Friends and exam cheating: An experimental study in Thailand

Abstract

This paper investigates the peer effects of friends on exam cheating among Thai students. The peer effects were introduced by recruiting pairs of friends as experimental subjects. In the experiment, the subjects solved math problems and were paid according to their scores. Half of the subjects sat with friends and the other half sat with strangers. The peer effects of friends were studied by comparing the cheating behaviors of these two groups of subjects. The subjects could cheat by overstating their scores, or by copying their answers from the person sitting next to him or her. The findings revealed no significant peer effects on overstating, while there were positive peer effects in terms of copying, which requires some cooperation from peers. Nonetheless, when both overstating and copying opportunities were feasible, the peer effects on copying disappeared as the subjects opted to overstate their own scores.