Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child? The Effects of Parental Punitiveness on Moral Development of College Students

Wendy L. Villers
Missouri Western State College
May 1, 1997

Abstract

Cheating behavior has been around for centuries, but in todayŐs society it is more widely studied than ever before. Cheating is found to involve many things, such as, situational factors, personality traits and discipline encountered. In this study, college students we ®re given the opportunity to falsify a quiz score. Parental Punitiveness Scale scores were obtained separately from the quiz for both the father and the mother of the participant in attempt to determine a relationship between childhood discipline and academic dishonesty in the college years. Sex, grade level in college, living arrangements as a child, age, and GPA were also looked in relation to cheating behavior. A significant difference was found in paternal punitiveness and maternal punitiveness, with the fathers being more strict than the mothers. These findings are discussed, including generalizations and future research implications.

Introduction

Classroom cheating encompasses many behaviors: using crib notes, copying answers from another student, letting others copy homework and plagiarizing, to name a few. Bushway and Nash (1977) report that cheating took place in ancient China on civil service exams even when it carried the death penalty as punishment! In todayŐs society cheating is even more frequent and therefore more intensely studied. The majority of the hundreds of studies on cheating examine one, if not a combination, of the following three aspects of academic dishonesty: personal characteristics of cheaters, situational factors in the school, and reasons for cheating.

In reference to personal characteristics, Vitro (1971) reported that cheating was more common among students w $ith low grade averages. Waugh, Godfrey, Evans, and Craig (1995) also said that cheaters were more likely than non-cheaters to be less intelligent and it was also found that low-achieving students cheat more than high-achieving students (Bushway & Nash, 1977; Baird, 1980).

Another characteristic that was examined was gender of the student. Some studies report no significant difference in the sex of the cheaters. However, the majority of the findings seem to indicate that female cheating is somewhat less than male cheating behavior (Bushway & Nash, 1977). Males admitted to cheating in more of their courses than did females and they admitted to a greater variety in cheating methods (Baird, 1980). Also, females disapproved of cheating more than males and were more likely to feel guilty if 'they did cheat. Ward and Beck (1990) hypothesized this may have been due to the fact that women have been socialized to view cheating behavior in this regard.

Parental punitiveness was also found to effect cheating behavior (Vitro, 1971). It has been found that cheaters generally had been reared in severe parental strictness or complete lack of discipline. Kelly and Worell (1978) also found parental childrearing practices are related to cheating behaviors. The importance of early timing of punishment on resistance to temptation has repeatedly been demonstrated.

Situational factors in the schools have also been linked to academic dishonesty. Strong anti-cheating or moral climate, a strong chance of being caught and punished, and positive open and fair attitudes in teaching styles were perceived to decrease cheating behavior (Waugh, et al 1995).

Many different reasons for cheating have ‰been found. Concern about grades was most frequently mentioned by students (Bushway & Nash, 19977) and Baird (1980) backed this up with stating that those with lower grades are more likely to cheat. Pressures from parents, teachers, and administrators to achieve at a high standard were also stated as a reason to cheat (Waugh, et al, 1995). Low levels of deception and supervision were given for justification by students (Davis, Grover, Becker,& McGregor, 1992).

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of parental punitiveness upon moral development. For purposes of this project, moral development is defined as academic honesty when given opportunity to cheat. Also to be examined is academic achievement (defined as cumulative grade point average, GPA) and the impact of discipline as administered by the childhood guardian upon moral development. It is hypothesized that rep ,orts of parental lax control or extreme strictness or punitiveness will be associated with cheating behavior, while moderate parental discipline will be related to non cheating behavior.

Methods

Subjects

This study involved 57 participants enrolled either in an intermediate psychology course or in an upper level developmental psychology course during the spring of 1997. The college campus the study was conducted on is Missouri Western State College (MWSU) and is located in St. Joseph, in northwestern Missouri. It is primarily a commuter college with a student body of approximately 5000. The following demographical information was gathered: age, gender, grade level, and grade point average (GPA). Also reported was the childhood living arrangement the participants were reared in, natural parents, single parent, natural and step father or mother, relatives, and other. There were 45 females and 12 males involved in the study.

Materials

The classroom instructor administered the Parental Punitiveness Scale developed by Epstein and Komorita (1965) to the participants. The scale consisted of 45 forced choice questions to be answered in regard to the parenting styles they were raised in. There were four possible responses to choose from, ranging from most to least punitive. Each question was answered for both maternal and paternal styles, if at all possible. In addition, the students were given a 20 point true or false quiz over a guest lecture, providing the opportunity for classifying cheaters and non-cheaters.

Procedure

The classroom instructor administered the Parental Punitive Scale (PPS) to measure how the participant recalled and perceived the disciplinary techniques employed by his/her parents when they misbehaved. Along with this scale some demographic information was asked for, such as, age, grade level, cum GPA, gender, and a brief description of family setting they were reared in.

The student was given the opportunity to cheat using the following procedure. The students were required to attend a guest lecture and told they would have a quiz over the material covered in the lecture during the next class period. A 20 point true or false quiz was given as a regular class requirement over the lecture. The quiz was then scored by the researcher for wrong answers without marking on the test papers themselves. The original grade was recorded as such and the unmarked test papers were returned at a later date with the explanation that the instructor was unable to score them because of time constraints. The instructor then turn their back to the class to write the correct answers to the quiz on the board, allowing opportunity for the students to cheat when they scored their own exams. The exams were collected and given to the researcher. The researcher reexamined the quizzes for discrepancies between the original recorded scores and the scores reported by the participants. Special precautions were taken so the class instructor was not aware of who cheated, thereby avoiding any repercussions for academic dishonesty. One such precaution, was the researcher scored the quizzes and recorded the original scores and also recorded the self reported scores. The class instructor was not aware of the quiz scores at any time.

Results

Of the 57 participants, 14 (25%) cheated on the quiz. When broken down by sex, 10 of the 45 (22%) females cheated, compared to 4 of the 12 males (33%). A paired samples t-test was conducted comparing the Parental Punitiveness Scale scores for both the father and the mother (separately) and whether or not the student cheated on the quiz. The mean PPS scores for the father and the mother were compared for both cheaters and non-cheaters, finding fathers more strict (94.6) than the mothers (108), (t (75)= -2.89, p LT .01) .

An independent samples t-test was conducted by breaking down the Parental Punitiveness Scale scores of the father and ś the mother and comparing them individually with whether or not the student cheated. The results were (t (55)=.97, pGT.05).

The mean of the PPS score for the fathers of the students who cheated was 103, while the mean for the non-cheatersŐ fathers was 91.7, though not statistically significant, it is in the expected direction. For the mothers, the result was (t (55)=.52, pGT.05). The mean of the cheaters motherŐs PPS scores was 106.5 and the scores for the non-cheatersŐ mothers was 103.0, showing very little difference between discipline styles of the mothers for cheaters and those of non-cheaters.

An independent samples t-test was conducted comparing cheating with grade point average (GPA). The results were (t (55)=-.69, pGT.05). The average GPA for cheaters was 2.87, while the average GPA for non-cheaters was 3.01, though statistically not signif çicant, it is in the expected direction.

A Chi-square test was conducted examining cheating behavior and sex. These results were (Chi-square (1)=.631, pGT.05). It was found that males cheated slightly more (33%) than females (22%). Again, while this is not significant, it is in the expected direction.

A Chi-square test was conducted to determine any relationship between childhood living arrangement and cheating behavior. Of the 57 participants, 37 (64.9%) were raised by their natural parents, 9 (15.8%) were raised by a single parent, 7 (12.3%) were raised by one natural parent and a step-parent, and 2 (3.5%) were raised by ŇotherÓ. The results of this test were (Chi-square (5)=8.72, p=.12). Of the cheaters 57.1% were raised in a home with a natural parent and a step-parent, specifically a step-father.

A final Chi-square test was run on cheating behavior and grade level in college. The result was not significant at (Chi-square (3)= .078, pGT.05). Th íere were 9 freshman, 16 sophomores, 21 juniors, and 11 seniors participants.

Discussion

This goal of this study was to examine moral development / cheating behavior in relationship to parental punitiveness. It was found that the difference of the means of the parental punitiveness scores between the father (94.6) and the mother (108.2) were statistically significant. The data show that the fathers were more punitive or strict than the mothers of the participants of this study. This is interesting when examined with the fact that these data show children raised by their natural mother and a step-father (therefore raised without the natural father) were more inclined to cheat than those raised in the other living arrangements examined. Please note that none of the participants examined were raised by their natural father and a step-mother. This could led to an interesting future research project as it would be intriguing to determine if a relationship -exists, since fathers tend to be more punitive, yet children reared by a natural parent and a step-parent tend to cheat more than others. In todayŐs society of high divorce rate and consequently more single parent families and step-parents, a study involving rigorous control of these variables could prove to be valuable.

The researcher also expected to find a relationship between higher GPA and academic honesty. Although the results were statistically insignificant, there was a trend in the expected direction, with cheaters having an average GPA of 2.87 and non-cheaters having an average GPA of 3.0. No significant relationship was found between grade level and cheating behavior in this study, yet a wider range of participants might be beneficial in a more involved look at these variables. From these data is impossible to determine if college education is meeting its ideological goal of promoting m ˇoral development as evident in lessening academic dishonesty.

One possible limitation of this study is the level of seriousness with which the student took the quiz that provided the opportunity to cheat. It is highly possible that if a regularly scheduled class exam were used in place of the quiz, the anxiety level would be elevated, giving more variability to the data. In addition, in comparison with a quiz worth 20 points, more pressure would be placed on the participants to do well on a unit exam worth 50 or more points.

A second limitation could be experimenter bias in regard to the teaching styles of the instructors whose classes were used. Rigorous control for exact procedure of the experiment is fundamental to this study when examining several classes of students. Also, a larger sample size would result in more data and therefore more variability.

In conclusion, many implications were discov ¨ered in the process of this experiment. There are many avenues for future research projects that can be used. As evident by the data in this study, cheating behavior/ moral development is an extremely complicated issue that has been around almost as long as history itself. It involves a complex interaction of situational factors, personality traits, and parental discipline styles, to name just a few of the variables just waiting to be manipulated, studied, and observed by researchers yet to come.

References

Baird, J.S. (1980). Current trends in college cheating. Psychology in the Schools, 17, 515-522.
Bushway, A. & Nash, W.R. (1977). School cheating behavior. Review of Educational Research, 47, (4), 623-632.
Davis, S.F., Grover, C.A., Becker, A.H., & McGregor, L.N. 91992). Academic dishonesty: Prevalence, determinants, techniques, and punishments. Teaching of Psychology, 19, (1), 16-20.
Epstein, R., & Komorita, S. (1965). The development of a scale of parental punitiveness toward aggression. Child Development, 36, 129-142.
Kelly, J. A. & Worell, L. (1978). Personality characteristics, parent behaviors, and sex of subject in relation to cheating. Journal of Research in Personality, 12, 179-188.
Vitro, F. T. (1971) The relationship of classroom dishonesty to perceived parental discipline. Journal of College Student Personnel, 427-429.
Ward, D.A. & Beck, W.L. (1990). Gender and dishonesty. The Journal of Social Psychology, 130, (3), 333-339.
Waugh, R.W., Godfrey, J.R., Evans, E.D., & Craig, D. (1995). Measuring studentsŐ perceptions about cheating in six countries. Australian Journal of Psychologys, 47, 92), 73-80.

Page Last Updated.