Self-Regulatory Resources and Academic Dishonesty in Digital Learning Environments: The Mediating Role of Ability-Protective Self-Handicapping and Dysfunctional Beliefs

Research on intelligence in education has shown that how students interpret and protect their perceived ability shapes their responses to evaluative threat, yet this perspective has rarely been applied to academic dishonesty, a problem intensified as assessment moves into digital learning environments. The present study examined whether learned resourcefulness, an acquired repertoire of self-control skills, is associated with academic dishonesty through two ability-protective strategies: self-handicapping, which shields perceived ability by supplying an alternative explanation for failure, and dysfunctional beliefs, which make self-worth contingent on demonstrated success. Cross-sectional data from 1045 university students (71.6% female; mean age 22.0 years) were analyzed using latent-variable structural equation modeling with robust maximum likelihood estimation. The model fit the data adequately and accounted for a substantial share of the variance in dishonest behavior. Dysfunctional beliefs and self-handicapping showed the strongest associations with dishonest behavior. Learned resourcefulness was associated with dishonesty mainly through these two strategies; its direct association was not significant on the raw metric but reached significance under a log transformation. Dishonest behavior and attitude toward dishonesty showed divergent predictor patterns, with external locus of control most strongly associated with attitude. A latent profile analysis identified an at-risk profile with the highest dishonesty. The findings suggest that academic dishonesty can be understood, in part, as an ability-protective response to evaluative threat, extending research on non-cognitive individual differences and beliefs about ability from achievement to academic integrity.