A theory of cheating

Abstract

The theory of motivated cheating postulates that test takers may cheat when they do not know an answer. With probability k, an "observer" is unsure of an answer and will copy from a nearby "target" with probability c. The corresponding parameters for the target may be entirely unrelated to those of the observer. Thus, the undesirable feature of bidirectionality of parameters found in correlational techniques is not an inherent feature of this theory of cheating. Predictions are derived, and estimates of k and c are proposed. Statistically large values of c suggest that an observer was copying from a target. High values of c for both the observer and the target suggest collusion. The theory is applied to a 40-item five-choice test taken by students in an introductory psychology section. From the full paired comparison matrix of target × observer parameter estimates, the method identifies 2 students who were probably in collusion. © 1992 Psychonomic Society, Inc.