Opportunity Makes the Cheater: High School Students and Academic Dishonesty
Keywords:
cheating, academic dishonesty, secondary school
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to reveal data about cheating behaviours in Slovenian upper secondary schools, to raise awareness and to lower tolerance for such behaviour. To acquire information about demographics, cheating behaviour, and opinions on such behaviour, we compiled a questionnaire that targeted a university population of first-year students
(N=323). From the results, it was revealed that cheating is a way of life in Slovenian schools, and almost all students at least occasionally indulge in some academic misbehaviour. It seems that a culture tolerant or even supportive of such behaviour has been established among students, parents and teachers, all working together to “help†students climb the ladder of success. The open question is whether all kinds of cheating are even recognized as such. Cheating is most common in homework, but at the other end, even systems such as external exams are not immune to fraud. At the moment, classic methods of cheating dominate. Differences between characters (e.g. gender) and educational institutions in most cases are non-existent or small, a finding that could aid in establishing measures to prevent cheating inside schools as institutions.
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References
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Wager, E. (2014). Defining and responding to plagiarism. Learned Publishing, 27(1), 33-42.
Walker, M., & Towley, C. (2012). Contract cheating: a new challenge for academic honesty? Journal of Academic Ethics, 10(1), 27-44.
Yardley, J., Rodriguez, M. D., Bates, S. C., & Nelson, J. (2009). True Confessions?: Alumni’s Retrospective Reports on Undergraduate Cheating Behaviors. Ethics & Behavior, 19(1), 1-14.
Ajzen, I. (2002). Perceived Behavioral Control, Self-Efficacy, Locus of Control, and the Theory of Planned Behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 32, 665-683.
Basto, M., & Pereira, J. M. (2012). An SPSS R-Menu for Ordinal Factor Analysis. Journal of Statistical Software, 46(4), 1-29.
Bong, M. (2008). Effects of parent-child relationships and classroom goal structures on motivation, help-seeking avoidance, and cheating. Journal of Experimental Education, 76(2), 191-217.
Bouville, M. (2010). Why is Cheating Wrong? Studies in Philosophy and Education, 29(1), 67-76.
Brown-Wright, L., Tyler, K. M., Stevens-Watkins, D., Thomas, D., Mulder, S., Hughes, T., Stevens-Morgan, R., Roan-Belle, C., Gadson, N., & Smith, L. (2013) Investigating the Link Between Home-School Dissonance and Academic Cheating Among High School Students. Urban Education, 48(2), 314-334.
Burrus, R. T., McGoldrick, K. M., & Schuhmann, P. W. (2007). Self-reports of student cheating: Does a definition of cheating matter? Journal of Economic Education, 38(1), 3-16.
Erceg-Hurn, D. M., & Mirosevich, V. M. (2008). Modern robust statistical methods: an easy way to maximize the accuracy and power of your research. American Psychologist, 63(7), 591-601.
Ercegovac, Z., & Richardson, J. V. (2004). Academic dishonesty, plagiarism included, in the digital age: A literature review. College & Research Libraries, 65(4), 301-318.
Fan, W., Williams, C. M., & Wolters, C. A. (2012). Parental Involvement in Predicting School Motivation: Similar and Differential Effects Across Ethnic Groups. Journal of Educational Research,
105(1), 21-35.
Field, A. (2009). Discovering statistics using SPSS, 3rd edition. London: Sage Publications.
Gadpaille, M. (2004). Academic integrity in a European context. European English Messenger, 13(1), 57-59.
Galloway, M. K. (2012). Cheating in Advantaged High Schools: Prevalence, Justifications, and Possibilities for Change. Ethics & Behavior, 22(5), 378-399.
Green, S. P. (2004). Cheating. Law and Philosophy, 23(2), 137-185.
Grimes, P. W. (2004). Dishonesty in academics and business: a cross-cultural evaluation of student attitudes. Journal of Business Ethics, 49, 273–290.
Heyneman, S. P. (2004). Education and Corruption, International Journal of Educational Development, 24(6), 637-648.
Heyneman, S. P. (2014). How Corruption puts Higher Education at Risk. International Higher Education, 75(Spring), 3-5.
Keith-Spiegel, P., Tabachnick, B. G., Whitley, B. E., & Washburn, J. (1998). Why professors ignore cheating: Opinions of a national sample of psychology instructors. Ethics & Behavior, 8(3), 215-227.
Kennedy-Lewis, B. L. (2014) Using critical policy analysis to examine competing discourses in zero tolerance legislation: do we really want to leave no child behind? Journal of Education Policy, 29(2), 165-194.
Lau, W. W. F., & Yuen, A. H. K. (2014). Internet ethics of adolescents: Understanding demographic differences. Computers & Education, 72, 378-385.
Magnus, J. R., Polterovich, V. M., Danilov, D. L., & Savvateev, A. V. (2002). Tolerance of cheating: An analysis across countries. Journal of Economic Education, 33(2), 125-135.
Mayhew, M. J., Hubbard, S. M., Finelli, C. J., Harding, T. S., & Carpenter, D. D. (2009). Using Structural Equation Modeling to Validate the Theory of Planned Behavior as a Model for Predicting
Student Cheating. Review of Higher Education, 32(4), 441-468.
McCabe, D. L., Trevino, L. K., & Butterfield, K. D. (2001). Cheating in academic institutions: A decade of research. Ethics & Behavior, 11(3), 219-232.
Newstead, S. E., Franklyn-Stokes, A., & Armstead, P. (1996). Individual differences in student cheating. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88(2), 229-241.
O’Rourke, J., Barnes, J., Deaton, A., Fulks, K., Ryan, K., & Rettinger, D. A. (2010). Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Cheating: The Influence of Direct Knowledge and Attitudes on Academic
Dishonesty. Ethics & Behavior, 20(1), 47-64.
Peklaj, C., Kalin, J., Pecjak, S., Zuljan Valencic, M., & Levpuscek Puklek, M. (2012). Perceptions of Teachers’ Goals in Classroom, Students’ Motivation and their Maladaptive Behavior as Predictors of High School Math Achievement. Studia Psychologica, 54(4), 329-344.
PÅ¡under, M., & Harl, N. (2008). Connection between matura and didactic implementation of educational process in general upper secondary schools. Didactica-Slovenica-Pedagoska-obzorja,
23(3-4), 105–124.
PÅ¡under, M. (2001). Cheating in exams. Scientia paedagogica experimentalis, 38(2), 133-142.
Reinhard, M-A., Dickhaeuser, O., Marksteiner, T., & Sporer, S. L. (2011). The case of Pinocchio: teachers’ ability to detect deception. Social Psychology of Education, 14(3), 299-318.
Rettinger, D. A., & Kramer, Y. (2009). Situational and Personal Causes of Student Cheating. Research in Higher Education, 50(3), 293-313.
Selwyn, N. (2008). ‘Not necessarily a bad thing ... ‘: a study of online plagiarism amongst undergraduate students. Assessment & Evaluation In Higher Education, 33(5), 465-479.
Šimić Šašić, S., & Klarin, M. (2009). Varanje u srednjim školama u Hrvatskoj i u Bosni i Hercegovini. [Cheating in secondary schools in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina]. Društvena istraživanja, 18(6/104), 999-1022.
Sisti, D. A. (2007). How do high school students justify Internet plagiarism? Ethics & Behavior, 17(3), 215-231.
The National Examinations Centre, online. Retrieved from http://www.ric.si/ric_eng/general_information/
Transparency international (2013). Higher education institutions: Why they matter and why corruption puts them at risk. Global Corruption Report: Education. Transparency International. New York City: Routledge.
Trushell, J., Byrne, K., & Hassan, N. (2013) ICT facilitated access to information and undergraduates’ cheating behaviours. Computers & Education, 63, 151-159.
Wager, E. (2014). Defining and responding to plagiarism. Learned Publishing, 27(1), 33-42.
Walker, M., & Towley, C. (2012). Contract cheating: a new challenge for academic honesty? Journal of Academic Ethics, 10(1), 27-44.
Yardley, J., Rodriguez, M. D., Bates, S. C., & Nelson, J. (2009). True Confessions?: Alumni’s Retrospective Reports on Undergraduate Cheating Behaviors. Ethics & Behavior, 19(1), 1-14.
Published
2015-12-31
How to Cite
Å orgo, A., Vavdi, M., Cigler, U., & Kralj, M. (2015). Opportunity Makes the Cheater: High School Students and Academic Dishonesty. Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal, 5(4), 67-87. https://doi.org/10.26529/cepsj.117
Section
VARIA
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