engleski

The influence of subjective norms on students’ intentions for engaging in unethical behaviour

The researches of academic dishonesty and students’ unethical behaviour have increased in the past two decades. Questions is: why students behave unethically and what factors influence on their unethical behaviour. In this research authors used theory of planned behaviour to predict intentions of students’ unethical behaviour. The theory of planned behaviour explains how to predict planned and deliberate behaviour. For this purpose, it is necessary to investigate the attitudes towards specific behaviour, subjective norms (beliefs about how others look at this behaviour) and perceived behavioural control toward this behaviour. Knowledge of these three elements enables to predict the intentions of behaviour, which are highly correlated with the actual behaviour. Based on this, the goal of this paper is to validate the use of a modified Theory of Planned Behaviour for predicting students’ unethical behaviour observing the influence of subjective norms on students’ intentions for engaging in unethical behaviour in higher education. The study was conducted through a questionnaire among students of undergraduate and graduate studies. In data analysis, descriptive statistics analyse of variance (ANOVA), regression analysis and correlation analysis were used. Research results show statistically significant positive correlation between subjective norms (the influence of family and friends) and the student’s intentions of engaging in unethical behaviour. Positive correlations are shown between subjective norms (family) and students’ mother’s and father’s level of education and between subjective norms (friends) and students’ year of study. Negative correlation is shown between both groups of subjective norms and students class attendance. Results from regression analysis reveal significant positive relationship between student’s intentions of unethical behaviour in higher education and subjective norms relating to the impact of family and friends of respondents. Implications of research findings are discussed in the paper.

subjective norms ; intentions ; unethical behaviour ; students ; higher education

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