The Work Experiences Study

WES Instruments and Sample

The WES Survey is a thirteen-item questionnaire consisting of three sections. The first section contains questions related to background variables, including those that measure the extent to which respondents worked in the past year and how frequently they cheated in high school. The second and third sections include questions about decisions regarding ethical behavior in the college classroom and the workplace respectively. In each setting, respondents contemplate a specific instance in which they were tempted to behave unethically (i.e., cheat in the classroom or violate workplace policies), describe any pressure(s) they felt to engage in the behavior and any hesitation(s) they felt not to engage in the behavior, and describe the ultimate decision they made in this specific instance.

Because the focus of this study is engineers in college and in the workplace, the sample included undergraduate engineering students at two technical private universities where students either participated in an intensive cooperative education program or were non-traditional students working in engineering settings. A total of 130 students who worked full time an average of 6.8 months during the previous academic year responded to the survey.

Findings of the WES

• Participation in past unethical behavior can be a strong predictor of future participation in unethical behavior–students who reported a prior tendency to cheat in high school were more likely to report cheating in a specific college situation and to report violating workplace policies. Of those who reported never cheating in high school, almost 70% decided not to cheat in a specific instance in college, and 50% decided not to violate workplace policies. On the other hand, of those who reported frequently cheating in high school, less than 40% decided not to cheat in a specific instance in college, and less than 10% decided not to violate workplace policies. This suggests that individuals who cheat in the past are more likely to cheat in the future, and to the extent that changing individuals’ present behavior will have a lasting effect on their future behavior, then affecting individuals’ behavior in one setting (i.e., college) could have a significant effect on the future behavior in another setting (i.e., workplace).
• There are common factors that influence an individual’s decision about engaging in unethical behaviors in the classroom and in the workplace. Namely, common pressures in both settings include insufficient resources, importance of success, and projection of blame (i.e., the sentiment that others “deserved” the behavior); and common hesitations include moral obligation, conscience, and risk of detection or formal sanctions. This finding indicates that there are similarities in the decision-making process used by respondents in these two settings, and it is consistent with Nonis who found that students who self-reported engaging in dishonest acts in college were more likely to report engaging in dishonest acts in the workplace.
• The context in which the decision is made is very important. In the academic setting, less than 15% of those who were tempted to cheat in an exam situation did, while more than 45% of those who were tempted to cheat on homework did. Similarly, in the workplace, less than 55% of those who were tempted did falsify records, while more than 70% of the respondents who were tempted to improperly use company supplies did. Assuming that respondents randomly contemplated scenarios in which they did or did not ultimately engage in unethical behavior, then this data might represent the frequency with which the respondents succumbed to temptation. In the academic setting, this implies that some students may be more likely to justify cheating on homework than for exams, perhaps because the benefits of cheating outweigh the negative implications for homework but not for exams. Similar logic can be applied to the professional setting in comparing falsifying records and improperly using company supplies.

Implications of the WES

These results confirm that past unethical behavior can predict current participation in such behaviors and that similar factors may be involved in decisions about engaging in unethical behavior in academic and in professional settings, implying that the decision-making process for college may well extend to the workplace. Results are also consistent with research that has shown that students who cheat in college are more likely to shoplift, cheat on income taxes, abuse harmful substances, cheat in graduate and professional schooling, and engage in unethical work-place behavior. Therefore, studying the decision-making processes that influence cheating among undergraduate engineering students and investigating the interventions designed to deter it could help to reduce unethical behaviors demonstrated by engineers in the workplace.