The Relationship Between Prospective Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Cheating and Academic Dishonesty Tendencies

In this study, it is aimed to examine the relationship between prospective teachers attitudes towards cheating and academic dishonesty tendencies. The research in the relational survey type was conducted in the fall semester of the 2016-2017 academic year. The population of the research consists of prospective teachers studying at a public university education faculty. The sample of the study consists of 635 prospective teachers studying in different classes and departments of the same faculty. The data of the study were obtained from the “Scale for Attitude towards Cheating” and the “Academic Dishonesty Tendency Scale”. Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis H and Spearman Correlation Analysis tests were used to analyze the data. According to the results of the study, it was found that there was a significant difference between the attitudes of the prospective teachers about cheating according to gender, department, grade and grade point average. While there is a significant difference in academic dishonesty tendencies of prospective teachers according to gender, department and grade point average variables, there is no significant difference according to grade variable. In addition, there was a significant relationship between prospective teachers attitudes towards cheating and academic dishonesty tendencies. According to the results of the research, it is recommended that prospective teachers should be given seminars in order to increase their awareness about cheating and academic dishonesty, and it is recommended to use plagiarism programs in the evaluation of student teachers assignments in order to reduce the tendency of academic dishonesty.