Development and validation of academic cheating scales for Ethiopian public secondary school students and teachers

Academic cheating is a global problem. However, the level of severity, involvement, and attitudes toward it tend to vary across contexts. This study aims to develop and adapt an academic cheating behavior scale with initial psychometric evidence from students' and teachers' perspectives in the Ethiopian public secondary school context. Whereas 1681 students provided data on the frequency of involvement in cheating behavior, perceived seriousness of academic cheating behavior, and attitudes toward academic cheating behavior, 331 teachers provided data only on two of the scales (frequency of student involvement in academic cheating and seriousness of academic cheating behavior). The data were split into two: for EFA (840 students and 165 teachers) and CFA (841 students and 166 teachers). Three factors (i.e., attitudes toward academic cheating, seriousness of, and involvement in academic cheating behavior) were identified in students' data, whereas the latter two were identified for teachers. The factor structures explored in EFA were confirmed in CFA (17 involvement items, 14 seriousness items, and 11 attitudes toward academic cheating behavior items). Demonstrating acceptable construct validity, the scale's internal consistency, with α, CR, as well as McDonald's ω test, ranged from 0.82 to 0.95 for both groups. The findings evidenced that the scales are contextually relevant and demonstrate initial evidence of validity and reliability for use by researchers and practitioners in the Ethiopian public secondary school setting.