A Naturalistic and Experimental Investigation of Cheating in High Schools

Waltzer, Talia, Santa Cruz CA

Investigators

Abstract

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Drs. Gail Heyman and Kang Lee at The University of California, San Diego, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating adolescents’ evaluations of and engagement in academic dishonesty, and the social factors that guide them. Explaining psychological mechanisms that promote integrity during adolescence, a crucial developmental period, can support efforts to foster the next generation of civic members in our society. The present research takes a new theoretical approach to explaining cheating: That students are more likely to cheat in specific cases where they evaluate cheating as acceptable, and those evaluations are shaped by social messages from teachers and peers about cheating. To understand the content and consequences of these social messages on academic cheating and integrity, this project implements a multi-method investigation of adolescents’ experiences surrounding academic integrity. Specifically, the project examines: (1) What messages about academic integrity are students exposed to from their teachers and peers? (2) Do these social messages guide students’ evaluations of specific cases of cheating? and (3) Do students’ evaluations relate to their decisions about whether to cheat? Study 1 employs naturalistic classroom observations and prompted conversations about cheating to capture students’ lived experiences and identify relevant correlations. Study 2 experimentally tests these correlations by adapting the naturally-occurring messages to influence students’ evaluations and decisions about cheating in a behavioral task. This research makes important advances in the debate about judgment-action relations by shedding light on whether adolescents’ beliefs about cheating guide their actions. This project also provides an empirical foundation for future research on promoting integrity (e.g., intervention studies), and adds to our broader knowledge on adolescent identity development, social learning, and moral development. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.