Abstract
This paper examined the causes of and the attitudes towards cheating in class as they were perceived by 800 secondary school students in Senegal. The causes of cheating as seen by our subjects fell into the following categories: students' laziness (47%), too many demands from the family (29%), teachers' attitudes (14%), a school syllabus too large or uninteresting (10%). The reasons for which pupils refrain from cheating are moral (57.5%), or the fear of being caught as well as the ineffectiveness of cheating (42.5%). The attitudes and feeling our students have towards their colleagues cribbing from them can be described as negative (52%: moral objections, fear of the unfair accusations levelled at them in case of discovery), lenient (39%: solidarity, efficiency), and ambivalent (13%). Over one-third of the pupils in our sample hold cheating at school ought to be reported; those with farming fathers being more insistent upon the fact than those with richer fathers. Over half of the pupils believe that cheating at school will lead to cheating elsewhere later in life.
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