Academic Dishonesty as a Function of Students' Gender, College Major, and Fraternity/Sorority Status

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that specific individual and group characteristics and behavior traits are associated with the engagement in academically dishonest behaviors. This paper examines the relation between peers’ gender, college major, fraternity/sorority affiliation and expectations of academic dishonesty among their peers. 208 students from an Ivy League Institution were surveyed with varying conditions. The findings failed to reach conventional levels of significance but were in the direction of the hypotheses as follows: (1) perceptions of academic dishonesty were higher for the conditions in which the individual was a male; and (2) when the participant’s gender and Greek status matched that of the individual in the condition, then the perception of that individual committing an academically dishonest act was lower; and (3) academic major had a minor influence on the probability of an individual committing an academically dishonest act, although the underpowered sample size may have obscured real differences.