Shafer, Morris and Ketchland. (2001) identify the need to align personal and
societal ethics as a cornerstone of efforts to im- prove ethical decision making.
Becker, D. A. & Ulstad, I. (2007). Gender Differences in Student Ethics: Are Females Really More Ethical? Plagiary: Cross‐ Disciplinary Studies in Plagiarism, Fabrication, and Falsification, 77‐91.
Gender Differences in Student Ethics: Are Females Really More Ethical?
DʹArcy A. Becker and Ingrid Ulstad E‐mail:
[email protected],
[email protected] Abstract Investigations of gender differences in student ethics have yielded conflicting results. This study seeks to determine whether gender effects persist when a student's major, psychological gender and impression management are included in the analysis. Prior research has considered these variables individually as they relate to ethics, and each one would theoretically cause gender differences to disappear. Students at three universities participated in our research. Results from 515 students reveal significant gender differences that do not fade as the three additional variables are included in the analysis.
major (Jeffrey, 1993), among others. To the extent these individual student differences translate to different views about ethical issues, they may impact the design of ethics training. This study reports results of a survey measur‐ ing how acceptable students find some common forms of academic cheating. We examine student ratings in light of the societal expectation that all forms of cheating are completely unacceptable. Our results show female students find the cheat‐ ing behaviors to be much less acceptable than do male students. We investigate how robust these gender differences are by considering the im‐ pacts of psychological gender, impression man‐ agement, and student major on the results. Over‐ all, biological gender effects persist after consid‐ eration of these variables.
Introduction The formalization of ethics training for ac‐ counting students has become a major concern following reports of rampant cheating at the col‐ lege level and recent business scandals. Ethics education, which provides training in systematic thinking and reasoning about ethics, may be es‐ sential at the college level if personal and busi‐ ness ethics are to be improved (Bampton and Maclagan, 2005). Shafer, Morris and Ketchland (2001) identify the need to align personal and societal ethics as a cornerstone of efforts to im‐ prove ethical decision making. If ethics training is to accomplish the goal of aligning ethical be‐ liefs, we need to understand the current status of student ethics as we design an ethics curriculum. It is also essential to understand how student ethics vary across subsets of students. Factors reported in the literature include student gender (Ameen, Guffey and McMillan, 1996) and student
Literature and Hypotheses Investigations of gender effects on student eth‐ ics have produced varied results. To the extent that biological gender has been found to have an impact, females are generally shown to be more ethical. This study looks for gender effects in a decision setting with which students are very familiar: academic cheating. Students should un‐ derstand the consequences of acting unethically in academia. Most schools have codes of ethics that address these consequences, and many fac‐ ulty include those consequences in their course syllabi. 77
Plagiary 2007 (generally considered to be female characteris‐ tics) is measured by the expressiveness scale. Rather than biological gender, it may be the strength of expressiveness conditioning that de‐ termines ethical attitudes. This implies that stu‐ dents with higher expressiveness will be less ac‐ cepting of cheating behaviors. This leads to hy‐ pothesis 2 (in null form):
Females may try to avoid the negative conse‐ quences of cheating and tend toward ethical ac‐ tion. This is consistent with females’ general ten‐ dency toward risk aversion. For example, fe‐ males generally prefer to avoid shame (Tibbetts, 1997) and financial risk (Jianakopolos and Ber‐ nasek, 1998). Conversely, males may be more prone to risk‐taking, focusing more on perceived benefits of cheating and less on the consequences of being caught. These differences may lead to gender effects in student attitudes about cheating behaviors, which is hypothesis 1 (in null form):
H2: There will be no biological gender difference in student ratings of cheating behaviors once student expressiveness is taken into account.
H1: There will be no biological gender difference in student ratings of cheating behaviors.
Another possible reason for the inconsistent results in prior research could be the failure to account for a social desirability bias in the data. In any study of ethics attitudes, survey respon‐ dents may give false responses in an effort to ob‐ scure their true feelings. Ethics are an intensely personal matter and respondents may not want anyone to know they would take unethical ac‐ tions to gain desired outcomes. There is a perva‐ sive tendency to present oneself in the most fa‐ vorable light relative to prevailing social norms (King and Bruner, 2000). This interest in answer‐ ing in a socially desirable manner is known as impression management; impression manage‐ ment should be controlled for in ethics research using self‐reported data (Bernardi et al., 2003). In most ethics research on gender, impression man‐ agement is not measured and therefore it may be a missing explanatory variable for some of the inconsistent results.
A possible explanation of inconsistent results in prior research may be a concentration on biologi‐ cal gender rather than on psychological gender. Regardless of biological gender, adopting the social conditioning of one’s psychological gender may impact attitudes toward ethics. Socialization is partly a function of conditioned behaviors, which tend to be gender‐specific (Terpstra et. al., 1993). Many theories about gender and ethics are based on socialization theory (McCabe, Ingram, and Dato‐on, 2006). Women may be conditioned to reject less ethical actions to obtain desired out‐ comes because they have been conditioned to take actions which gain the approval of others. Men may be conditioned to accept less ethical actions to obtain desired outcomes because they have been conditioned to be more aggressive and competitive (McCabe, Ingram and Dato‐on, 2006). The Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) (Spence et. al., 1975) measures psychological gen‐ der in terms of instrumental and expressiveness strengths. The strength of assertiveness traits (generally considered to be male characteristics) is measured by the instrumental scale, while the strength of desirable, socially‐oriented traits
In a variety of settings females have been less inclined to engage in impression management (e.g. Singh, Kumra and Vinnicombe, 2002); this may also be true in academia. Respondents en‐ gaging in impression management in this study are more likely to rate academic cheating as un‐ acceptable, which could obscure gender differ‐ ences. This leads to hypothesis 3 (in null form): 78
Gender Differences in Student Ethics—Becker & Ulstad study measured both self‐reported hours worked per week and hours spent studying per week, and included these variables in the analysis. Method
H3: There will be no biological gender difference in student ratings of cheating behaviors once impression management is taken into ac‐ count. In addition to psychological gender and impres‐ sion management, student major may impact the relationship between biological gender and eth‐ ics. In the accounting curriculum there is sub‐ stantial ethics‐related content; graduates in ac‐ counting are exposed to such content. This should reduce gender differences by improving the ethics of all accounting students. Ethics con‐ tent of curricula in other business fields may not be the same, which would allow gender differ‐ ences to persist among those students. Therefore, we investigate whether gender effects are present for accounting majors and non‐accounting busi‐ ness majors separately. We hypothesize (in null form) this relationship between gender and major: H4: There will be no biological gender difference in student ratings of cheating behaviors once student major is taken into account. H4a: There will be no biological gender differ‐ ence in student ratings of cheating be‐ haviors for accounting majors. H4b: There will be no biological gender differ‐ ence in student ratings of cheating be‐ haviors for non‐accounting business ma‐ jors.
Undergraduate students from three AACSB‐ accredited universities participated in this study. Participating schools included two from the Mid‐ west, one public and one Jesuit school; and one East coast Jesuit school. Institutional Review Board approval for this study was obtained from all three schools. Students answered a 10‐minute, 4 section sur‐ vey during class time. Participation was volun‐ tary and anonymous; no extra credit was given for participation. In the first section, students provided demographic information. Subsequent sections contained questions measuring attitudes toward academic behaviors, impression manage‐ ment, and psychological gender. Two orders of the survey were used; all students answered the demographic questions first. Half of the respon‐ dents answered the academic behavior questions next, followed by the gender and impression management questions. The other half of the stu‐ dents answered the gender and impression man‐ agement questions next, followed by the aca‐ demic behavior questions. The order of the sur‐ vey questions was not a significant variable in any of the results. In the second section, students rated the accept‐ ability of 14 academic behaviors (Figure 1). Nine of the items are from the Academic Dishonesty Scale of McCabe and Trevino (1997); all nine items are considered academically dishonest. Five items (1, 6, 9, 10 and 13) were added which are not considered to be dishonest actions (shown in bold print). A mix of items helped en‐ sure students had to read and consider each item individually rather than just marking replies to each item in the same way. Responses were given on a Likert scale from 1 (completely dis‐ honest) to 5 (completely honest). Using this scale,
Additional Moderating Variables There are possible explanations beyond psycho‐ logical gender (expressiveness), impression man‐ agement and student major for the inconsistent gender results found in studies with students. The number of hours working and the number of hours spent studying may have an effect. This
79
Plagiary 2007 In the third section of the survey, students an‐ swered questions to measure their levels of im‐ pression management (see Figure 2). The twenty items are from the Balanced Inventory of Desir‐ able Responding (BIDR), version 7 (Paulus, 1998). The major use of this scale is in differenti‐ ating fakers from non‐fakers; it helps determine if respondents are purposely enhancing their re‐ plies when completing questionnaires (Paulus, 1998). The scale has strong reliability, with a Cronbach Alpha of .83, and has high test‐retest correlation (Robinson, Shaver and Wrightsman, 1991).
Bolin (2004) showed that attitude toward aca‐ demic dishonesty was a strong predictor of a stu‐ dent’s level of cheating. The Academic Dishonesty Scale has been shown to be highly reliable (Cronbach alpha of .90). Confirmatory factor analysis showed the items in the Academic Dishonesty Scale in one factor and the five additional (honest) items in another factor. Each student’s ratings of the nine items in the Academic Dishonesty Scale were summed to create one variable (CHEAT). The higher the value of CHEAT, the more accepting the student was of the cheating behaviors.
Figure 1. Academic Dishonesty Scale 1. Do more than your share of work in a group project
1
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5
2. Use unfair methods to learn what was on a test before it is given
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5
3. Copy material and turn it is as your own work
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5
4. Use material from a published source in a paper without giving the author credit
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5
5. Help someone else cheat on a test
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5
6. Study for exams with other students in the same course
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5
7. Collaborate on solutions to an assignment when collaboration is specifically prohibited
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5
8. Copy from another student during a test
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9. Prevent other students from copying from you during a test
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10. Keep exam information private from students in later sections of the same course
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11. Receive substantial help on an individual assignment without your instructor’s permission
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12. Cheat on a test in any way
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13. Memorize questions from quizzes that may appear on exams
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5
14. Use a textbook or notes on a test without your instructor’s permission
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5
80
Gender Differences in Student Ethics—Becker & Ulstad In determining whether a student is engaging in impression management, an impression man‐ agement rating (IMR) is obtained. Note in Figure 2 that the odd‐numbered items would be an‐ swered as 1 or 2 if a respondent was trying to make a good impression. Also note that the even‐ numbered items would be answered 6 or 7 if a respondent was trying to make a good impres‐ sion. In reality, most of us would answer some‐ where in the middle of the scale to nearly all items. Scoring of the BIDR uses this knowledge to create the IMR. For the odd‐numbered items, sum the number of 1ʹs and 2ʹs; for the even‐ numbered items, sum the number of 6ʹs and 7ʹs.
The overall sum creates one IMR for each respon‐ dent that ranges from 0‐20. The higher the IMR, the more the person has engaged in impression management. In the fourth section of the survey, students answered questions from the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) (Spence et. al., 1975) to measure their instrumental and expressive traits (see Figure 3). The Scale has high reliability (Cronbach Alpha of .76). Males are expected to have a higher rating on the instrumental scale while females are expected to have a higher rat‐ ing on the expressiveness scale.
Figure 2. Impression Management Scale Using the scale below as a guide, write a number beside each statement to indicate how much you agree with it. Not True
Very 1
2
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5
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7
____ 1. I sometimes tell lies if I have to. ____ 2. I never cover up my mistakes. ____ 3. There have been occasions where I have taken advantage of someone. ____ 4. I never swear. ____ 5. I sometimes try to get even rather than forgive and forget. ____ 6. I always obey laws, even if I’m unlikely to get caught. ____ 7. I have said something bad about a friend behind their back. ____ 8. When I hear people talking privately, I avoid listening. ____ 9. I have received too much change from a salesperson without telling him or her. ____ 10. I always declare everything at customs. ____ 11. When I was young I sometimes stole things. ____ 12. I have never dropped litter on the street. ____ 13. I sometimes drive faster than the speed limit. ____ 14. I never read sexy books or magazines. ____ 15. I have done things I don’t tell other people about. ____ 16. I never take things that don’t belong to me. ____ 17. I have taken sick leave from work or school even though I wasn’t really sick. ____ 18. I have never damaged a library book or store merchandise without reporting it. ____ 19. I have some pretty awful habits. ____ 20. I don’t gossip about other people’s business. 81
True
Plagiary 2007 East coast. The study included 220 accounting majors and 295 non‐accounting business majors. Table 2 shows demographic information in‐ cluding students’ age, year in school, and self reported GPA (on a 4‐points scale), separated by major. Accounting majors are similar to students in other fields for age, year and self‐reported GPA. This facilitates comparisons of accounting majors’ versus non‐accounting majors’ attitudes about ethics. We examined the mean dishonesty ratings of the items in Figure 1. If students believed an item reflected completely dishonest behavior, they would give it a rating of 1. Students do not uni‐ versally agree that these behaviors are completely
Items shown in bold print measure instrumen‐ tal traits while the remaining measure expressive traits. Confirmatory factor analysis showed the eight instrumental items in one factor (variable name INSTRUM) and the eight expressive items in another factor (variable name EXPRESS). For each scale, a student’s total responses to items are used to create one rating ranging from 8 to 40. Results Table 1 shows the distribution of students across different majors. The 515 participants were all business majors. 400 students attend the public university; 79 attend a Jesuit university in the Midwest, and 36 attend a Jesuit university on the
Figure 3. Personal Attributes Questionnaire * Not at all independent
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Very independent
Not at all emotional
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Very emotional
Very passive
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Very active
Able to devote self completely to others
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Not at all able to devote self completely to others
Very rough
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Very gentle
Not at all helpful to others
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Very helpful to others
Not at all competitive
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Very competitive
Not at all kind
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Very kind
Not at all aware of feelings of others
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Very aware of feelings of others
Can make decisions easily
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Has difficulty making decisions
Gives up very easily
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Never gives up easily
Not at all self confident
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Very self confident
Feels very inferior
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Feels very superior
Not at all understanding of others
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Very understanding of others
Very cold in relations with others
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Very warm in relations with others
Goes to pieces under pressure
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Stands up well under pressure
* Instrumental scale in bold print; expressive scale in regular print. 82
Gender Differences in Student Ethics—Becker & Ulstad
Table 1. Student Participant Information Number of Participants Major
Female Students
Male Students
Total Students
Accounting
106
114
220
Finance
46
17
63
Management Information Systems
19
8
27
Management
53
33
86
Marketing
23
40
63
Business Administration
35
13
48
Other Business
5
3
8
Totals
287
228
515
Table 2. Student Participant Demographic Information Mean (Standard Deviation) Major
Age
Year*
GPA**
Accounting
21.71
3.18
3.29
(3.06)
(0.87)
(0.37)
21.27
3.21
3.36
(3.43)
(0.54)
(0.37)
20.56
2.70
3.11
(1.42)
(0.82)
(0.35)
21.37
3.32
3.12
(1.37)
(0.80)
(0.39)
21.70
3.19
3.18
(2.75)
(0.85)
(0.36)
21.21
3.29
2.99
(1.43)
(0.87)
(0.42)
20.88
3.13
3.13
(1.25)
(0.99)
(0.49)
20.67
2.67
3.49
(0.57)
(0.58)
(0.21)
Finance Management Information Systems Marketing Management Business Administration Other Business Non Business
* Year is 1=freshman and so forth. ** GPA is self-reported grade point average, 4-point scale. 83
Plagiary 2007 unacceptable; there is significant variability in the ratings for each item. However, all means except one item associated with collaboration are statistically the same as the scale minimum rat‐ ing of one. The item for which student and fac‐ ulty opinions differ marginally is item 11 (receive substantial help on an individual assignment without your instructor’s permission). The stu‐ dents’ mean rating is marginally significantly above the scale minimum (p=.08). On average, students share faculty beliefs about the honesty or dishonesty of these actions. Hypothesis Testing
To test hypothesis 1, each student’s total cheat‐ ing rating was computed as one score by sum‐ ming the student’s ratings of the nine items; the variable CHEAT is analyzed for gender effects (see Table 4). As shown in Panel B of Table 4, biological gender is a significant determinant of CHEAT. Based on these results, hypothesis one is rejected; there is a difference in the ratings of cheating behaviors. To test hypothesis 2, the variable EXPRESS was added to the analysis as a covariate (see Table 5). EXPRESS was created by summing each stu‐ dent’s responses to the expressiveness questions from the PAQ. Panel A of Table 5 shows the means for EXPRESS for each gender. The means are significantly different, with females having a higher expressiveness rating on average. Panel B of Table 5 shows that Gender is still significant (p