Investigating Academic Misconduct and Its Impact on Skill Development in Civil Engineering Education

Abstract

This thesis investigates the relationship between academic misconduct and skills development among civil and environmental engineering students at the American University of Beirut. A total of 35 semi-structured interviews were conducted, including 28 undergraduate and graduate students and 7 experienced civil engineers. The study was conducted in two phases: first, a content analysis was applied to explore patterns of academic misconduct and their impact on students’ skill acquisition. Second, a t-test based comparative analysis was performed using the NEOM “The Line” project as a real-world case study to evaluate how participants across different academic and professional stages engaged with ethical and technical challenges. Participants were segmented into five groups by educational and professional standing, revealing a clear developmental gap. Group 5, engineers with over two years of experience, consistently demonstrated higher ethical awareness and practical reasoning, indicating the positive influence of real-world exposure. The findings suggest that academic misconduct negatively affects the foundation of key engineering skills and that traditional education may not sufficiently prepare students for ethical decision-making. Based on these insights, the study advocates for the integration of project-based learning (PBL) strategies within engineering curricula to foster practical competence, ethical reasoning, and skill resilience from an early stage.