Paper Scrutinizing Cheating Behavior

Incidence of cheating has remained a significant issue over the years throughout the world, including in Indonesian Higher Education. This study was aimed at exploring students’ perceptions of cheating, their cheating practices, the factors influencing their cheating behavior, and possible solutions to stop cheating practices, especially in the context of Islamic Higher Education. This mixed-method research involved 43 undergraduate students in the Department of English Language Education of two Islamic Higher Education institutions; the University of Muhammadiyah Aceh, and Universitas Islam Negeri (UIN) ArRaniry Darussalam, Banda Aceh - Indonesia. A set of a questionnaire comprising the demographic and cheating-related questions was emailed to students taking Ilmu Akidah subject (Theology). This subject is one of the third-semester optional subjects offered to students at both universities. The subject covers issues about ethical-moral, being good Muslim citizenship, and other universal Islamic teaching values. 8 (eight) students were interviewed to seek their opinions about cheating in the Islamic context and possible ways to stop cheating practices. Findings indicated that the cheating prevalence of Islamic university students reached 84%, with the most common cheating practices included requesting/ exchanging answers with friends during exams, duplicating texts from the internet/books and then submitting them and cooperating with friends in doing individual assignments. The underlying factors for the practices involved external (i.e., exam difficulty, overloaded assignments, inadequate time for finishing assignments, and assisting friends) and internal reasons (i.e., fear of low grades and failure in exams, and motivation for gaining high scores). Nevertheless, there was approximately 16% of the students claiming that they never cheated because of religious/moral awareness, sense of accomplishment in own ability, and fear of academic sanctions. The interview results, in addition, confirmed that cheating was sinful and those who cheat must repent. Habituation and care in the works of students were two significant approaches that must be carried out by lecturers to alleviate students’ prevalence to cheat