In recent years, the influence of school contexts on university students’ behaviour has become an important topic in educational research. As one of the key factors, the perception of a rule-oriented school ethical climate may play a role in shaping students’ values and behavioural tendencies. In particular, students’ unethical behaviour is considered to be closely associated with their perception of the school’s ethical climate, which makes it a topic worthy of further examination. This study aims to investigate the association between students’ perceptions of a rule-oriented school ethical climate and their unethical behaviour. A two-wave survey was conducted with a sample of 525 university students from three institutions in Henan Province, China. Participants completed self-reported questionnaires in class, including measures of rule-oriented school ethical climate and unethical behaviour. All descriptive statistics, correlation analyses, and regression analyses were performed using SPSS software. Regression analyses revealed a significant association between students’ perceptions of a rule-oriented school ethical climate and their unethical behaviour. These findings are discussed in detail in the results section. Overall, the study underscores the importance of strengthening students’ perceptions of a rule-oriented school ethical climate for the well-being of the broader university community.
Zhao et al. (Thu,) studied this question.