Situational and Personal Causes of Student Cheating

Abstract

The causes of students' academic dishonesty behavior were explored using survey and experimental vignette methods. Participants were surveyed about their own cheating behavior, neutralizing attitudes, performance/mastery orientation and perceptions of peer attitudes and behavior. As predicted, neutralizing attitudes influenced cheating behavior directly, but also indirectly, increasing the effect of individual attitudes. Observing others cheating was strongly correlated with one's own cheating behavior. These variables are also shown to have different effects on exam cheating and plagiarism and cases of giving and receiving unauthorized information. Correlations were tested using experimental vignette methods, which supported the claims made from survey data.

Pharmacy Students’ Interpretation of Academic Integrity

“…Numerous studies have used brief scenarios or statements to depict examples of academic misconduct 9,29,[33][34][35] in which students were presented with between 9 and 24 scenarios. Compared with the first-person approach, 9 our reference to fictitious characters was arguably more likely to depersonalize the situation and enable exploration of students' perceptions in cases of ambiguity.…”

“…1 The incidence of and demographic factors associated with academic misconduct in postsecondary students, predominantly cheating in assessments and plagiarism, have been extensively studied by academic researchers. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Factors including age, sex, and experience with postsecondary study are still debated in the literature. 12 Some studies have found that male students are more likely than female students to commit plagiarism, [13][14][15] although this has been contradicted.…”

Academic honesty: Perceptions of millennial university students and the role of moderating variables

“…Student cheating has been strongly correlated with the observation of others cheating (Fulks et al 2010;O'Rouke et al 2010;Rettinger & Kramer 2009). In this regard, theorists have suggested that the broader institutional culture must be targeted to promote the spirit of integrity (Imran & Nordin 2013;Piascik & Brazeau 2010) and that the dishonesty of academic faculty themselves must be addressed (Parameswaran 2007).…”

“…Cheating has been linked to students who evidence low grades (Hensley et al 2013), to those who lack self-confidence and have low self-esteem (Pittam et al 2009), to those who lack knowledge of how to avoid cheating (Granitz & Loewy 2007;Voelker et al 2012), and to those who are extrinsically motivated (Rettinger & Kramer 2009). Behaviour laziness or lack of conscientiousness (De Bruin & Rudnick 2007) and an inherent lack of integrity (Evering & Moorman 2012), have all been linked to student cheating.…”

Faculty Perceptions of Self-Plagiarism and Other Forms of Academic Dishonesty Among University Students

“…These perceptions and beliefs often result from neutralization techniques (Haines et al, 1986;Sykes & Matza, 1957). Positively associated with academic dishonesty, neutralizing techniques allow individuals to justify their behaviors despite knowing such behaviors to be unethical or violative of institutional integrity policies (Rettinger & Kramer, 2009;Sykes and Matza, 1957). For instance, students may claim "ʻI'll never need to use this material' and 'Everyone else is doing it'" (O' Rourke et al, 2009, p. 49) to justify their actions.…”