To what extent do student characteristics and situational factors influence academic dishonesty amongst economic and business students in a sample at three South African universities?

• Main Author: Dawson-Squibb, Thomas
• Other Authors: Goodman, Suki
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: University of Cape Town 2015
• Subjects: Organisational Psychology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12197

Includes abstract. === Includes bibliographical references. === This study examines the situational and personal characteristics that predict academic cheating. It examines the situational characteristics such as the perceived likelihood of getting caught and punished when cheating, the perception of how much peer cheating takes place and the standards and culture of integrity that exists at the institution. The personal characteristics are the level of intrinsic motivation of the student, gender, grade point average, year of study and the perceived cost or benefit of cheating. A descriptive design was used and a survey administered at three different universities in the Western Cape, South Africa. The results indicated that all of the factors except the year of study and the grade point average of the student influence the frequency of academic dishonesty.