The Effects of Instructor Fear Appeals and Moral Appeals on Cheating-Related Attitudes and Behavior of University Students

Little attention has been paid in academic dishonesty literature to empirically testing the effectiveness of different instructor communication strategies to minimize cheating. Using a quasi-experimental design, we compared the effectiveness of instructor fear appeals and moral appeals on student cheating-related attitudes and behavior. Cheating was most strongly associated with neutralizing attitudes in the moral appeal condition. Also, the relationship between observation of others cheating and self-reported cheating behaviors was stronger in both treatment conditions than in the control condition. Although a trend toward less cheating in the treatment conditions was evident, it did not attain statistical significance.