Academic Dishonesty among Higher Education Students in Pakistan

This study examines ‘academic dishonesty’ among a sample of 243 students from business universities. Academic dishonest behavior of students was measured on four dimensions of academic dishonesty: cheating in tests, cheating in assignments and plagiarism. It was found that a considerably small number of students reported their engagement in academic dishonest behavior, such as passing answers to others, cheating in preparing assignments, working with others on ‘individual assignments’, and providing forbidden help to others. Very few students have reported that they often use reference material without truly reading it and provide forbidden help to other students in exams. There was hardly any reported academic dishonest behavior prevalence among the students. It is interesting to note that significant difference was found between male and female students’ dishonest behavior. Universities should consider more extensive trainings for students in which it is explained to them the seriousness of cheating. Given the results indicated that students who view cheating behaviors as more wrong are less likely to cheat, universities should make an effort to increase students’ opinions of wrongfulness