Rocky University: How prevalent is Cheating?

Note: The attached Excel file provides the data required for this question.

During the global recession of 2008 and 2009, there were many accusations of unethical behavior by Wall Street executives, financial managers, and other corporate officers. At that time, an article appeared that suggested that part of the reason for such unethical business behavior may stem from the fact that cheating has become more prevalent among business students. The article reported that 86% of business students admitted to cheating at some time during their academic career as compared to 77% of non-business students.

Cheating has been a concern of the dean of the College of Business at Rocky University for several years. Some faculty members in the college believe that cheating is more widespread at Rocky than at other universities, while other faculty members think that cheating is not a major problem in the college. To resolve some of these issues, the dean commissioned a study to assess the current ethical behavior of business students at Rocky. As part of this study, an anonymous exit survey was administered to a sample of 90 business students from this year's graduating class. Responses to the following questions were used to obtain data regarding three types of cheating.

During your time at Rocky, did you ever present work copied off the Internet as your own?

Yes

No

During your time at Rocky, did you ever copy answers off another student's exam?

Yes

No

During your time at Rocky, did you ever collaborate with other students on projects that were supposed to be completed individually?

Yes

No

Any student who answered Yes to one or more of these questions was considered to have been involved in some type of cheating. The complete data set is in the file named Rocky.

Managerial Report

Prepare a report (see below) for the dean of the college that summarizes your assessment of the nature of cheating by business students at Rocky University. Be sure to include the following seven (7) items in your report.

1. To summarize the data, compute the proportion of all students, male and female, who presented work copied off the Internet as their own, copied answers off another student's exam, or collaborated with other students on projects that were supposed to be completed individually. Then comment on your findings.

2. Develop 95% confidence intervals for the proportion of all students--the proportion of male students and the proportion of female students--who were involved in some type of cheating.

3. Develop 95% confidence intervals for the proportion of all students--the proportion of male students and the proportion of female students--who were involved in copying off the Internet.

4. Develop 95% confidence intervals for the proportion of all students--the proportion of male students and the proportion of female students--who were involved in copying off another's exam.

5. Develop 95% confidence intervals for the proportion of all students--the proportion of male students and the proportion of female students--who were involved in collaborating on what was meant to be an individual project.

6. Conduct a hypothesis test to determine if the proportion of business students at Rocky University who were not involved in some type of cheating is less than that of business students elsewhere. Use α = 0.05.

7. What advice would you give to the dean based upon your analysis of the data?