ATTITUDE OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN BULGARIA TO ACADEMIC DISHONESTY BEHAVIOR

ABSTRACT Academic dishonesty refers to committing or contributing to dishonest acts by those engaged in teaching, learning, research, and related academic activities, and it concerns not just students, but everyone in the academic environment. Academic dishonesty could take many forms, which could be broadly classified as cheating, plagiarism, falsification, and sabotage. Academic dishonesty could have very negative effects on higher education. Consequently, it could cause serious problems unless specialists utilize measures to detect and prevent it. Students’ attitudes are a major factor influencing academic dishonesty. The aim of the research was to study the attitude of young people in Bulgaria toward academic dishonesty behavior. The subjects of the study were 299 Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral degree students from different Bulgarian universities. 203 (67,9%) respondents were female and 96 (32.1%) were male. The main method used was the Academic Dishonesty Scale (Bolin, 2004). It consisted of 10 items to measure engagement in academically dishonest behavior. Cronbach’s Alpha, factor and variation analysis, Mann-Whitney, and Kruskal-Wal-lis criteria were used for statistical data processing. The test showed very good internal consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha = .907). The analysis of the results established a relatively low level of attitudes toward academic dishonesty behavior of the young people in the country. The sex indicator revealed differences in the individual items of the test (Mann-Whitney test, p < .05). Attitudes toward dishonest academic behavior among students at Bulgarian universities were not clearly expressed. It should be noted that the study involved students from different types of universities and this determined the specifics of the results obtained.