This study examined the relationship between moral reasoning and attitudes about cheating on tests, essays, and other assignments. Moral-reasoning levels were based on the Defining Issues Test (DIT-1, short form), a measure of principled moral reasoning. Cheating prevention and punishment-attitude scores were calculated based on the Cheating Management Questionnaire (CMQ), a measure of teacher attitudes about cheating. Of teachers, 146 in-service high school teachers and 16 preservice high school teachers participated in the study.;T-tests were calculated between the two subgroups on moral reasoning, academic-cheating prevention, and academic-cheating punishment. Intercorrelations were calculated between the 3 measures for the in-service teachers. Supplementary analyses on the in-service-teacher group were conducted using demographic variables.;Several noteworthy findings of this study were that female teachers scored higher than male teachers on moral reasoning, and demonstrated more stringent attitudes about implementing cheating-prevention and -punishment procedures. The differences on moral reasoning and prevention were statistically significant. The in-service-teacher group scored higher on the DIT than the preservice-teacher group. A 9.24-point difference was observed between the two groups. In addition, the in-service teachers showed more stringent attitudes toward punishing cheaters than did preservice teachers.;Future studies can build on these findings by disaggregating the DIT and CMQ data according to school districts and by considering the relationship between moral-reasoning levels and variables such as class size, teacher-to-student ratio and socioeconomic status. The significance of the study and implications for policy and practice are also discussed.
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