Measuring students' perceptions about cheating in six countries

AbstractCross-national data from 1,068 Grade 11 students (223 from Australia, 135 from the former East Germany, 114 from Costa Rica, 213 from the former West Germany, 293 from the USA and 90 from Austria) were collected by questionnaire in a study relating to perceptions about cheating. Cheating perceptions were defined in terms of three aspects: perceptions of what constitutes cheating, perceptions of why cheating occurs, and perceptions of how cheating can be discouraged. Known sources of bias were taken into account before data collection and during data analysis to produce an anti-cheating perception scale (from strong to weak) with sound psychometric properties. The results showed that Australians, with their cultural emphasis on the “fair go mate” syndrome combined with personal achievement, tended towards the stronger end of the scale, and the West Germans, with their cultural emphasis on cooperative learning to succeed, tended towards die weaker end, with students from the other countries falling between them.