Academic dishonesty: motivations of accounting students
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21680/2176-9036.2024v16n1ID31393Keywords:
Desonestidade Acadêmica, Motivações, Ciências Contábeis, EstudantesAbstract
Purpose: Understanding the motivations for the occurrence of academic dishonesty in university Accounting students.
Methodology: Application of a survey based on the research by Ives et al. (2016), in 83 Accounting students from the state of Rio de Janeiro. To verify the instrument's internal consistency, the Kuder-Richardson test was applied. Subsequently, Pearson's chi-square test was performed.
Results: The results indicate that age and gender have little influence on the dishonesty, while the period students are studying has influence; that is, the longer the length of stay, the greater the dishonesty. It is also noteworthy that the students confessed to having seen more dishonest acts than they actually practiced, which demonstrates that it is easier to admit that you have seen other people be dishonest than to confess your own dishonesty. The biggest motivations for dishonesty were the need to get good grades, fear of failing, lack of understanding of content and methodology used by professors.
Contributions of the Study: This paper advances in the literature and brings contributions on the subject, as it helps to have a better understanding of academic dishonesty, observing what are the main motivations of students to commit dishonest acts, being important for educational institutions and for teachers, since it helps to understand some motivations that induce students to be academically dishonest. Armed with such knowledge, faculty and universities can develop and implement policies and methods that encourage fairer procedures, discouraging dishonesty in the academic environment. Consequently, it will lead to improvement of the quality of teaching and learning and the training of more qualified and honest to work in the professional market.
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