A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Academic Dishonesty in High School Economics Classrooms
30 Pages Posted: 24 May 2003
Date Written: May 2003
Abstract
High school students in six transitional economies, Belarus, Croatia, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Russia, and Ukraine, along with students in the U.S, were surveyed about academic cheating. Regardless of geographic location, a substantial majority of all students reported that they had personally cheated on an exam or course assignment. In general, however, the percentages of students who reported that they had cheated and that they would assist others to cheat were higher in the transitional economies than in the U.S. A bivariate probit model was estimated to determine the factors which contribute to the probability of cheating. The results indicated that the most consistently significant determinants of cheating behavior were personal beliefs about the ethics and social acceptability of cheating and various attributes of the classroom environment. With the exceptions of Lithuania and Ukraine, students in each transitional economy had a higher probability of cheating relative to students in the U.S., ceteris paribus. The relative differences ranged from 8.9 percent for Belarus up to 17.1 percent for Croatia. For Russia, the difference was a relatively high 15.4 percent. These and other results suggests that researchers must be extremely careful in making cross-national comparisons of student outcomes.
JEL Classification: A21
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation