This study reassesses the relations between exam-related cheating behavior and its antecedents proposed in Smith et al.’s (2009) Motivation and Cheating Model. Specifically, it calculates whether the significant relations measured in the referent study among motivational factors, academic performance, prior cheating, neutralization tendencies, and likelihood of future cheating, hold with an independent undergraduate student sample. By doing so, this study directly addresses Stout and Rebele’s (1996. pp. 4-5) admonition that knowledge is created by producing generalizable findings which cannot be accomplished in a single study. Subsequent analyses extend the referent model by incorporating alienation as an additional exogenous cheating antecedent. The premise for this aspect of the investigation is that both motivation and attitude, the latter represented by alienation and neutralization, may contribute toward the cheating behavior dynamic.
Using structural equation modeling procedures on data obtained from 342 finance majors at three public AACSB-accredited business schools, we conduct independent assessments of the validity of the referent model and the extended model which incorporated alienation as an exogenous predictor of the above-referenced dependent constructs. The replication results support several of the significant relations uncovered in the referent study. The extension supports the conceptual distinctiveness of the motivation and alienation constructs, as well as the proposition that both are significant exogenous predictors of performance and cheating proclivities.
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