Academic Dishonesty in Egypt: A Nation-wide Study of Students in Higher Education

Academic dishonesty (AD) is an ongoing concern for authorities in higher education, where its importance is manifested in two folds. First, AD negatively affects the integrity and quality of research of individuals and institutions; and secondly it negatively affects the honesty level of the youth with far-reaching consequences for ethics and performance. Although AD is a challenge for all societies, there is strong evidence that developing countries are more prone to suffer from AD than developed countries. This exploratory paper follows similar studies for other countries, addressing the dimension of AD within higher education in Egypt. The results confirm significant levels of AD, with the top practice being to work cooperatively on individually assigned tasks. Interestingly, there are differences between the faculties, but not between public and private institutions. Management students, for example, showed by far the highest willingness to cheat on exams or to plagiarize.