Explicit and implicit attitudes toward academic cheating and its frequency among university students

Abstract

Our study examines the relation between explicit and implicit attitudes toward academic cheating and the frequency of committing it among students of different faculties (pedagogy and psychology, and law and administration). The implicit attitudes were measured using two methods - the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP). As hypothesized, the explicit attitude toward academic cheating was positively related to the its frequency. Results indicate that the implicit measures did not predict the frequency of self-reported academic cheating behaviours. The field of study itself was not a differentiating factor for any studied variables. The methodological problems related with using IAT and IRAP as measures of implicit attitudes toward cheating and the study’s possible limitations were discussed.