Awareness of the threat to academic integrity amongst the different pedagogical cultures of mainland Europe would seem to be less advanced than in the United Kingdom or America, but is now starting to develop. For example, the extent of the problem in France was highlighted by research undertaken in 2005 (Forster 2006), which focussed on the specific issue of plagiarism in French Business Schools. Now a growing number of such institutions have decided enough is enough and are tackling the perceived threat to their reputations and those of their students with a range of integrity initiatives (Radier 2008).

 

At the Ecole de Management de Normandie, where the writer taught marketing and was Head of Academic Integrity until retirement in February 2010, there has been lively 'plagiarism' debate, but only patchy policy experimentation. A more coherent academic integrity strategy was eventually rolled out towards the end of 2008 and early 2009.

 

With a focus on student attitudes, this paper describes the results of a small study to evaluate the effectiveness of the institution's various initiatives. The academic integrity measures to which the student sample and the school's staff have been exposed are described in the introduction and through an analysis of the study's findings, the author attempts, in a limited way, to answer the question "have they made a difference?"

 

The results indicate that even modest 'integrity' measures can produce a positive change in reported student behaviour and attitudes. They show a significant decrease, over a three-year period, in the number of students admitting to inappropriate behaviour, although these respondents did not rule out ever committing offences in the future. There is evidence of better understanding of the various dimensions to plagiarism and acceptance of a wider range of behaviours being 'wrong'. This was particularly the case for female, older and final year students.

 

This study was undertaken during 2008 and intended for submission to the 3rd 2008 Plagiarism Conference, but technical difficulties with the on-line research instrument, resulted in the work not being completed until after the conference.