Are You Encouraging Your Students to Cheat? How Task Instruction Style Impacts Cheating Behavior

• In Event: The “What” and “Why” of Achievement Motivation: Antecedents, Consequences, and Mechanisms of Achievement Goal Complexes

Abstract

In an interview with Le Monde (2013), Lance Armstrong was quoted as saying that, “it was impossible to win the Tour de France without doping”. This simple statement contains evidence both of a certain goal adoption (winning) and a certain type of motivation (he “was obliged” to dope), highlighting the fact that behavior is the result of an interaction between the goals set and the reasons why those goals are adopted.

Achievement goal theory (Elliot & McGregor, 2001) argues that goal orientations play a key role in decisions to cheat or not (Anderman & Danner, 2008). Cheating attitudes and behavior have been positively linked with performance goal orientations (interpersonal focus on how one’s abilities compare with others’ abilities) both in the individual and in the environment. Vansteenkiste, Smeets, Soenens, Lens, Matos & Deci (2010) refine this approach arguing that task-directed behavior is not only the result of the task-goals an individual adopts but also the degree to which those goals are adopted for autonomous (acting with a feeling of complete willingness) versus controlled (acing with a feeling of being pressured to do so) reasons. Anderman, Greisinger & Westerfield (1998) show that extrinsic goals such as carrying out a task to earn some form of material incentive such as money predict more accepting attitudes towards cheating.

Combining these two streams of research, we investigate the presentation of tasks with different goals (performance versus mastery) presented in different ways (autonomy-supportive versus controlling), examining how these differences influence task-related ethics. This question is crucial for educators as the way we present tasks may have a strong impact on student cheating behavior.

We explored this question with a two-by-two experimental study manipulating the controlled versus autonomous promotion of performance and mastery-approach goals, hypothesizing that the least cheating would occur in a context promoting mastery-approach goals in an autonomy-supportive way. In the two controlling conditions, participants were told in controlling language that they were expected to prove themselves as a way of impressing others, whilst in the two autonomous conditions, they were told in autonomy-supportive language to try the exercises as a personal challenge. The dependent variable consisted of twelve puzzles in two sets, with three puzzles in each set that could only be solved by cheating. Results revealed lower amounts of overall cheating in the autonomy-supportive, mastery-approach goal condition compared with the other three conditions.

Additional results revealed interaction effects between participants’ individual values and the experimental conditions in the prediction of cheating behavior. Compared with controlling promotion of performance-approach goals, autonomy-supportive promotion of mastery-approach goals reduced cheating for all participants except those high in self-enhancement values, values traditionally associated with cheating.

These results indicate the combined benefits of autonomy-support and a mastery-goal orientation in education, underlining the fact that both seem to be needed to reduce academic dishonesty for all but the hardcore cheaters. Furthermore, they underline the importance of educators’ communication styles, revealing that subtle differences in the language we use can have a significant impact on student cheating.

Authors

• Caroline Julia Pulfrey, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

• Aikaterini Michou, Bilkent University

• Maarten Vansteenkiste, University of Gent