Reinforcing the Importance of Academic Integrity and Ethics (AIE) Through Augmented Reality (AR) Learning Trails

Most higher education institutions emphasise the importance of academic integrity and ethics (AIE). Despite various efforts to increase students’ awareness towards AIE, even with the enforcement of student declarations and severe penalties for misconduct, cases of plagiarism, data fabrication, and breaches of rules still arise with alarming regularity. This chapter describes a project which utilises the latest technological advances in augmented reality (AR), coupled with mobile technologies, to bring to students scenarios of AIE in real-life situations. Students make use of their mobile devices to retrieve information, give responses, and even consider ethically related decisions in different circumstances and locations. The project focuses on finding out how students perceive the use of AR for learning AIE and the influence of cultural background on their perception and understanding of AIE. Student learning was assessed using quantitative and qualitative methods which involved the collection of data from multiple sources: user experience surveys, clickstream data, and analysis of pre- and post-trail understanding of AIE. Students were generally satisfied with the use of AR in the learning of AIE. The findings suggest that the blended learning approach using AR could be useful to enhance the learning of AIE. In addition, variations in learning AIE among students of different cultural backgrounds were found.