Abstract
Academic dishonesty is one of the main concern in higher education as the fraudulent behaviour of students majoring in accounting might be carried forward to their working life. Motivated by behavioural research that could offer understanding of the issues, it concerned with the broader sociological implication of accounting numbers and associated actions of key participants in an entity as they react to accounting information. This paper aims to investigate the determinants of academic dishonesty among accounting graduates. There are various factors that may influence towards academic dishonesty among accounting graduates in Malaysia. This study has been conducted emphasising on the determinants including demographic variables, self-control, perceived opportunities and students’ attitudes that contribute towards academic dishonesty among accounting graduates in Malaysia. Questionnaires were distributed to four institutions of higher education (one public university, one private university and two private colleges) that totalled up to 1008. The questionnaires were answered by undergraduate accounting students in the four higher education institutions regardless of student’s year of study. The results of the study concluded that the relationships between gender, year of study, student’s cumulative grade point average (or CGPA), self-control, opportunity perceived by the respondents, attitude of the students and academic dishonesty were significant. In contrast, the other two variables, age and hours of study did not have any significant relationship with academic dishonesty.
Highlights
Academic dishonesty is a practical concern an ethical matter
This paper examines the roles of demographic variables, perceived opportunity, self-control and attitudes of accounting students in predicting academic dishonesty
This paper aims to examine the following research questions: (1) What are the determinants that influence academic dishonesty among accounting students? (2) Are demographic variables the predictors of the academic dishonesty in the higher education institutions? (3) Do the factors such as demographic variable, perceived opportunity, self-control and attitude have any significant relationship with academic dishonesty?
Summary
Academic dishonesty is a practical concern an ethical matter. In the United Kingdom, as reported in Morgan (2016), constructed on an openness of information demand, within the past three years, stated that some 50,000 students in universities had confessed to dishonesty in their academic life. It has been recorded in almost all level of education from lower level of elementary to higher level of graduate schools. Question remains on how the students completing their education and learning process if they are cheating in their way to gain knowledge and being successful? Academic dishonesty issue is important for schools of business as it signifies the rising matters of upright and ethical issues in the business community (Chapman et al, 2004; Kidwell et al, 2003)
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