Factors Affecting Students’ Cheating Behaviors in Schools and Universities and Applying the Results in Quality Assessment: A Narrative Review

Background: The education system and society has endured a huge cost as a result of cheating. It is important to address the cheating since such persons doing cheating often transfer this inappropriate behavior into working environments after graduation. On the other hand, motivation to perform activities decreases in an honest person. We aimed to investigate factors affecting students' cheating behaviors in schools and universities. Materials and Methods: English electronic databases, including Medline, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar were searched systematically until May 10, 2019. Search words were a combination of: (Cheating o‎r Plagiarism o‎r Dishonesty) an‎d (College o‎r Student o‎r School o‎r Exam o‎r University) an‎d (Iran o‎r Iranian). Results: Finally, nine studies were included in the review. Affecting factors on students’ cheating behaviors in schools and universities were grouped into four categories including: "personality factors", "educational system factors", "psychological factor", and "cultural, religious, and economic factors". Conclusion Considering affecting factors on students' cheating behavior, there is a need to adopt appropriate and preventive measures by researchers, faculty members, managers and policy makers to prevent the occurrence of it as much as possible.