Image credit: Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Recently, it seems every time we hear the words 'academic misconduct' at the higher education level, we immediately link the term to generative artificial intelligence (gen AI). That has certainly been my reality. I work as a senior learning adviser at a medium-sized university in Western Australia—a role that obviously didn't exist a few years ago, much like the gen AI challenges we now face with technology appearing on every device our students use, sometimes without them even asking for it.
To be honest, I'm neither for nor against AI. I observe and study each context before deciding where I stand. I consider gen AI both weapon and tool—a knife that can take someone's life or spread butter on the bread of someone starving. It's not black or white; it has many colours, and we discover new ones every day.
Our university is undergoing significant transformations due to current educational challenges. Whilst gen AI bears considerable responsibility for the changes we're implementing, it would be wrong to blame the technology alone. I like to say that gen AI was simply the last drop in an already overflowing glass. Part of our transformation involves rethinking learning and placing it at the centre of everything we do. This sounds obvious, but it isn't. We seem to have forgotten what's truly important in education.
We've migrated towards a meritocratic approach where the prize isn't learning or knowledge, as we might expect. To obtain the prize—a piece of paper at course completion—students will do anything. With gen AI, it's now fast, easy, and free. So why not cheat?
Academic misconduct numbers rise exponentially because the process is often taken for granted. Students focus on the product that will lead them to their prize: a qualification that will supposedly guarantee the best, highest-paid job they can imagine. Learning isn't considered important; it's seen as time-consuming for a generation struggling with living costs.
But here's the thing: we've been wrong for far too long. It's time to shift our mindset and accept that learning is the biggest prize. Knowledge is the most valuable currency. When we place learning at the centre of our objectives, dishonest shortcuts lose their appeal; cheating becomes pointless.
The Psychology of Gratitude and Academic Integrity
Recently, whilst listening to a podcast, I encountered a study that genuinely intrigued me. DeSteno et al. (2019) conducted experiments examining how gratitude affects cheating behaviour. The study is fascinating, and I'll briefly describe the experiment most relevant to our discussion.
Researchers placed participants in a room with a device that would randomly assign them either a short, enjoyable task or a long, laborious one—similar to a coin toss. Crucially, no one would supervise them, and only the participants would know the device's actual result. How many cheated? A staggering 85%.
The second phase involved a pre-task conversation where participants were encouraged to reflect on things they felt grateful for—including things that gave them purpose or brought benefits to their lives. After this gratitude reflection, how many cheated? Only a single-digit percentage!
The researchers concluded that gratitude promotes honest behaviour. More significantly, they noted: "Whereas many tactics used in schools or offices focus on instilling a motive to be honest through top-down mechanisms, gratitude appears to be capable of working from the bottom up" (DeSteno et al., 2019, p. 987).
Connecting Gratitude to Learning with Purpose
What connections can we make between this research and academic integrity? Many, and they're profound.
When students understand the value of learning—the genuine purpose behind acquiring specific knowledge—when learning becomes central to their educational experience, dishonesty loses its appeal. The learning process gains the importance it deserves because there's genuine purpose and meaning behind it.
Here's the crucial link: gratitude for knowledge already gained fosters appreciation for the learning journey, not just the destination. When students feel grateful for their educational opportunities, they begin to see learning as a privilege rather than a chore. This shift in perspective naturally leads to more purposeful engagement with their studies.
Gratitude cultivates what we might call "learning mindfulness"—an awareness of growth, progress, and opportunity that transforms how students approach their education. Instead of viewing assignments as obstacles to overcome through shortcuts, grateful students see them as chances to develop understanding and capability.
Based on this research, we might find that our voices—when we demonstrate the purpose of learning in our classes—could be the answer to much of the academic misconduct we're seeing with gen AI. When we help students recognise gratitude as part of purpose, we encourage deeper thinking about the reasons for learning.
Students begin to understand why they should use AI tools as thinking partners rather than solo writers. Although the temptation exists, students would resist copying and pasting unread AI responses because they understand that knowing the subject matter helps them evaluate machine outputs critically.
The Path Forward
The solution to our problems might be simpler and more human than we imagine. We need to ensure our academics understand that the learning process is far more important than any final product. Gen AI could actually help us achieve this goal—once learning becomes the centre of every classroom practice.
This doesn't mean abandoning rigorous standards or accepting subpar work. Rather, it means helping students find genuine reasons to engage with learning that go beyond external rewards. We can use gratitude as Yoshida (2022) calls: an approach, not a sole emotion. When students are grateful for the opportunity to learn and understand the purpose behind their studies, academic integrity becomes a natural outcome rather than an enforced rule.
The transformation requires a fundamental shift: from teaching subjects to fostering learners, from delivering content to cultivating curiosity, from preventing cheating to inspiring genuine engagement. It's challenging work, but perhaps it's exactly the human touch our increasingly digital educational landscape needs.
References
DeSteno, D., Duong, F., Lim, D., & Kates, S. (2019). The Grateful Don’t Cheat: Gratitude as a Fount of Virtue. Psychological Science, 30(7), 979–988. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619848351
Yoshida, M. (2022). Network analysis of gratitude messages in the learning community. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 19(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-022-00352-8
Acknowledgement
I acknowledge the use of Claude Sonnet 4 for proofreading my work. All core ideas and substantive content are original and produced by me as the author.
Juliana Cavalieri Goncalves Peloche is a Senior Learning Adviser at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia, driving forward AI literacy initiatives and inclusive education practices across tertiary learning environments.
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