Academic integrity in first-year nursing students: An intergrative review

Abstract

Introduction: Studies relating specifically to first-year nursing students’ breaches of academic integrity are not readily identified within the literature. While work has, over the years reported on breaches in academic integrity, it has done so with many disciplines and varied student cohorts. Nevertheless, those that specifically relate to first-year nursing students are sparse. First-year undergraduate nursing students are generally included with the entire student nurse cohort, and not necessarily identified independently. Therefore, the integrative review aimed to discover how or if the incidence of plagiarism/cheating, specifically within first-year undergraduate nursing students, was addressed.

Methods: An integrative review of the literature, incorporating quantitative and qualitative literature was undertaken between January 2021 – April 2021 using electronic data bases.

Results: Ten studies met the inclusion criteria. From the review, six main themes were extrapolated, (1) blurred boundaries of caring; (2) navigating the ethical highway; (3) factors influencing academic misconduct (4) early intervention (5) academic integrity policies and procedures and (6) inconsistencies amongst academics.

Conclusions: The integrative review has identified a shortfall in research relating to how academic integrity has been addressed in first-year nursing students.