Dr Julius Michael Egbai & Caroline I. Ita
Abstract
The study investigated influence of sex and age in copying as academic dishonest behaviour among post graduate students of federal universities of South-South, Nigeria. The study which adopted survey design, used multi-stage stratified random sampling technique to select 440 males and 490 females from 3 universities and 3 faculties of the same universities in South-South, Nigeria. “Academic Dishonest Behaviour Questionnaire” (ADBQ) with Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of 0.83 was used for data collection. The gathered data was analysed using frequencies, percentages, factor analysis and multiple classification analysis. Two research questions and one hypothesis were formulated for the study. The findings indicated that the students used for this study were involved in copying as an aspect of academic dishonest behaviours; there is no significant influence of sex on copying while there is significant influence of age on copying among students. Similarly, female students are more involved in copying than their male counterparts, and those within 20-24years are more involved in copying. It is therefore recommended, among others, that there should be synergy among stakeholders in the educational process to fight the incidence of copying as an academic dishonest behaviour.