This study investigates university students’ approach to evaluate and solve ethical dilemmas and the rationale behind this approach. In evaluating ethical dilemmas, students form judgments and recognize what is right or wrong in a given dilemma. However, in solving ethical dilemmas, their decisions may be congruent or incongruent with the judgment, thereby creating a gap between judgment and intention in cases of incongruency. The research also examines the rationale or motivations for why students cheat and plagiarize, and the contribution of (...) personal and institutional characteristics as covariates. A scenario-based 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design is applied to 221 U.S.-based university students. The findings reveal a gap between the judgment that evaluates an ethical dilemma and the intention to act to solve such ethical dilemma. The results also identify five factors reflecting 26 items explaining why students cheat and plagiarize. This study can help educators address the incongruency in a student’s approach to evaluate and solve ethical dilemmas and improve student’s ethical education and critical thinking. (shrink)

This study investigated the associations between academic dishonesty, perceptions toward cheating and academic self-handicapping in 572 Greek University students using an online anonymous questionnaire. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was employed to form subgroups of students based on academic dishonesty – related constructs. The results showed that academic dishonesty was higher in males and among Sciences and Economics/ICT majors, and that it was associated with students’ perceptions and a pattern of dysfunctional academic behavior. Moreover, students majoring in Science and Economics/ICT reported (...) higher levels of witnessing a peer cheating, which was positively linked to academic dishonesty. LPA revealed three groups of students with low, medium, and high academic dishonesty-related variable scores. The implications of these findings for understanding how perceptions about cheating and academic self-handicapping are linked to academic dishonesty are discussed. The study also suggests some possible interventions to prevent and reduce academic dishonesty based on the emerged student profiles. (shrink)

Cheating in higher education is a significant problem. The study aims to determine nursing students’ attitudes and opinions toward cheating in exams. The type of research is descriptive. The research data were collected in the classroom environment of 716 students in day and evening education programs. The research data were collected using socio-demographic characteristics form, and the Copying Attitude Scale. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, and variance analysis were used for data analyses. The most common method of cheating was receiving answers by (...) talking to the friend sitting next to the student. The rate of cheating was high in both the day and evening education students. The students reported that most of the cheating occurred in final exams and high-credit major courses. Learning type (day/evening education programs) is not effective in cheating. High-credit major courses have increased the fear of failing the course. The most important reason for cheating in exams was the fear of failing a course. (shrink)