Promoting Academic Integrity through a 'Pedagogy of Inquiry'

The author proposes locating the cultivation of academic integrity squarely within the undergraduate curriculum through an institutional pedagogy of inquiry. Connections are drawn between inquiry-based learning, the notion of a virtue-based practice, and the German educational ideal of Bildung. It is suggested that through immersion in inquiry-based learning, personally rewarding educational gains come into reach for students as they observe and develop the virtues guiding the practice of inquiry. In a context in which students value how they are enriched and changed through their learning experiences and come to adopt the virtues shared by the community of inquiry, dishonest behaviour is less likely as it would be counterproductive to the educational experience they value. Furthermore, when students' scholarly inquiries are connected to the needs and challenges of the world, such pursuits may cultivate integrity in the more expansive sense of students recognising and enacting their responsibility towards their social and ecological surroundings.