Academic dishonesty is a pervasive problem undermining the effectiveness of educational institutions. From a motivational perspective, researchers have proposed achievement goals as antecedents of academic dishonesty. Empirical findings corroborate the notion that mastery goals (focus on learning and competence development) are negatively linked…

Background: Previous research has shown that achievement goals affect the frequency of academic dishonesty. However, mixed findings suggest that especially the effect of performance goals might depend on contextual factors. Aims: We wanted to investigate whether crucial aspects of the achievement situation influence the magnitude of the effect of…

We investigated how evaluation standards employed in performance tests affect the impact of performance goals (here focused on appearance) on academic cheating. Thereby, we assumed that appearance goals would lead to increased cheating only if students' performance was presumably evaluated based on results rather than on the strategies they…