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<p>Despite the importance of academic help seeking, many college students avoid requesting assistance due to embarrassment. Anonymous online platforms offer convenient peer support but may also encourage executive help seeking and academic dishonesty. Viewing anonymity as a multidimensional construct, this study analyzed 344 academically related posts from a single U.S. college campus on an anonymous social media app over one semester, using descriptive and correlational methods. Posts were coded into three themes: Seeking, Expressing, and Offering, and further classified as benign, questionable, or dishonest. Approximately 50% of posts were benign, 25% dishonest, and 25% questionable, with dishonest posts disproportionately appearing in Offering and Seeking themes. Findings suggest that anonymous platforms provide access to tacit academic knowledge, enable instrumental help seeking from broad peer networks, and allow emotional expression, while also facilitating varying degrees of academic dishonesty, often linked to executive help seeking and misuse of online academic resources. Implications highlight the need for faculty, administrators, and platform providers to support constructive academic engagement while mitigating unethical practices in online academic contexts.</p>

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Academic help seeking and integrity on anonymous social media: patterns of student engagement and academic misconduct

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年2月23日

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  • Kun Huang,
  • Carla Hargus

摘要

Despite the importance of academic help seeking, many college students avoid requesting assistance due to embarrassment. Anonymous online platforms offer convenient peer support but may also encourage executive help seeking and academic dishonesty. Viewing anonymity as a multidimensional construct, this study analyzed 344 academically related posts from a single U.S. college campus on an anonymous social media app over one semester, using descriptive and correlational methods. Posts were coded into three themes: Seeking, Expressing, and Offering, and further classified as benign, questionable, or dishonest. Approximately 50% of posts were benign, 25% dishonest, and 25% questionable, with dishonest posts disproportionately appearing in Offering and Seeking themes. Findings suggest that anonymous platforms provide access to tacit academic knowledge, enable instrumental help seeking from broad peer networks, and allow emotional expression, while also facilitating varying degrees of academic dishonesty, often linked to executive help seeking and misuse of online academic resources. Implications highlight the need for faculty, administrators, and platform providers to support constructive academic engagement while mitigating unethical practices in online academic contexts.