Assessment of Peer Influence on Predisposition to Examination Misconduct among Tertiary Institution Students in Cross River State, Nigeria

The Study aimed at examining Assessment of Peer Influence on Predisposition to examination misconduct among tertiary institution students in Cross River State, Nigeria. Research questions were raised and corresponding hypotheses tested at .05 level of significance. The research design adopted for this study was an ex-post facto research design and the population of this study comprised 35,500 (21,589 Males and 13,911 Females) final-year students in all tertiary institutions in Cross River State, during the 2022/2023 academic session. The sample of this study consists of 2,439 (1,079 Males and 1,360 Females) final year students which represents 7% of the total population selected from five tertiary institutions in Cross River State. The instrument used for data collection was “Assessment of Peer Influence on Predisposition to Examination Misconduct Questionnaire (APIPEMQ). Cronbach Alpha reliability test was used to test scores from the questionnaire.  The questionnaire was administered once to the respondents after which the coefficient of internal consistency was estimated and the reliability index was 82. Accordingly, which shows that the instrument was reliable for data collection. descriptive statistics was employed to answer the research questions while the hypotheses were tested using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) at .05 level of significance.  Findings revealed that Peer assessment does significantly influence students’ examination misconduct. It concludes that stake holders in the academic environment are expected to encourage the students to shun all manners of misconduct, amongst others. The researchers recommended among others that, the school management should as a matter of urgency restrict negative peer associations in schools by enacting laws to prevent students from engaging in any form of examination misconduct.