Exploring High School Students’ Understanding of and Attitudes towards Academic Misconduct in Nur-Sultan

This qualitative study investigated Kazakhstani high school students’ understanding of and attitudes towards academic misconduct. Six eighteen years old students from two schools in Nur-Sultan participated in semi-structured interviews. The transcribed interviews were analyzed by coding and the development of thematic categories. The study found that high school students understand the term ‘academic misconduct’ and are aware of school-based academic honesty codes. The commonly used term by the students was “cheating”. The students’ attitudes towards misconduct covered a wide spectrum: from the perception that misconduct was morally wrong, through to the view that misconduct was socially acceptable. Four out of the six participants revealed they had acted with misconduct. All students were aware of peers who had acted with misconduct. The students identified internal and external factors affecting their decisions to act with academic honesty or dishonesty. Internal factors included individual values, lack of personal organization and the school subject’s perceived importance. External factors included academic performance pressure, peers’ influence, perceived limited consequences of misconduct and the perceived attitudes of teachers. The findings suggest that teachers’ concerned attitudes and more active intervention to detect and prevent students’ misconduct may reduce misconduct among school students. The understanding of high school students’ attitudes to academic misbehavior will be beneficial for educators to reduce academic misconduct in Kazakhstani schools