal story about some type of student academic misconduct. While Bandura (1986, p.527 in his modeling and social learning theories postulated “much of human behavior is learned through the influence of example”, and medical schools have long used this precept in their ‘see one, do one, teach one’ mantra, the concern regarding cheating and ethics still persists (Kilminister et al 2017; Teixeira 2013; GMC 2015). So what if one could determine the risk for cheating in medical students the same way one determines the risk of cancer or diabetes based on certain genetic or behavioral factors? Previous research has focused on a number of individual, situational and cultural factors having an impact on academic integrity. However, exploring causes of academic misconduct in higher education “has largely overlooked the values of integrating individual and situational perspectives to structure empirical examinations” (Ogilvie & Stewart 2010 p130). Currently the literature on academic integrity (AI) mostly focuses on either the individual variables (e.g. personality variables, as chosen in this study) or contextual variables (e.g. cultural variables, as chosen in this study). Traditionally, studies exploring the causes of poor AI focus more on individual student characteristics and lesser on the cultural context of the educational environment. Both the broad categories i.e. individual and contextual are important. For example, on the individual level, academic dishonesty can compromise learning while on the school level, academic dishonesty threatens the “equity and efficacy of educational assessment and harms the reputation of educational institutions” (Ogilvie and Stewart 2010, p. 131). This lack of learning may manifest itself through poor job performance and cause harm in various ways. It may also lead to enhanced corruption and harm to society. Research has established a correlation between AI and unethical work practices (Ma 2013) as well as with the country’s corruption index (Teixeira 2013). Further, there is a need to understand the personal and contextual factors affecting cheating behavior to “help transform a culture of cheating into a culture of learning” (Cronan Mullins & Douglas 2018, p. 198).