Presenting a causal model of academic engagement and academic ethics with academic cheating: The mediating role of academic self-efficacy

This study aimed to provide a causal model of academic engagement and academic ethics with academic cheating by the mediating role of academic self-efficacy. It is descriptive and correlational. The population included all female students in senior high schools in Khorramabad amounting to 9981 among whom through the Kline's Rules of Thumb, 240 participants were selected through stratified random sampling. To collect the data, academic engagement, academic ethics questionnaire, academic self-efficacy and academic cheating were used. The correlation matrix, structural equation modeling and goodness of fit index in LISREL 8.5 were used for data analysis. The results of path analysis showed that academic ethics had direct impact on academic cheating with self-efficacy as mediating variable but academic engagement had no direct effect on academic cheating but was mediated by self-efficacy indirectly. Also, academic self-efficacy had direct effect on academic cheating. The results of the direct effect of academic ethics on academic cheating and the mediating role of self-efficacy in structural relationship between academic engagement and academic provides support for ethics with students' academic cheating.