Glitches and hitches: sessional academic staff viewpoints on academic integrity and academic misconduct

Increasing incidents of academic dishonesty are a problem for universities globally. The traditional approach to dealing with academic dishonesty has been to detect and punish, which may not be the best solution. This study explored the perceptions of sessional teaching staff (a growing but often neglected workforce) on academic integrity and misconduct issues at an Australian university. Findings from the focus groups revealed a deep-seated concern for the size and extent of the problem. While some participants were of the view that students should be punished, others provided interesting suggestions to reduce instances of academic misconduct. This study found that prevention is preferable to punishment as a guiding principle for policy development to address academic misconduct in universities. Students should be educated on the importance of mastering established academic protocols as a way of learning the discipline. Universities need to provide sessional academic staff with contextualised professional development activities.