Differences in attitudes towards academic dishonesty between undergraduate students of administration and economics in the province of Guayas, Ecuador

Abstract

This article examines some differences in attitudes towards dishonest behavior of economics and business undergraduate students. The study is of the cross-section type, with a descriptive scope and quantitative approach. A questionnaire was administered to a random sample of 275 students of the province of Guayas, Ecuador, during the first semester of 2017, where dishonest attitudes through six statements related to written test cheating were identified and the contextual situations in which they arise, grouping the data by career, gender and place of origin of the participants. Significant differences between groups of variables were verified through the analysis of contingency tables using the chi-square statistic. In the analysis between specific groups, male business students prefer to adopt more dishonest attitudes in comparison with students of economics. The results provide new contributions to the literature on academic dishonesty in the Latin American context.