Description
The evolution and diffusion of technology in educational contexts has changed the communicative relationships between teachers and their students. Students admit to using deception towards their teachers as a common communication strategy for obtaining their desired goals. Traditionally, the use of student deception has occurred through face-to-face interactions with their teachers. As computer-mediated communication continues to be used with greater prevalence in the classroom environment, the influence this emerging medium has on student beliefs and attitudes about using deception deserves considerable attention. Furthermore, understanding the perceptions of student deception from teachers' perspectives allows greater insight into the nature of deception in an educational context. Analyzing data from a student and a teacher sample, this thesis investigates: (1) Students' perception on the preference, effectiveness, appropriateness and motives for using deception; comparing faceto- face vis-à-vis computer-mediated communication channels, and (2) teachers' perception on the acceptability of student deception, and the relative effectiveness of computer-mediated communication and face-to-face for detecting student deceptions. The main findings of this study from the student sample indicate: (1) Students prefer to use computer-mediated channels of communication when engaging in deceptive behaviors with their teachers, although this medium was not perceived as more effective for successfully using deception, and (2) students perceive altruistically motivated lies as more appropriate than selfishly motivated lies in both, computer-mediated communication channels and face-to-face channels. From the teacher sample, the results show: (1) Teachers perceive greater self-ability to detect student deception when it is employed through face-to-face interactions, compared to computer-mediated interactions, (2) teachers perceive student deception as more effective when enacted through computer-mediated communication channels, and (3) teachers perceive student deception that is altruistically motivated as more appropriate than deception that is selfishly motivated. The implications of this study's findings and direction for future research are discussed in this thesis.
