Assessment of dishonesty among children: The Ezen-Woke children’s dishonesty scale

Abstract

The abnormally high incidence of dishonesty manifested as fraud and corruption among Nigerian adults was noted. Based on the social learning model proposed by Albert Bandura, this paper argues that it is necessary that psychologists study dishonesty among children: not only to understand the extent to which Nigerian children have learnt dishonesty from the adults, but also to be able to measure, predict and control this pattern of behaviour. A scale to assess dishonesty among children is therefore presented. The scale, the Eze-Nwoke Children.s Dishonesty Scale, was developed using the likert method. Participants were primary four (4), five (5), and six (6) school children aged between eight (8) years and 15 years, with a mean age of 11.31 years and a mode of 12 years. The scale comprises 44 items that loaded on four (4) factors when rotated with the equamax method. The
internal consistency reliability estimate of the scale is Cronbach.s alpha .92 while the test-retest reliability estimate is r = .85. It is concluded that the scale can be used to measure dishonesty among children.