Pancasila Values, Moral Integrity, and the Normalization of Academic Dishonesty: Evidence from Indonesian University Students

Abstract

To date, due to ethical relativism, academic dishonesty is increasingly normalized by students, yet traditional studies often ignore how national ideologies and knowledge decay influence this phenomenon. Driven by self-regulatory theory, this study aims to investigate the impact of Pancasila as the national ideology values, mediated by moral integrity, on normalized academic dishonesty, while also considering the moderating role of the ideology course completion time as a proxy of the knowledge decay mechanism. The data were collected from 310 Indonesian students and analyzed using Hayes PROCESS Macro. The result shows that ideological values, when mediated by moral integrity, may serve as a vital moral anchor within the SRT framework, effectively balancing the normalization of academic dishonesty. Yet, the influence of ideological standards potentially weakens over time since course completion, indicating that this deterrent effect is subject to knowledge decay. Theoretical and practical contributions are further discussed.