The students’ attitude and behaviors towards cheating motivation during higher education

Abstract

In higher education, cheating has appeared as an important problem. It has increasingly led to the inaccurate results obtained from the measurements related to the students’ knowledge and skill gains and to the significant deviations to reach to the objectives of the education strategies to be implicated. The aim of the study is to determine the students’ attitude and behaviors related to their cheating motivations at Faculty of Agriculture, Ataturk University. The results of the study showed that positivist approach, unfair competition effects on the students’ success and the external negative motivation sources were the most important factors preventing their cheating motivation. On the other hand, the results also showed that the most factors stimulating cheating motivation were the external and internal positive motivation, not suitable of exam type, appropriateness of the physical facilities and the exam organizers’ illegal attitude and behaviors. Positive motivation sources could be drawn up by regulations and statutes to create a negative impact by eliminating the most appropriate factors motivating the students to cheat at the exam, and thus it could be made more affective evaluations for their knowledge and skills gains and selected the most appropriate education strategies