From Originality to Integrity: Confronting Academic Dishonesty in Creative Arts Education-Pedagogical Insights and Reflections From the College of Art, Knust

Academic integrity in creative arts education remains an underexplored domain, particularly concerning contract cheating in applied arts, where traditional assessment frameworks prioritise textual knowledge over experiential, process-driven artistic practice. This study critically examines the epistemological bias inherent in institutional integrity policies, which often fail to account for the complexities of non-text-based disciplines, which poses significant challenges to authenticity and ethical practice in artistic disciplines. Drawing on their expertise as art educators, the researchers employ an art-based phenomenological approach within a hybridised descriptive-interpretive paradigm to examine academic disengagement in applied arts education, with specific attention to contract cheating. Findings reveal that cheating behaviours among creative arts students are shaped by a generational shift from valuing self to prioritising a performance-oriented self, a lack of authentic self-expression and the unethical use of technology in educational contexts. Findings further reveal a disconnect between institutional policies and the lived realities of artistic education, exacerbated by broad, text-centric definitions of misconduct. This study highlights the critical gap in academic integrity research, where discussions on contract cheating predominantly focus on conventional text-based disciplines, overlooking the complexities inherent in creative arts education.This paper advocates for a discipline-sensitive, pedagogically responsive, and institutionally adaptive approach to academic integrity,promoting assessment methodologies that align with the experiential and creative processes central to artistic scholarship.