The Measurement of Student Attitudes Toward Possible Recruiting Incentives and Career Opportunities.

1986 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Kaplan ◽  
Patricia T. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Student Attitudes ◽  
Career Opportunities

Among these, knowledge of institutional policy was the best predictor of cheating rates, followed by mastery motivation and attitudes about cheating. This finding is important because it reminds college administrators that having an honor system, rules about cheating, or both, and effectively administering that system to students, are not one and the same. Participants in this study who cheated reported signifi-cantly less understanding of institutional policy regarding cheating than did noncheating participants. In addition, this study advances our understanding of the role of motivation in cheating behavior. In particular, mastery and extrinsic motivation do not appear to be uniform across all courses, and this variability is related to cheating. Participants who cheated had lower mastery motivation and higher extrinsic motivation in the courses in which they cheated than in courses in which they did not cheat. Cheaters, in courses in which they cheated, also differed on these two motivation variables from noncheaters. Mastery motivation was lower for cheaters, and extrinsic motiva-tion higher, as compared to noncheaters. However, in courses in which cheaters did not cheat, cheater and noncheater scores were not reliably different. Thus, cheaters reported increases in extrinsic motivation and simultaneous decreases in mastery motivation, but only in courses in which they cheated. Anderman etal. (1998) found a similar relation between mastery and what they called performance goals with middle school students. This study confirms that motivation is an important factor in the cheating behavior of college students as well. Finally, as expected, cheating behavior was related to perceptions of the behav-ior of peers and to attitudes about cheating. Both factors were significant predic-tors of cheating rates. Cheaters believed that more students engaged in cheating behaviors than did noncheaters. Cheaters also justified cheating behavior to a greater extent than did noncheaters. In addition, the more the participants cheated, the higher their estimate of cheating on campus. These findings replicate previous research on the importance of student attitudes and peer norms for understanding, and perhaps influencing, cheating behavior (see Whitley, 1998, for a review). Of course, these results do not indicate causality. Once students begin to cheat, their motivation levels and their perceptions and experiences of others may change. Alternatively, perhaps low mastery motivation in a course increases a stu-dent's risk for cheating in that course and increases the cheater's tendency to cheat repeatedly. A student who is uninterested in a course may look for ways to com-plete the course with the least effort. In addition, high extrinsic motivation may also increase student vulnerability to temptations to cheat. If a student's purposes for taking a course have little to do with the course and more to do with extrinsic goals, such as grades or career opportunities, cheating may serve those goals. In ei-ther case, motivations appear to be course specific. With respect to perceived norms, cheaters may estimate higher rates of cheating by others, as compared to noncheaters, as a way of preserving their self-image (e.g., false consensus effect; Ross, Green, & House, 1977). They also may be more

2003 ◽  
pp. 28-34
Keyword(s):  
Student Attitudes ◽  
Extrinsic Motivation ◽  
Institutional Policy ◽  
Peer Norms ◽  
Mastery Motivation ◽  
School Students ◽  
Extrinsic Goals ◽  
Cheating Behavior ◽  
Career Opportunities ◽  
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