Achievement goal orientation and differences in self‐reported copying behaviour across academic programmes

Abstract

This survey study investigated the relationship between achievement goal orientation and self‐reported copying behaviour among college students (N = 2007) enrolled in five different academic programmes in Thailand. Results of statistical analysis showed several significant findings: performance approach goal orientation, performance avoidance goal orientation, academic major in humanities, gender and grade point average were the best predictors of self‐reported frequency of copying behaviour. Compared with humanities students, management, engineering, science and vocational students were significantly more performance avoidance goal oriented and reported significantly higher frequency of copying behaviour. We primarily use achievement goal theory to interpret the effect of multiple goal orientations on self‐reported copying behaviour across academic programmes.