Analysing ethical behaviour of students for

submitting their assignment

1. Abstract:
The education system is managed through series of activities for providing quality of
education to their students. The educational institutes play vital role for building students
career. These educational institutes are not only educating and mentoring their students,
but they are also conducting tests and exams to analyse their educational performance of
students. There are many challenges faced by these educational institutes for managing the
behaviour of students for submitting their assignments and coursework. Many previous
research papers were providing limited information about the impacts of different factors
on ethical behaviour of students for submitting their assignment. There are many factors
that can affect the ethical behaviour of students such as personal factors, financial issues,
technical issues, learning issues, teaching factors and social factors. This report provides key
literature information about different factors increasing problems for students to submit
their assignment. This report adopted the questionnaire methodology for collecting
response from 20 postgraduate students of University of Sunderland. The analysis of results
confirmed that financial and social issues are increasing more problems for respondents to
submit their assignment.

2. Rationale:
The examination and tests are considered as most essential function of educational
institutes for assessing the educational performance of their students. The awards and
further actions about the study are made on the basis of different examinations and tests.
There are different aspects involved for submission of assignment, whereas different criteria
are defined for fulfilling all the requirements such as written reports, essay style, software
development, and others. (Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006).

The researchers also identified that most of the students are finding it difficult for
submitting their assignments through internet tools such as sunspace, Moodle, and Turnitin
accounts. The reason is that majority of students prefer pen based assignments as compare
to online submission of assignment. The research conducted by Bride and Appleyard (2008),

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identified that fear of getting plagiarism is considered as major constraint of students for
submitting their assignments. In contrast, Marsden et al., (2005) argued that online
submitted assignments are improving different aspects in students such as high level of
student commitment, more argumentation, acquisition of key knowledge, efficient
reasoning, and evaluation of rationale.

Beside these general factors, students are finding it easy for submitting online assignments
due to no direct face to face assessment from instructor. The students have plenty of time
for designing, modifying, completing and proof reading their assignments. (Burgoon et al.,
1996). In contrast, Fontaine (2012) argued that online assignment submission is increasing
different interpersonal flaws among students such as laziness and egoism. Also, many
students use advanced technologies for cheating the assignment submission system to
complete their work with less efforts.

There are many factors that directly affect the behaviour of students for submitting their
assignment such as high social circle, criminal activities, time constraints, drug abuse,
academic failure, and social rejection. (Sendag et al., 2012). Beside these key factors, there
are different other factors that directly or indirectly affecting the behaviour of students for
submitting their assignment such as financial issues, interpersonal issues, technical issues,
social issues, and educationist issues. The educational institutes can improve the unethical
behaviour of students through praise delivery mechanism. Also, educationists also interact
with students to provide solutions for their problems during studies. (Moore et al., 2010).

According to research conducted by Carvalho et al. (2011), Moodle software is used for
checking the originality of student work. The originality report generated from Moodle is
efficiently capable of differentiating the ethical and unethical behaviour of students. The
study further confirmed key problems faced by students in Portuguese University for
submitting their assignment such as heavy workloads, laziness, eagerness for higher marks,
stereotype for difficult questions, academic dishonesty, and data sharing between friends.
(Carvalho et al., 2011). The educationists can eliminate these factors from students by
providing essential class session for increasing their awareness about plagiarism issues,
penalties, and consequences.

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The students are also facing different types of stress during their studies, whereas these
stresses are directly affecting their behaviour for submission of assignment such as
academic stress, interpersonal stress, self identity stress, family stress, emotional stress, and
career development stress. (Simpson, 2013). In addition, there are five key philosophies that
can be used for assessing the assignment submission behaviour of students such as
relativism, egoism, utilitarianism, contractualism, and moral equity. (Jung, 2009). The
assessment of moral equity and egoism can provide the actual issues faced by students for
submitting their assignments.

Therefore, it is important for analysing and assessing the key factors affecting the
assignment submission behaviour of students. The educational institutes and all other
stakeholders must adopt strategies to eliminate factors that affect performance and
assignment submission behaviour of students. These factors can be eliminated through
teacher student interaction, student ambassadors, student union office to helps students to
rectify different issues affecting their assignment submission. Moreover, control strategies
with proper appraisal system in universities and college can help in reducing these factors
from students. (Deng and Tavares, 2013).

H0: Financial and social factors are severely affecting the behaviour of students for
submission of their assignments.
H1: Financial and social factors are not affecting the behaviour of students for
submission of their assignments.

3. Research design and planning:

Methodology is considered as heart of any research due to provision of key information
about adopting research approach, strategy, philosophy and research data collection
methods. There are different types of research methodologies that can be used for different
studies such as observation, questionnaire, case study, interviews, and experiments. The
selection of dissertation is depending on different research aspects and criteria such as
research mode, research nature, authentication problems, sample size and study field.
(Gray, 2009). This report also conducted analysis of key factors affecting student behaviour
by adopting questionnaire methodology.

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The research methodology is selected on the basis of different key elements of research
such as research philosophy, research approach, research strategy, data collection method,
data analysis method, research ethics, and data reliability and validity. The research
philosophy is considered as major belief of research for collection, interpretation and
analysis of data. (Kothari, 2011). This report is considering positivism study by considering
the key facts and strategies to analyse behaviour of student. The research approach is
defining the process for collection and final presentation of data. This report was
considering the deductive research approach, to consider literature studies to design
questionnaire and cross analyse to confirm its reliability and validity. (Saunders et al., 2011).

This report is adopting questionnaire research strategy for collecting data from students,
whereas questionnaire was designed by considering the literature information about
student behaviour. This report was considering the data collection method by personally
requesting the students to provide response for questionnaire. (Gray, 2009). The
questionnaire was distributed among 20 postgraduate students of University of Sunderland.
The questionnaire distribution and data collection was completed in 2 weeks time. The
collected data was cross analysed with key literature studies to confirm the validity and
reliability of data. The research ethics were maintained by considering all social, ethical,
professional and technological issues in research. (Kothari, 2011).

3.1 Research Ethics and SEPL Issues:

The research ethics and SEPL issues are strongly linked with each other and better
understanding of SEPL issues help in achieving research ethics. There were no initial social
issues faced during research. The researcher faced issues for collecting data from
respondents. Also, difficulties were faced for making communication and maintaining their
privacy for research. There were different ethical issues faced due to distribution and
collection of data. Many respondents confirmed that their name will not be disclosed in
research. Also, approaching someone in research for providing their perception and
experience was also very difficult and required complete ethics for not disclosing the
participants personal information. (Saunders et al., 2011).
There were no technological issues faced by research for conducting research due to
expertise for using statistical tool such as SPSS, Excel and others. Although, compiling of
collected data was very difficult due to incomplete filled data in questionnaire. The sample

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size was required to be maintained for 20 respondents. There were also no legal issues
faced by researcher due to properly acknowledging all the collected data, whereas
plagiarism factors were also removed by pre-checking the originality report. There were no
economical factors affecting the research, whereas chocolates were provided to
respondents for increasing their interest for analyse the ethical behaviour of students. Also,
researcher maintained complete privacy and confidentiality of respondents. The complete
declaration was made to select Data protection Act for efficiently managing. (Grix, 2010).

3.2 Design and Planning for Questionnaire:

The questionnaire design was considering key factors that directly affects the ethical
behaviour of students. The literature information and observation of students during
assignment submission time helped in designing the questionnaire. There were five key
factors provided in the questionnaire, whereas respondents were requested to agree or
disagree with the factors provided in the questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed
among 35 students in library and hall of residences. There were 20 complete responses
received from postgraduate students. The time horizon was kept one week for distributing
and collecting questionnaire data from respondents. (Denscombe, 2007). After collecting
the data, analysis was done by conducting the t-test analysis using IBM SPSS software. The
collected data was compiled in the form of chart showing percentages of agreement and
disagreement from respondents about different factors.

4. Result and Discussion:

As mentioned above, research questionnaire was considering of 5 key statements about
factors affecting the ethical behaviour of students for submitting their assignment. The
responses were collected from 20 postgraduate students, by properly managing research
ethics. The collected data is presented in the form of chart, whereas further t-test was
conducted to calculate the average mean values, standard deviation, t-critical, and df
values. Figure 1 shows the graphical output for total response collected for each statement.

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 Figure 1: Graphical presentation of questionnaire response

The students were further asked in the questionnaire to rate the impact of these factors on
their severity level ranging from 1 to 5 score. The respondents were also asked to identify
and categorise the most affecting factors that highly influences their assignment submission
behaviour. Table 2 shows the further calculated mean average and standard deviation
values for collected response from questionnaire.

Table 2: Mean value and standard deviation of student responses

The calculated values of standard deviation and mean average further helped in calculating
the t-critical values, df value and t.cal value. These values were calculated by using the IBM
SPSS tool for confirming or rejecting the null hypothesis of research. Table 3 shows the
results collected from IBM SPSS software for research.

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 Table 3: Values calculated by IBM SPSS for t-test of results

The t-test results confirmed the null hypothesis that financial and social issues are highly
affecting the ethical behaviour of students for submitting their assignment. The value of t-
critical was not exceeding 1.95 that showed acceptance of null hypothesis and rejection of
full hypothesis H1. The financial and social issues were included such as high tuition fees,
part time work, student loan, family responsibilities, lack of time, and high social circle.

Majority of postgraduate students confirmed that financial issues with mean average of 3.5
and social factors with mean average of 3.7 were affecting the ethical behaviour of
assignment submission. The remaining factors were less affecting their ethical behaviour for
assignment submission. The majority of students were from developing countries and faces
severe financial issues during their studies. (Marsden et al., 2005). The postgraduate
students are getting less help from parents or guardians as compare to undergraduate
students. The respondents were mostly facing financial problems due to heavy workload,
part time jobs, work tiredness, and student loans. Also, many students face problems for
buying advanced and paid resources from internet. The university is providing links to
download research papers from reliable sources but still majority of websites provides paid
services such as Francis and Taylor, ACM library and others. (Lin and Huang, 2013).
Beside the financial factors, postgraduate students are facing problems for managing their
students with their social circle. Majority of postgraduate students were either married with
family or in a relationship. The students were facing issues to manage finances, social and
their studies together. (Lin and Huang, 2013). The students are also engaging themselves in
extracurricular activities such as sports and events. The high social circle is also preventing
the student to properly concentrate on their studies. Thus, postgraduate students have to
make proper planning for mitigating these issues during their studies. (Marsden et al.,
2005).

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5. Conclusion:
This report was critically evaluating the key factors affecting the ethical behaviour of
students for submitting their assignment. There are many factors that directly affect the
behaviour of students for submitting their assignment such as high social circle, criminal
activities, time constraints, drug abuse, academic failure, and social rejection. Beside these
key factors, there are different other factors that directly or indirectly affecting the
behaviour of students for submitting their assignment such as financial issues, interpersonal
issues, technical issues, social issues, and educationist issues. This report adopted the
questionnaire methodology to analyse the high impacting factors for students behaviour.
The analysis of collected response confirmed that majority of students were facing financial
and social issues during their studies.
The financial and social issues are directly affecting their ethical behaviour for submitting
their assignment. The key financial issues identified in the research were student loan
problems, part time jobs, work tiredness, and low finance for buying high quality research
material. Beside the financial issues, there were different social issues identified in report
such as looking after family, high social circle, and lack of time. Beside these two key factors,
there are different psychological factors that severely affect the behaviour of students for
submission of their assignment such as laziness, egoism, last minute approach and sharing
assignment by neglecting plagiarism. These issues and factors can be resolved by making
proper mitigation planning during studies, whereas educational institutes must also provide
appraisal and control for monitoring the behaviour of students for submitting their
assignment.
This report increased the research and analysis skills and provided key knowledge about
how research work is conducted. This report was using small sample size, but experience
can be further used for analysing big issues with larger sample sizes. The use of analytical
tool developed technical skills for conducting research. Also, these research and analytical
knowledge will be further used throughout career for analysing different problems by
adopting proper methodology and analysis methods.

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6. References:

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