Cheating or Surviving: English Students’ Perspectives on Academic Dishonesty as a Strategy to Coping
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24256/ideas.v14i1.9821Keywords:
academic dishonesty, academic pressure, coping strategy, fear of failureAbstract
Academic dishonesty has become a considerable problem within the academy, especially when one considers the emphasis being placed upon ensuring that the student population is able to achieve at a high level. This study is a qualitative case study wherein aim to explore the concept of academic dishonesty from a different point of view, based upon the interviews with English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students from Mulawarman University in Indonesia, exploring their views of academic dishonesty regardless of its negative implications, but rather as a coping strategy for stress and a way to meet the demands of their academic obligations. Through my collection of data in the form of a semi-structured interview of four English Education majors, I have learned that EFL undergraduates do not consider cheating as a total denouncement of hard work, but rather a way of coping with the demands of a tight deadline, heavy responsibilities, and the stress of failing a course, particularly when it is a strategic measure in using artificial intelligence to manage their examinations and alleviate further stress or anxiety. They rationalized their behavior as a common problem within the academic environment.
References
Ajit, S., Maikkara, A., & Ramku, W. (2024). Fear of failure: a student-facing investigation into the motivations for contract cheating and academic misconduct. Cogent Education, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2024.2413211
Ampuni, S., Kautsari, N., Maharani, M., Kuswardani, S., & Buwono, S. B. S. (2020). Academic Dishonesty in Indonesian College Students: an Investigation from a Moral Psychology Perspective. Journal of Academic Ethics, 18(4), 395–417. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-019-09352-2
Atkinson, J. W., & Feather, N. T. (1966). A Theory of Achievement Motivation.
Bandura, A. (1999). Personality and Social Psychology Review Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(3), 179–192. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0303
Bandura, A. (2016). Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm and Live with Themselves.
Bernal Arellano, W. M., Galarza Parra, J. N., Villavicencio Reinoso, M. J., & Quito Ochoa, J. F. (2024). A study on academic dishonesty among English as a foreign language students. Heliyon, 10(13), e33876. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e33876
Choo, F., & Tan, K. (2023). Abrupt academic dishonesty: Pressure, opportunity, and deterrence. International Journal of Management Education, 21(2), 100815. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2023.100815
Clinciu, A. I., Cazan, A. M., & Ives, B. (2021). Academic Dishonesty and Academic Adjustment Among the Students at University Level: An Exploratory Study. SAGE Open, 11(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211021839
Córdova Olivera, P., Gasser Gordillo, P., Naranjo Mejía, H., La Fuente Taborga, I., Grajeda Chacón, A., & Sanjinés Unzueta, A. (2023). Academic stress as a predictor of mental health in university students. Cogent Education, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2023.2232686
Dang, A. H., & Middlemiss, W. (2025). Academic buoyancy and fear of failure differences among university students: Null findings. Social Sciences and Humanities Open, 11(July 2024), 101184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2024.101184
Deng, Y., Cherian, J., Khan, N. U. N., Kumari, K., Sial, M. S., Comite, U., Gavurova, B., & Popp, J. (2022). Family and Academic Stress and Their Impact on Students’ Depression Level and Academic Performance. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13(June), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.869337
Duru, E., Balkis, M., & Duru, S. (2024). Fear of failure and academic satisfaction: the mediating role of emotion regulation difficulties and procrastination. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 39(3), 2901–2914. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-024-00868-9
Dyer, J. M., Pettyjohn, H. C., & Saladin, S. (2020). Academic Dishonesty and Testing: How Student Beliefs and Test Settings Impact Decisions to Cheat. Journal of the National College Testing Association, 4(1), 1–30. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341296878_Academic_Dishonesty_and_Testing_How_Student_Beliefs_and_Test_Settings_Impact_Decisions_to_Cheat
Forbes, J. K. (2025). The relationship between higher education faculty’s motivation to report suspected academic dishonesty and likelihood to report. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-025-00200-y
Jackson, C., & Van Houtte, M. (2025). System failure? Exploring the interplay of fear of failure, competition, cooperation and sense of belonging in education in England and Flanders. British Educational Research Journal, March, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.70043
Kao, P. C. (2024). Exploring the roles of academic expectation stress, adaptive coping, and academic resilience on perceived English proficiency. BMC Psychology, 12(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-024-01630-y
Lan, Z., Liu, H., Huang, X., Wang, Q., Deng, F., & Li, J. (2023). The Impact of Academic Pressure and Peer Support on Adolescents’ Loneliness: A Polynomial Regression and Response Surface Analysis. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 16, 4617–4627. https://doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S435977
Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, Appraisal, and Coping,Lazarus, Richard S,Springer Publishing Company, Incorporated.
Nair, P. N., & Sutar, D. (2023). Fear of failure, academic self-efficacy and academic performance among college students. The International Journal of Indian Psychology, 11(3), 375–384. https://doi.org/10.25215/1103.036
Negash, K. H., & Gasa, V. G. (2025). Academic dishonesty among higher education students in Somaliland. Social Sciences and Humanities Open, 11(August 2024), 101538. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2025.101538
Rabaani, S., & Indriyani, D. (2024). Pengaruh Penggunaan Media Sosial terhadap Prestasi Akademik Mahasiswa. Pubmedia Jurnal Penelitian Tindakan Kelas Indonesia, 1(3), 10. https://doi.org/10.47134/ptk.v1i3.433
Yin, X., Lai, Q., & Guo, Y. (2025). Drivers of academic dishonesty: situational pressures versus student motivation. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 30(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2025.2560649
Yu, H., Glanzer, P. L., & Johnson, B. R. (2021). Examining the relationship between student attitude and academic cheating. Ethics and Behavior, 31(7), 475–487. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2020.1817746
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
Citation Check
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Eric Gilbran Aditya, Bibit Suhatmady, Maria Teodora Ping, Effendi Limbong
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See the Effect of Open Access)
