Everybody Cheats

*Students names have been changed to maintain confidentiality*

Eric Zendayas was at the top of his class in high school. He was enrolled in all honors and advanced placement courses boasting a 4.5 GPA. However, if you were to ask him what he has learned in school he would reply “nothing”.

Eric copied most, if not all, of his homework assignments from his classmates and cheated on every exam by either getting the answers beforehand or using his phone during the test. When asked why he cheats so much he said, “I want good grades and everybody cheats, so it’s really no big deal.”

Eric is like many students who value grades over learning and are willing to do whatever it takes to earn high grades. An attitude that because “everyone cheats” makes it okay has developed among students, shifting what was once looked down upon into normal part of education, experts say.

Cheating has always been a problem for schools and universities but has significantly risen over the past decades. A nationwide study by the Jospeh Institute of Ethics in 1998 concluded that roughly 70% of high school students cheated. More recently that rate has gone up to 95% according to survey from the International Center for Academic Integrity.

Copying work from other students, using notes or other materials on exams without the professor’s permission, obtaining test banks/answers, and plagiarism are among the main types of cheating researchers say, citing that students are justifying their need to cheat recognizing that it is wrong but don’t care.

“They [students] cheat just enough to maintain a self-concept as honest people. They make their behavior an exception to a general rule,” said Dr. David Rettinger, professor at the University of Mary Washington and executive director of the Center for Honor, Leadership, and Service, a campus organization dedicated to integrity.

According to a study conducted by Anne T. Klein, a Clinical and Health Psychologist, students have reported that unfair teaching styles that include harsh grading, unreasonably difficult exams, and too much course work along with an overall lack of effort from students as reasons for cheating.

“When I feel like the work is pointless or I’m going to fail even if I study hard, I cheat,” said Ashley, a current high school senior. “Plus, what’s the point of trying when every other kid in my class is cheating.”

The odds of getting caught cheating are also low, where 95% of cheaters report that they have never been caught, according to a poll conducted on high achieving high school students.

“In my twenty years of teaching, I’ve only caught a handful of students,” said Ms. Amy McCoy, a K-12 teacher. “I know there’s plenty that have gone under the radar but often times it’s hard to tell.”

Since the chance of getting caught is rare, students are now cheating not to just survive but thrive in their classes due to the idea that you must get good grades to get a good job or go to a good school.

A recent study by REL Northwest, an educational research organization, showed the importance of a good high school GPA as it has become a better indicator of further success in school than standardized exams like the SAT and ACT. This has led colleges to place more emphasis on a student’s GPA in their admissions’ process leading students to cheat so they can maintain their high grades.

Advances in technology have also helped normalize cheating among students. With a world of information at their fingertips, students can find answers quickly to pass their classes by using online resources.

Websites like Chegg and CourseHero offer answers to textbooks as well as forums for users to ask and answer questions. These sites may also include test banks and unauthorized course material that may give students a leg up in their classes. Inside the classroom students use their phones to text each other answers and take pictures of the test, use programmable calculators that can hold notes, and wireless headphones that playback pre-recorded notes, according to a 2008 report.

Studies have shown that cheating has become easier and harder to detect as access to technology has increased. Devices like smartphones, tablets, and laptops have become common in classrooms and can be used to avoid learning, according to research done in the Information Systems Education Journal.

While technology has played a factor in the rise of cheating, Donald McCabe a professor at Rutgers University Business School, found that students considered online cheating questionable, meaning they didn’t believe they were doing anything wrong.

McCabe has also made claims that technology hasn’t influenced the cheating rate when he told The Atlantic that he is hesitant to blame the easy access to the internet, computers, and mobile phones as reasons the rate has increased. He said that his survey data shows that cheating increased once the internet was made universal but now is returning to pre-internet levels. He has theorized that a growing lack of interest rather than technology are reasons students cheat.

As this lack of interest grows, students start to become detached from school and cheating is more likely to occur, finds the Journal of Education. It is then in hands of institutions and educators to reconnect them to the value of learning.

Cheating on homework is widespread with about 58% of students from McCabe studies claiming that they plagiarized meaning that they copied from someone else or an online resource. To help bring this rate down, research suggest homework is beneficial to students only when it serves a purpose. Inappropriate homework is shown to have little to no benefit which is why students feel the need to cheat as it doesn’t help them but when given properly homework can advance achievement.

“I would definitely stop copying homework if I knew it would help me in the end but usually I know it’s not going to.” said Bradley, a high school junior

Teaching students to be honest is also way to catch cheating as a study done at Midland State University suggest that when students saw someone cheating 45% did not report it when they saw it happen claiming it was none of their business.

According to Dr. Jason M. Stephens, a researcher at University of Auckland’s School of Learning, Development, and Professional Practice, teachers are uniquely positioned to infuse students with a sense of responsibility and help them overcome the rationalizations that enable them to think cheating is OK. This can be achieved by having educators understand the student’s perspective on cheating and communicate to them clearly what constitutes cheating and what doesn’t.

Research done by Studies in Higher finds that by teaching students the terms of cheating and plagiarism in positive tone while explaining the importance of practicing proper citation with right and wrongs examples will help students form the right ideals to prevent accidental cheating. Therefore, by giving students an understanding of what cheating is will create a culture of integrity rather than dishonesty, suggests educational research

“There’s always going to be students who do cheat” said Ms. McCoy, “However, I believe teaching students to understand what cheating is and that just because everyone cheats doesn’t make it okay is a step in the right direction”

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References

Surveys/Statistics

Educational Testing Service. (n.d.). Cheating Fact Sheet. Retrieved from http://www.glass-castle.com/clients/www-nocheating-org/adcouncil/research/cheatingfactsheet.html

International Center for Integrity. (n.d.). Statistics. Retrieved from https://academicintegrity.org/statistics/

Journals

Bain, L. Z. (2015). How Students Use Technology to Cheat and What Faculty Can Do About It. Information Systems Education Journal, 13(5) pp 92-99. http://isedj.org/2015-13/ ISSN: 1545-679X. (A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of ISECON 2014)

Bakhtiar Naghdipour, Okechukwu Lawrence Emeagwali, Students’ Justifications for Academic Dishonesty: Call for Action,Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences,Volume 83,2013,Pages 261-265,ISSN 1877-0428, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.06.051.

Finn, K. V., & Frone, M. R. (n.d.). Academic Performance and Cheating: Moderating Role of School Identification and Efficiency. The Journal of Educational Research,97, 3rd ser., 115-121.

Hodara, M., & Lewis, K. (2017). How well does high school grade point average predict college performance by student urbanicity and timing of college entry? (REL 2017–250). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest. Retrieved from http://ies. ed.gov/ncee/edlabs.

Jones, Karl O.; Reid, Juliet; BARTLETT, Rebecca (2008). “Cyber Cheating in an Information Technology Age”. Digithum, issue 10 [article online]. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7238/d.v0i10.508

Klein, A. T. (n.d.). Students’ justifications for academic cheating and empirical explanations of such behavior. Social Cosmos,10(1), 114223rd ser Clinical and Health Psychology

Ma, H., Wan, G., & Lu, E. (2008). Digital Cheating and Plagiarism in Schools. Theory Into Practice, 47(3), 197-203. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40071543

Peter Ashworth, Philip Bannister, Pauline Thorne & Students on the Qualitative Research Methods Course Unit (1997) Guilty in whose eyes? University students’ perceptions of cheating and plagiarism in academic work and assessment, Studies in Higher Education, 22:2, 187-203, DOI: 10.1080/03075079712331381034

Taderera, E. (june 2010). Exploring management strategies to reduce cheating in written examinations: Case study of Midlands State University. Case Studies in Education. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1060592.pdf.

Quotes pulled from Articles and Websites

Barthel, M. (2016, April 20). What’s the Best Way for Colleges to Prevent Cheating? Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/how-to-stop-cheating-in-college/479037/ (Donald McCabe)

Simmons, A. (n.d.). Why Students Cheat-and What to Do About It. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/why-students-cheat-and-what-do-about-it (Dr. David Rettinger and Dr. Jason M. Stephens)

Interviewees

*Student names have been left anonymous*

Ashely. High School Senior

Personal Interview 03 Nov. 2018

Bradley. High School Junior

Personal Interview 03 Nov. 2018

Eric. High School Junior and Valedictorian

Personal Interview 03 Nov. 2018

McCoy, Amy. K-12 teacher

Personal Interview. 04 Nov. 2018.

Books

Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. J. (n.d.). Special Topic / The Case For and Against Homework. Education Leadership: Responding to Changing Demographics. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar07/vol64/num06/The-Case-For-and-Against-Homework.aspx

McCabe, D. L., Butterfield, K. D., & Treviño, L. K. (2017). Cheating in college: Why students do it and what educators can do about it. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Websites

Chegg.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.chegg.com/

Master Your Classes™. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.coursehero.com/