TITLE:
Impact of Higher Institutes of Sport and Physical Education in Tunisia Students’ Pre-University Cheating Behavior on Their Asocial Conduct during University Examinations
AUTHORS:
Jaouhar Hamani, Imen Ayadi, Ali Elloumi
KEYWORDS:
Student, Exam, Cheating, Norm, Deviance, Representation of Cheating, Control Mechanism, Collusion Plays, Culture
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.7 No.10,
October
22,
2019
ABSTRACT: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first thesis dealing with
cheating in university exams at the higher institutes of sport and physical
education in Tunisia. This research is aimed to 1) evaluate the importance of
the phenomenon; 2) define the profile of cheating students; and 3) contain the
role of the society in the emergence and spread of this phenomenon. 799
students from the four Tunisian higher institutes of sports and physical
education volunteered to respond to a quantitative questionnaire-based survey.
The data collected were statistically analyzed using the SPSS-version 20
software. A univariate statistical study was followed by a bivariate or
multivariate study. 86.1% of respondents admitted that they had cheated during
their university education. Univariate and multivariate studies pointed to
cheating antecedent as the common denominator amongst cheating students, since
99.98% of them had already cheated at school. Results analysis was performed
from two standpoints: the individual and the social context, in which the
student was brought up, based on well-established known theories. This twofold
approach made it possible to highlight the interaction between the different
actors. Student misbehavior is the inevitable result of the shift in social
representations of academic norms that have led to the trivialization of
cheating, converting student status from mere observer into a follower. The
genesis of this culture, where cheating has become part of the norm, is marked
by the collusion plays between the actors involved in the training and
evaluation processes i.e. students,
professors and the institutions.