Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada.
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V6, Canada.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2024 Jun;242:105888. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105888. Epub 2024 Mar 1.
The current study investigated the association of children's age, gender, ethnicity, Big Five personality traits, and self-efficacy with their academic cheating behaviors. Academic cheating is a rampant problem that has been documented in adolescents and adults for nearly a century, but our understanding of the early development and factors influencing academic cheating is still weak. Using Zoom, the current study recruited children aged 4 to 12 years (N = 388), measured their cheating behaviors through six tasks simulating academic testing scenarios, and assessed their Big Five personality traits and self-efficacy through a modified Berkeley Puppet Interview paradigm, as well as age and gender. We found that children cheated significantly less with increased age and that boys cheated significantly more than girls. However, neither Big Five personality traits nor self-efficacy were significantly correlated with children's cheating. These findings suggest that academic cheating is a developing issue from early to middle childhood and that factors such as gender socialization may play a role in such development. Personal characteristics such as personality traits and self-efficacy may undergo additional development before their associations with cheating become robust, as reported in the adult literature.
本研究调查了儿童的年龄、性别、种族、大五人格特质和自我效能感与学术作弊行为之间的关系。学术作弊是一个近一个世纪以来在青少年和成年人中都有记录的普遍问题，但我们对学术作弊的早期发展和影响因素的理解仍然很薄弱。本研究使用 Zoom 招募了 4 至 12 岁的儿童（N=388），通过六个模拟学术测试场景的任务来衡量他们的作弊行为，并通过改良的伯克利木偶访谈范式来评估他们的大五人格特质和自我效能感，以及年龄和性别。我们发现，随着年龄的增长，儿童的作弊行为显著减少，而男孩的作弊行为显著多于女孩。然而，大五人格特质和自我效能感都与儿童的作弊行为没有显著相关。这些发现表明，学术作弊是从中年到童年早期发展起来的问题，性别社会化等因素可能在这种发展中发挥作用。与成人文献中报告的情况一样，个人特征（如人格特质和自我效能感）在与作弊行为的关联变得稳健之前可能会经历进一步的发展。
