Adolescents' cognitions and attributions for academic cheating: a cross-national study.

We examined perceptions about academic cheating in comparable 11th-grade students from Costa Rica, Germany, and the United States to assess the similarities and differences associated with the different societies, with achievement status, and with gender. German students generally differed substantially from both Costa Rican and U.S. students in perceptions of the problem, critical attributes of cheating, causes of cheating, and beliefs about effective ways to control cheating in the school. We did find some important similarities across all three samples, however. Achievement and gender effects were less substantial but were uniform across the three groups.