Effects of classroom context variables on high school students' judgments of the acceptability and likelihood of cheating

Hypothetical vignettes were used to examine the effects of teacher pedagogical skill (good vs. poor), interpersonal caring (caring vs. not), and classroom goal structure (performance vs. mastery) on high school students' judgments about the target of blame for cheating (teacher vs. Student), the acceptability of cheating, and the likelihood of cheating. Students' personal goals and academic: self-efficacy were also assessed. As hypothesized, poor pedagogy, performance goal structures, and low teacher caring resulted in more teacher blame and less student blame for cheating, and cheating was rated as more justifiable and more likely in these scenarios. The relations between context variables and justifiability were partially mediated by attributions of blame. Although contextual variables had a greater effect than individual motivation variables on participants' judgments of cheating justifiability, judgments about cheating morality were better explained by personal motivation.