Academic Cheating in Austria, Portugal, Romania and Spain: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The empirical evaluation of academic cheating has been almost exclusively focused on the US context. Little is known about cheating in European universities. This article aims to contribute further evidence on this highly relevant phenomenon afflicting higher education throughout Europe. Based on a large sample of undergraduate students of Economics and Management in Austria, Portugal, Romania and Spain, the authors estimated an econometric model and controlled for a variety of factors most likely to influence the probability of cheating (e.g. student characteristics, location, grades). It was found that (1) the likelihood of copying increases when the expected benefit from copying is positive; (2) in copying-favourable environments, the students' propensity to copy tends to be higher; (3) the greater and more serious the perceived sanctions, the fewer the incentives students have to perpetrate dishonest behaviours; (4) in schools where ‘codes of honour’ exist, the propensity to copy among students is lower; and (5) the propensity to copy seems to be influenced by the countries' education systems and social factors – for instance, Portuguese students are less prone to fraudulent behaviour, whereas Spanish students are more likely to cheat than their Austrian counterparts; no significant difference was found between Austrian and Romanian students.