The Indicators of Lying Behavior among University Students and the Design of a Lie Detector Observation Card

Abstract

This study aims at identifying the most important indicators of lying behavior experienced by university students by ranking them in order of importance, identifying the factor structure of the components of the indicators of lying behavior among university students, identifying the nature of the differences in the factors derived from the indicators of lying behavior by the variables of gender, specialization and residence, and designing a brief lie-detector observation card along with verifying it for validity and reliability. The research population consisted of 1760 male and female natural science and humanities level-four students of the College of Education (COE), Taiz University. A random stratified sample of 802 senior COE students was selected. An open-ended question was employed, then a questionnaire to identify the manifestations of lying behavior that, from the point of view of university students, are the most common. The questionnaire was verified for validity and reliability. The study found 103 indicators ranked in order of importance into important, medium and less important which represent facial expressions, movements of the body, hands, feet and eyes, physiological changes (e.g. sweating, change of color of the face), emotional changes (i.e. getting nervous), vocal changes in the degree of loudness and tone, speech changes, and mental changes reflected in conflicting ideas. The study also found, through factor analysis, four factors: visible active behavior, invisible active behavior, visible repressed behavior and invisible repressed behavior. The study, moreover, found statistically significant differences in the third factor by the variable of gender but no statistically significant differences in the other factors. A valid and reliable brief lie-detector observation card composed of 86 paragraphs was developed.