Academic Integrity Across Physician Assistant Programs in the United States

The purpose of this study was to describe how academic integrity is addressed in physician assistant (PA) programs across the United States.

A descriptive survey was developed dividing questions into 2 groups: demographic information and academic integrity questions. The survey tool was distributed to program directors at all PA programs in the United States that were both fully accredited and provisionally accredited.

A total of 171 surveys were distributed with a response of 110 surveys. Most institutions have honor codes in place (86.14%), with most having had an honor code for more than 10 years (62.38%). A notable percentage (25.45%) of program directors believes that academic integrity is a problem at their institution. Overall, 45.45% responded that academic integrity is voiced as an issue by faculty in all disciplines at their institution. Yet, when participants were asked to rate their concern about academic integrity at their program, 49.50% had little or no concern, 30.69% were neutral, and 19.80% reported great or extreme concern about academic integrity within their program.

This study provided baseline data on how academic integrity is currently addressed in PA programs. Drawing from this baseline data and the review of the literature, the next step is to develop academic integrity recommendations that PA programs can adopt.