Academic Dishonesty and Academic Adjustment Among the Students at University Level: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

The tendency to cheat is consubstantial to any kind of education and training process involving work and effort. The study was conducted on 194 participants, first- and second-year students from the bachelor and master’s programs from several engineering and humanities faculties from Brasov. The Academic Adjustment Questionnaire and the Academic Ethics Questionnaire (AEQ) were applied. The aim of the research was to highlight the internal structure of the two questionnaires and to investigate the associations between academic adjustment, academic dishonesty. Several demographic variables were taken into consideration. The results showed good construct validity and reliability for the scales and significant correlations between academic adjustment and academic dishonesty. Future research should examine to what extent AEQ is able to capture the impact of information technology on dishonest behavior or whether the matter requires a special approach or whether AEQ can support effective intervention programs to stop the phenomenon of academic dishonesty.