Under pressure and under-engaged: Motivational profiles and academic cheating in high school

Publisher Summary Over the past two decades, achievement goal theory has become a prominent approach to examining how students are motivated to achieve in school and has informed how educators can foster interesting, supportive classroom environments. Goal theorists posit the existence of two types of achievement goals—mastery goals that orient individuals toward developing their ability and performance goals that focus individuals on demonstrating their ability. Recent research has connected goal theory approaches with beliefs and behaviors related to academic cheating. This chapter extends this work at the intersection of goal theory and cheating. It examines which types of goals are most closely associated with personal beliefs about cheating (beliefs about which behaviors constitute cheating as well as beliefs about the acceptability of cheating under certain circumstances), perceptions of cheating in the environment (specifically what the norms are regarding cheating among peers), and engagement in cheating behaviors (assignment and test cheating as well as plagiarism). In addition, the chapter investigates how high school students with distinct profiles of personal goal orientations and perceptions of classroom goal structures differ with respect to these same outcomes.

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