Structural Relationship Between Self-Control and Academic Dishonesty: Mediating Role of Academic Procrastination

Academic dishonesty refers to any misconduct in academic affairs and assignments. It is a worrying phenomenon with many negative consequences. To prevent these consequences, experts have studied the effective relevant factors on academic dishonesty. In this study self-control and academic procrastination were studied as antecedents for academic dishonesty. It was a correlational study and Tangney, Baumeister and Boone (2004) self-control questionnaire, McCabe and Trevino (1997) academic dishonesty questionnaire and Solomon and Rothblum (1984) procrastination questionnaire were used. The relationships between the constructs of the proposed model were analyzed using structural equation modeling in AMOS software version 24. The statistical population included all high school students in the city of Osko, in the academic year 1401-1400. The sample size was 380 students. The fitness indices of the proposed model according to the criteria proposed by Meyers, Gamst and Guarino (2006) indicated an acceptable fitness with the data. The results showed that self-control has a direct and significant effect on academic procrastination and academic dishonesty. In addition, academic procrastination has a direct and significant effect on academic dishonesty. Also academic procrastination plays a mediating role in the relationship between students' self-control and academic dishonesty. Therefore, it is suggested that education authorities consider programs to improve students' self-control skills.