Academic Integrity and International Students

Ojisu.com and our partner companies American Homestay Serices and WholeRen Education have been monitoring closely several cases of academic dishonesty involving international students that have appeared in recent years. While news outlets are often quick to sensationalize the severity of these events, it is important to remember several things while discussing cases involving international Chinese students.

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

It may be tempting to jump to conclusions and pronounce these students as guilty as soon as they are accused. From our own experiences working with these students, however, this not only puts unnecessary pressure on schools to discipline students before all the facts have been worked out, it also perpetuates the negative and broadly-applied stereotype of Chinese international students who engage in  acts of academic dishonest while studying in America. In order to ensure that the process of uncovering the truth behind these accusations is fair and unbiased, we urge all parties involved to withhold judgment on these students until the accusations against them have been resolved.

Students can be Victims Too

International students, regardless of country of origin, are an extremely vulnerable population. Many international students often do not speak English as their native language and have experienced very different educational systems in their home countries. Moreover, in dealing with Chinese international students specifically, many students come from single-child families that they have never left. All of these factors combined often leave students struggling both academically and personally. While this certainly does not constitute an excuse exempting those few students who have in fact been guilty of academic dishonesty, it is important to keep the vulnerability of this cohort in mind.

Promoting Integrity through Care and Support

Host families and American schools are in a unique position to set international students up to succeed in America. Beyond providing the loving care and support students need while abroad, host families should ensure that their students are familiar with American standards of academic honesty. In some instances, students are unaware that their academic behavior is unacceptable because of cultural differences; in other instances, students feel driven to cheat because of unmanageable pressures in their life. In either case, host families are in a position to reduce or even eliminate the likelihood that their student will engage in academically dishonest behavior.

Schools also have an important role to play as well by ensuring that students are aware of all policies governing academic integrity in America, and by ensuring that they are receiving the academic and personal support they need to succeed. The combined effort of host families and schools has the potential to mitigate these kinds of issues by instilling the value of academic integrity in students.

Rather than focusing attention on a select number of sensationalized cases, addressing the underlying issues that lead a small group of students to cheat is a much more effective way of preventing these issues from arising, while simultaneously cultivating an environment that nurtures and supports the healthy and appropriate growth of students abroad.