Student’s academic (dis)honesty trends in croatia

The results of the regular two-year survey on the topic of "Student's, teacher's and non-teaching staff satisfaction" at the University of Applied Sciences in Zagreb (TVZ) have, in their latest wave, further highlighted the importance of monitoring the perception of academic honesty among all participants in TVZ study programs. Although any form of cheating on an exam or submitting someone else's work as one's own should not be ignored, it seems that the tendency to cheat and plagiarize among students is becoming almost common. This fact is indicated not only by results of conducted research on this topic in Croatia, but also in other countries within the European Union.
The application of these dishonest skills begins even in elementary school and continues through high school, all the way to college. Something that has become as usual for them during education latter can easily be transferred also to their future work environment. The danger of these bad habits is that they do not encourage teamwork, creativity, or self-confidence, which are fundamental prerequisites for the economic growth of any society. Such economies have difficulty in progressing and implementation of new technologies, because among the mass of plagiarists and copyists, are rare to find those who are motivated, engaged and innovative young people who are the drivers of economic prosperity.
To examine the perception of academic honesty at TVZ, a study was conducted using a WEB survey in which representative sample consist of undergraduate and graduate students, and their teachers. In recent years getting results show stagnation in students’ satisfaction and it is also observed tendency of students expressing increasingly lower concrete expectations from their studies. Additionally, concerning fact is that older students (graduate students) have significantly lower expectations than their younger colleagues, and show greater disappointment with their study. Such a level of fulfilled expectations is also reflected in their satisfaction with teachers, their attitude about whether they would re-enrol in the same study again and on their perception how it is difficult to complete studies.
During exams or submitting written assignments, teachers are often faced with unethical students’ behaviour. Most of them are agree that the frequency of unethical behaviour has remained the same over the past few years. Among those who disagree, there are more who believe that the trend of unethical behaviour among students is growing, meaning that the number of those who trying to achieve learning outcomes in an unfair way is increasing. Among them are more older students (graduate students) who are apparently more "skilled" in their unethical behaviour, as they are significantly less "caught" in these prohibited activities than their younger colleagues (undergraduate students). In such unpleasant situations for everyone, most teachers still only warn the student about the observed unethical behaviour, although students believe that teachers report their unethical behaviour to the disciplinary committee more often than teachers do.
These kinds of research results further raised awareness of the need to introduce some changes with the aim of reducing unethical behaviour among TVZ students. These changes include conducting continuous workshops and communication to students about the fundamental values of academic honesty, as well as the existing sanctions for their violation, what has not been applied until now.