Academic Cheating in School: A Process of Dissonance Between Knowledge and Conduct

Abstract

Academic cheating behavior in schools have been discussed and reported. Students display academic cheating behavior during tests, quizzes, or tasks. The dynamics of academic cheating behavior is complex and not easily explained with just one factor. The external factors such as peer influence, teacher’s teaching methods, parental pressure, and academic climate are factors that interact with each other to bring out student academic cheating behavior. The grades or numbers from the tests, quizzes, or tasks are used to represent the students’ academic performance in school. On junior high school, cheating is already common, generally conducted during tests or quizzes in the form of copying the answers of other students and cooperating on the test. This research is a preliminary quantitative study in the attempt to describe academic cheating behavior on 139 grade XII junior high school students. Sample collection was conducted with “multistage random stratified sampling” or graded/leveled random collection method, which is a sample collection method with population units grouped into homogeneous groups. Research results showed that there were no correlation between students’ knowledge of plagiarizing behavior with the behavior appearance (r = -.0.096, p = 0.260) and between knowledge of cheating behavior with the behavior appearance (r = -0.08, p = 0.925). However, there was a difference on the appearance of plagiarizing behavior reviewed from the knowledge of plagiarism (F = 2.303, p = 0.038) while there was no difference on cheating behavior reviewed from the knowledge of cheating (F = 1.18, p = 0.355). This showed that the frequency of students conducting cheating or plagiarizing behavior was not merely based on their level of knowledge.