More than half of students in a study of the impact of academic misconduct proceedings experienced severe anxiety and half reported severe or extremely severe depression.
While the study group was small (22 students), UWA psychology researcher Guy Curtis and UTS’s everywhere-engaged Accounting guru Amanda White reported there was relatively little other research thus far seeking to understand the impact of academic misconduct allegations.
Their paper was inspired by anecdotal evidence of stress.
“The authors of this article have seen students tremble, sweat, and cry when discussing alleged breaches of academic integrity,” Associate Professors Curtis and White write.
Students who indicated they had been accused of academic misconduct in the course of a student feedback survey were asked to complete a Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale test, then asked to provide insights into the impact of the misconduct process on their wellbeing, university experience and learning.
After filtering through 771 students from UWA and UTS, 22 of those who fessed up to academic misconduct proceedings completed the survey. 50% of respondents reported experiencing severe or extremely severe depression, and 54.6% reported extremely severe anxiety.
So does misconduct cause depression and anxiety or are people with depression and anxiety more likely to be caught up in misconduct allegations and the process exacerbates those conditions?
More research is clearly required in this area, but the study shared insights into the impact of allegations on students, finding that more than half recalled experiencing intense distress during the misconduct process.
“The distress had a lasting impact and created feelings of trepidation regarding subsequent assessments and emails. Thus, although the source of some feelings may be opaque to people in daily life, for students facing misconduct allegations and formal university processes, these are clearly the causal factor in their reported distress,” the authors write.
The authors concluded that relatively rapid processes, clear timelines for case resolution and provision of counselling and advocacy for students were warranted to better support students going through academic misconduct processes.