Abstract
The integration of artificial intelligence tools, online learning platforms, and digital academic systems has created new ethical challenges in higher education, particularly regarding plagiarism, unauthorised AI-assisted assignments, and academic misconduct. Students in Islamic universities are increasingly exposed to digital learning pressure stemming from continuous online engagement, assignment overload, technological demands, and expectations for academic performance. Under such conditions, students may rationalise unethical academic behaviour through moral disengagement mechanisms that weaken ethical self-regulation and normalise dishonest academic practices. Despite growing concerns regarding academic dishonesty in the artificial intelligence era, limited studies have examined how moral disengagement and ethical decision-making interact in explaining students’ dishonest intentions within Islamic higher education settings, particularly in cross-country contexts. Drawing on Moral Disengagement Theory, Ethical Decision-Making Theory, and Self-Regulation Theory, this study investigates the effect of digital learning pressure and moral disengagement on academic dishonesty intention through ethical decision-making as a mediating mechanism. A cross-national quantitative study was conducted involving 418 students from Islamic universities in Indonesia and Malaysia. Data were collected through questionnaires and analysed using Structural Equation Modeling-Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS). The findings indicate that digital learning pressure significantly increases moral disengagement and academic dishonesty intention. Moral disengagement negatively influences ethical decision-making, while ethical decision-making significantly reduces dishonest intention. The mediation analysis confirms that ethical decision-making partially mediates the relationship between moral disengagement and academic dishonesty intention. This study contributes to academic integrity literature by integrating digital learning pressure and moral psychological mechanisms in explaining unethical student behaviour in AI-mediated learning environments. The findings also offer practical implications for universities in designing ethics-based digital learning policies to strengthen academic integrity.