Ethical Behavior of Business Students at Rocky University

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?

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

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

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 the proportion of all male students, and the proportion of all female students that presented
   

   a. Work copied off the internet as their own
   b. Copied answers off another student’s exam
   c. Collaborated with other students on projects that were supposed to be completed individually. 

Then comment on your findings.

1. Develop 95% confidence intervals for the proportion of all students, the proportion of all male students, and the proportion of all female students who were involved in some type of cheating.
2. Develop 95% confidence intervals for the proportion of all students, the proportion of all male students, and the proportion of all female students who were involved in copying off the internet.
3. Develop 95% confidence intervals for the proportion of all students, the proportion of all male students, and the proportion of all female students who were involved in copying off another’s exam.
4. Develop 95% confidence intervals for the proportion of all students, the proportion of all male students, and the proportion of all female students who were involved in collaborating on individual project.
5. Conduct a hypothesis test to determine if the proportion of all business students at Rocky University who were not involved in some type of cheating is less than that of all business students elsewhere.  Use α = 0.05.
6. What advice would you give to the dean based upon your analysis of the data?

Write a report that adheres to the Written Assignment Requirements under the heading . Items that should be included, but are not limited to are a title page, an introduction, a body which answers the questions posed in the problem and a conclusion paragraph that addresses your findings and what you have determined from the data and your analysis.  As with all written assignments you should have in-text citations and a reference page too.  Please include any tables of calculations, calculated values and graphs associated with this problem in the body. 

NOTE:  Submitting your Excel file will aid in grading with partial credit if errors are found in the paper.

Be sure that your report contains the following:

• An introduction
• A body of the paper that answers the questions posed in the problem and calculations and graphs associated with this problem. 
• A conclusion paragraph that addresses your findings and what you have determined from the data and your analysis. 

 

Student	Copied from Internet	Copied on Exam	Collaborated on Individual Project	Gender
1	NO	NO	YES	Female
2	YES	YES	NO	Male
3	YES	NO	NO	Male
4	YES	YES	YES	Female
5	YES	YES	NO	Male
6	YES	YES	NO	Female
7	NO	NO	YES	Male
8	NO	NO	NO	Female
9	NO	NO	YES	Female
10	NO	NO	NO	Female
11	NO	NO	NO	Male
12	NO	YES	NO	Female
13	NO	YES	YES	Male
14	NO	NO	YES	Male
15	NO	YES	YES	Female
16	NO	YES	NO	Female
17	NO	YES	YES	Female
18	NO	YES	NO	Female
19	YES	YES	YES	Male
20	NO	YES	YES	Male
21	YES	NO	NO	Male
22	NO	YES	YES	Female
23	NO	YES	NO	Male
24	NO	NO	YES	Female
25	YES	YES	YES	Male
26	YES	YES	NO	Female
27	YES	NO	NO	Male
28	NO	NO	YES	Female
29	YES	YES	NO	Female
30	YES	NO	YES	Female
31	NO	YES	NO	Female
32	YES	YES	YES	Male
33	YES	YES	NO	Female
34	NO	NO	NO	Female
35	NO	YES	NO	Female
36	NO	YES	NO	Male
37	NO	NO	NO	Male
38	NO	YES	YES	Male
39	YES	NO	YES	Female
40	NO	NO	NO	Female
41	YES	NO	NO	Male
42	NO	NO	NO	Male
43	YES	YES	YES	Female
44	NO	YES	YES	Male
45	YES	NO	YES	Female
46	YES	YES	YES	Male
47	NO	YES	NO	Male
48	NO	YES	NO	Female
49	NO	YES	YES	Female
50	NO	NO	YES	Male
51	YES	YES	NO	Male
52	YES	NO	NO	Female
53	YES	NO	YES	Female
54	NO	YES	YES	Female
55	NO	NO	NO	Male
56	NO	NO	NO	Female
57	YES	YES	NO	Female
58	NO	NO	NO	Male
59	YES	NO	YES	Female
60	YES	YES	NO	Female
61	NO	YES	NO	Male
62	YES	NO	YES	Male
63	NO	NO	YES	Female
64	NO	NO	YES	Male
65	YES	NO	NO	Male
66	YES	NO	YES	Male
67	NO	YES	YES	Male
68	NO	NO	NO	Female
69	NO	NO	YES	Female
70	NO	YES	YES	Male
71	NO	YES	YES	Male
72	NO	NO	YES	Male
73	NO	YES	NO	Male
74	NO	NO	NO	Male
75	YES	NO	NO	Male
76	YES	NO	YES	Female
77	NO	NO	YES	Female
78	NO	NO	YES	Female
79	YES	YES	YES	Male
80	NO	YES	YES	Male
81	NO	NO	YES	Male
82	YES	YES	NO	Male
83	YES	YES	YES	Female
84	NO	YES	YES	Male
85	NO	YES	YES	Male
86	NO	NO	YES	Male
87	NO	NO	YES	Male
88	YES	YES	YES	Male
89	NO	YES	YES	Male
90	90 NO	NO	NO	Male