Academic Dishonesty: How Do Part-Time and Full-Time Accounting Students Compare?

The upsurge in demand for university education in Zimbabwe as well as the reduced state funding has given rise the introduction of part-time degree programmes that run parallel with the full-time programmes. Apart from addressing the surge in demand these programmes also address the funding gap in higher education. Of major concern has been the poor performance of the part-time students. One area in academic performance which may affect the performance of students is academic dishonesty. To this end therefore the study sought to find out whether there were differences in attitude and behaviour towards academic dishonesty between part-time and full-time students. A survey instrument was administered to 162 final year accounting students at one of Zimbabwe’s largest state university during the first semester of the 2012/13 academic year. Out of the 11 attitude statements to do with academic dishonest significant differences were observed on four statements: that is the effect of cheating on learning; perception regarding academic dishonesty; students’ ethics codes and tolerance of friends who cheated. Faculty is therefore advised to take note of the differences between the two student groups in as far as academic dishonesty is concerned. It is worthwhile to study further whether there is a relationship between ethical maturity and employment and also why females seem to have a more relaxed view on some aspects of academic dishonesty.