The strategy of mass higher education in Iran which has been implemented in recent decades has resulted to some advantages and disadvantages for the country. Indeed this strategy has led to a fairly distributed higher education opportunities to applicants even from deprived areas. But this was achieved by lowering academic standards and the level of qualifications required to get entered to universities. As a result, bases were provided for unmotivated, disqualified and not well-prepared applicants to enter universities. Meanwhile, the universities were not agreed to lowering their basic standards for graduation. The initial challenge of this conflict was appeared in increasing number of expelled students from universities. But due to huge family, social and economic pressure on the failed and expelled students, the tendency to use academic cheating and dishonesty behaviors has been increased epidemically among students. This study therefore, aims to investigate academic cheating and dishonesty behavior amongst Iranian graduate students at the two state universities in the west of Iran. According to Ehrlich, Flexner, Carruth and Hawkins (1980) cheating in general can be defined as behaving -dishonestly or unfairly in order to win some profit or advantage (p. 141). This definition fits well to the competitive context where per definition there are winners and losers. This is while that the problematic of intentionality is not explicitly paraphrased in this definition (Garavalia, Olson, Russel and Christiensen, 2007). A student can defend him/herself from the arguments and accusations of committee by telling them that cheating or behaving unfairly was out of his/her intention. However, cheating in academic context covers three main categories of behavior which includ giving, taking or receiving information, using any prohibited materials, and capitalizing on the weakness of persons, procedures, or processes to gain advantage‖(Cizek, 2003, p. 42). This description of cheating behaviors covers broad categories; in the application level generally practitioners, such as teachers, have a narrower view on what constitutes cheating. Indeed cheating behavior can appear in a more detailed way including a) not respecting the instructions that supervisors or school personnel give; b) possession of any kind of documents independent of it was exam-related or not if usage of documents is forbidden during the exam; c) possession of a cell-phone in the classroom of the examination; d) communication between another student during exam; e) looking at or acquiring the work (or responses) of another student; f) transmission of non-authorized documents and equipment to another student; g) usage of a non-authorized equipment for example smart calculators or PDAs; h) possession of draft papers that was not distributed by supervisors. (Honor Code of the Reims Management School, p. 8).

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