The Ability of Legitimate Authorities to Reduce Academic Misconduct

Abstract

This study examines how students' perceptions of the legitimacy of university officials affect academic misconduct. By surveying a sample of students in a large Midwestern university, the authors use structural equation modeling to test the esfects of legitimacy of the university officials and the legitimacy of the law on six forms of academic misconduct: cheating during an exam, allowing another student to copyfi.om their exam, not reporting incidents of cheating, using notes on a closed exam, not reporting another student for having someone else write their paper, and lying to an instructor to make up a quiz or exam. For all of the misconduct behaviors, the legitimacy of the university was not predictive although an overall perception in the legitimacy of the law was predictive in copying answers and allows another student to cheat. In all six models, students' own belie3 about the morality of the behaviors were predictive. The implications for addressing student misconduct are discussed.