Cheating in School

What We Know and What We Can Do

Stephen F. Davis, Patrick F. Drinan, Tricia Bertram Gallant

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781405178044, 9781405178051
• eBook ISBN: 9781444356830
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Research & Methodology in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Cheating in School is the first book to present the research on cheating in a clear and accessible way and provide practical advice and insights for educators, school administrators, and the average lay person.

• Defines the problems surrounding cheating in schools and proposes solutions that can be applied in all educational settings, from elementary schools to post-secondary institutions
• Addresses pressing questions such as "Why shouldn't students cheat if it gets them good grades?" and "What are parents, teachers, businesses, and the government doing to unintentionally persuade today's student to cheat their way through school?"
• Describes short and long term deterrents that educators can use to foster academic integrity and make honesty more profitable than cheating
• Outlines tactics and strategies for educators, administrators, school boards, and parents to advance a new movement of academic integrity instead of dishonesty

Chapter 1

Cheating in Our Schools, Colleges, and Universities

A Critical Problem for the Twenty-First Century

“It’s not the dumb kids who cheat... it’s the kids with a 4.6 gradepoint average who are under so much pressure to keep their grades up and get into the best colleges. They’re the ones who are smart enough to figure out how to cheat without getting caught.” ¹

Students from all segments of education are cheating – from grade school through graduate school, from the inner city to the country, from the poor to the rich schools, and in both public and private schools. Students are cheating because they are scared of failing. They are cheating because they are scared of having a less than perfect grade point average. They cheat on their own, they cheat with their peers, they cheat with their parents, ² and sometimes students even cheat in cooperation with their teachers and school administrators. ³

In this book, we explore the student cheating phenomenon, the what, how, why, when, and where of students acting in ways to “cheat” their education. However, we do not stop there with the problem of cheating. Identifying the problem is only the first step toward our goal of motivating all those with an interest in education – from students to parents to teachers to administrators – to do something about the problem of student cheating or, to be more precise, to leverage the opportunity of student cheating to make education stronger, assessment more meaningful, and the relationships between students and teachers more collegial and less adversarial. Thus, while we establish the state of the problem in the first five chapters of the book, we offer a call for action, tactics, strategies, and conversations to tackle the problem in the last four chapters.

In the News

“Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business announced that dozens of first-year students violated the honor code by collaborating on a take-home test that was supposed to be completed alone.” This happened despite the fact that the school’s honor code is displayed prominently in each classroom and students must read and sign a copy of it before they even apply to the school.

From Inside Higher Education (2007, May 10), “Cheating on a Different Level,” by Elia Powers. Retrieved May 10, 2007, from www.insidehighered.com

But, before we can begin, the very first step in this discussion is to establish “what” we mean when we use the term “cheating.”

Cheating can be defined as deceiving or depriving by trickery, defrauding, misleading or fooling another. ⁴ When we talk about student cheating, academic cheating, or academic misconduct, we are referring to acts committed by students that deceive, mislead, or fool the teacher into thinking that the academic work submitted by the student was a student’s own work. Academic cheating deprives the teacher of the ability to evaluate a student’s independent knowledge and abilities, as well as his or her progress in the class. Sometimes academic misconduct deprives the student of the learning opportunity intended by the teacher who created the academic assignment. And systemic and unaddressed academic cheating defrauds the public who believe that academic diplomas or degrees signify a certain level of accomplishment by the students who possess them.

The definition of cheating is dependent on expectations, and its character is marked by a lack of transparency. For example, an act, such as working with parents on one’s homework, is only cheating if it was expected that the student would complete the work without assistance and if the student obscures the assistance received. As another illustration, while students are expected to write their own school papers or speeches and otherwise cite the words and ideas of others, for example, politicians are not. Why? Because the public does not expect a politician to write her own speeches (although politicians do get into trouble occasionally for “lifting” portions of other politician’s speeches – see Vice-President Biden’s experience with this in the 1980s). ⁵ However, because students receive grades for the papers and speeches they submit, and those grades are meant to reflect the student’s honest writing ability and learning, we do expect students to write their own work and cite those who have contributed to their work. So, we expect students, for the most part, to do their own work for academic credit, and we require them to be transparent about the assistance they receive.

Why wouldn’t students simply be transparent about the times they have received assistance if that is all that is needed to reduce cheating and enhance academic integrity? Most often, academic cheating arises out of the student’s desire to produce a better product (that is, one that is rewarded a higher grade) than what she might have been capable of producing on her own. If a student is transparent about the assistance received, she might not receive as high a grade than if the teacher thinks the student did her assignment on her own. Think of the student who receives “help” from his parent on his science project or her essay; it is much more impressive when an eighth grader submits a food dehydrator as his science project or when a sixth grader submits a book report on Moby Dick if the teacher thinks that he built the dehydrator himself or she wrote the report without assistance.

What are the common student behaviors that belie a teacher’s expectations and misrepresent the student’s independent abilities in order to gain advantages?

• Working with others to come up with answers on a homework assignment when the teacher expected independent thinking and work.
• Copying or paraphrasing another’s words or ideas (regardless of the medium in which the words or ideas were conveyed) without attributing those ideas or words to the other.
• Having someone else write a paper, complete homework, or take a test for oneself.
• Posting a teacher’s examinations on a website or in a “test file” without the teacher’s permission.
• Writing a paper using sources other than those intended by the teacher (e.g., Cliffnotes, Sparksnotes) but pretending that the assigned text was read.

In the News

Students plagiarize even though they know it is “like stealing” because they “need it,” don’t “feel like writing down” the source, or are “worried” about meeting the assignment deadline. Many educators think that the “cut-and-paste anonymity of the internet” teaches students that cheating is “fair game.”

From Rutland Herald (2006, March 21), “Schools target students who think online plagiarism is OK,” by Christina Stolarz. Retrieved July 21, 2008, from www.rutlandherald.com

Chapter 4 explores in more detail the different academic behaviors that constitute academic cheating. We assert that all of these behaviors, whether they are called plagiarism, copying, academic misconduct, or cheating are problematic. ⁶ “Really?” you the reader might be asking, “but what’s the problem? Everyone does it and you can’t get by without doing it.” We hope that we can convince you that it is a problem precisely because almost everyone is doing it and because they think they have to do it to get by. We hope to convince you that student cheating is actually the most critical problem facing education today.

How can student cheating be the most critical problem when there are multiple other problems to worry about – dropouts, violence, drugs, underage drinking, unprotected sex? After all, while other teenage behaviors such as sex or underage drinking can have devastating personal consequences in terms of unplanned pregnancy or automobile accidents, cheating in school seems relatively benign. “Cheaters are only hurting themselves,” people often argue. Or, what can cheating on one exam or one paper really hurt? And, perhaps cheating once on one term paper really doesn’t matter, but then we might have to extend that same argument to the one schoolyard fight, the one-time experimental drug use, the one night of binge drinking, or the one-night stand. Academic cheating may not have the same immediate and visible consequences of these other student behaviors, but it is not without its negative consequences.

Others may argue that cheating does cause problems, but only to the cheater themself – that it is a victimless crime. People seem to be more willing to look the other way when they think that a problem doesn’t affect them. Although some may argue that a brain surgeon or pilot who cheated in school can do real harm if their competence is lacking, that argument is not very compelling to most people. Who, after all, really believes that cheating on one biology quiz in sophomore year can really lead to a failure of competence as a surgeon years later? So much of learning comes from experience, after all, and there are many checks and balances so that those incompetents do not enter into critical professions.

Yet the research suggests that people who cheat are entering into critical professions because student cheating is not a rare occurrence but the normal behavior of a majority of students; as many as 74 percent of surveyed students admit to some form of academic misconduct in high school or college. ⁷ So, it is possible that many of our future professionals will have learned the art of cheating in school, and they learn this art in order to get into these professions.

In this chapter, we explore why cheating in schools and colleges does, in fact, pose a problem for the students as well as for the educational institution. We also discuss why, if it is so problematic, student cheating has been relatively neglected. Finally, we explore the origins of the various movements to counter cheating and how education is better positioned today to deal with student cheating than at any time in recent decades.

Concerns of Character Corruption

According to Glen Owen, an educational correspondent for The Times (London), a magazine survey of 2,000 mothers found that the majority of mothers admit that they “help” their children complete homework assignments and “routinely complete work to be assessed by examiners.” ⁸ Of course, parents have traditionally been encouraged by elementary and secondary schools to participate in their children’s education, so this type of behavior should not be surprising and perhaps not characterized as “cheating.” If we expect it and ask for it, can we then label it as academically dishonest? Yet, at the same time, we have to wonder about the habits a child develops over time, as well as the impact of this act on the validity of the assessment process. Does a high school student who is accustomed to receiving homework “help” from his parents develop the skills and abilities to complete his work independently once in college? What is the purpose of our educational system if we are actually assessing the mother’s abilities on an academic assignment rather than the student’s? This simple example of “helping” on homework displays both the complexity of student cheating and the crosscutting pressures on students and their parents.

Let’s examine one of the concerns hinted at in the homework helping example: that student cheating – undetected, unchecked, and unaddressed – may form a habit that persists and transitions into an adult’s work and life habits. Students who persistently and uniformly complete their academic assignments in ways that shortcut effort and garner unfair advantage will learn habits of a cheating character. These children may eventually grow up to take shortcuts in life as a way to achieve personal goals, like the baseball player who takes steroids in order to beat an existing batting record or the business executive who “cooks the books” in order to artificially increase shareholder value. The Enron scandal of the early twenty-first century shows that cheaters do not just hurt themselves; they can ruin businesses, create financial and economic insecurities, and cause harm to thousands of bystanders. Persistent student cheating may corrupt a child’s character and lead to a devaluing of trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and honesty as fundamentals in a just society.

On Campus

A senior undergraduate who plagiarized the majority of a paper from various sources begged her professor and one of our authors to drop the case because she would otherwise be denied admission into pharmacy school. In other words, she was asking university employees to violate their own integrity and the school policy so that she would not have to be accountable for her choices. Do we want a student like this handling our medicine? Sure, her plagiarism might have been a one-time thing and she might eventually mature to be responsible and accountable, but perhaps a few years between her undergraduate and graduate degrees may be the time she needs for that maturing.

For many parents, teachers, and students, such a long-term vision is difficult to maintain in the face of the very real short-term benefits of cheating – higher grades that result in even greater long-term rewards such as scholarships, college admission, medical school acceptance, or a lucrative career in a top-notch firm. Grades are a commodity in our knowledge society and, to many, they represent the end goal of schooling.

Besides, cheating is relative and defined within the eye of the beholder, so aren’t we just overreacting? What one teacher considers cheating, after all, may not be considered cheating by another teacher. And, sometimes student cheating accomplishes the goals desired by most of society – student graduation with a high school diploma or college degree. We can hear some readers now as we write – “Johnny didn’t cheat, he was just using his resources. Don’t you educators want Johnny to do well and succeed in school? You don’t want Johnny left behind, do you?” The justifications for shortterm or one-time cheating go beyond the self interests of the child but extend into that which we all want for all of our children – success. And, it is those short-term benefits and dreams of success that often override the long-term effects on Johnny’s character, work habits, independence, knowledge, and capabilities if he persistently “uses his resources” and short-cuts effort to get the “job” done. And, are our dreams of success really achieved when grades and diplomas are empty representations of content never learned, skills never developed, and honesty never built?

In the Opinion of Experts

“Some children and their parents have convinced themselves that they have to be superstars and go to Harvard, Stanford, or Brown to have a worthwhile life. This attitude leads to cheating by the most qualified, not the least qualified, students in some schools.”

From Stanford Business (2005, August), “Who says cheaters never win?” by Kirk O. Hanson. Retrieved November 24, 2008, from www.gsb.stanford.edu

Concerns of Institutional Corruption

It is not just the disruption to a student’s character development with which society should be concerned. What happens to the integrity of our educational institutions if all the Johnnys and Jennys cheat? To explore this, let’s compare student cheating to something with which most readers will be familiar – driving. Most people have, at least once, driven above the speed limit, not stopped fully at a stop sign, or sped past a line of cars on the off-ramp just to cut in at the last minute. These practices, while potentially dangerous, normally do not pose great harm to one’s character or others’ safety. And they may, in fact, get you to your destination faster, allowing you to snag that last parking spot before the other guy gets it. Though these driving habits may be annoying to others on the road, most of us are comfortable knowing that there are laws to prohibit such behaviors and police officers to enforce those laws; we believe that, eventually, the person will get their “cumuppins” when they get caught. One could argue that even the existence of laws and minimal efforts to enforce them will deter most violators and deal with the more egregious and persistent violators.

What if, however, driving laws were defined differently on every street, resulting in a disagreement over their importance and an implicit assumption that it is acceptable to “bend” or break the laws? What if the police were reticent to enforce such laws because, when they did, they experienced political and personal backlash? How safe would driving be then? We suggest what is likely obvious at this point – it wouldn’t be safe at all. There would be anarchy in the streets, particularly at crossroads where people are left to determine when and how to act. Certainly our children and pets, who we assume are safe to play or walk outside on most neighborhood streets, would be in danger from erratic driving.

How is the current state of student cheating akin to this driving scenario? The rules for both are vague, often implicit, and varied by context; there is disagreement as to the importance of common standards; and most parents, students, and teachers subtly approve or support the bending of academic ethics. When schools do attempt to address student cheating, parents and students sometimes push back, like the parents of Piper High School in Kansas who convinced the school board to overturn a biology teacher’s decision to fail students for cheating in her class. In protest, that biology teacher and another person concerned with the integrity of education quit and were lost to the education sector. Unfortunately for the educational system, most teachers are not like the Piper teacher – most are more likely to stay in their positions and simply allow cheating to continue.

On Campus

When “28 of 118 Piper High sophomores [who] had stolen sections of their botany project off the internet [were sanctioned]... parents complained to the school board... [and] the teacher... was ordered to raise the grades, prompting her resignation. Now, the community... [is] debat[ing] right and wrong, crimes and consequences, citizenship and democracy.”

From The New York Times (2002, February 14). School cheating scandal tests a town’s values, by Jodi Wilgoren. Retrieved November 24, 2008, from www.nytimes.com

However, we are suggesting that if parents, teachers, students, and schools continue to allow student cheating to occur and become normalized in our schools, it will corrode an essential mission of the educational institution – to develop an ethical and responsible citizenry – and undermine a useful function that schools perform for society – to evaluate and rank people according to knowledge and abilities. ⁹ Individual parents, teachers, and students themselves may want to believe that one-time or “minor” cheating causes little harm while facilitating a greater good – student success. The American governmental mandate of “no child left behind” would imply that success (if defined as completion of high school and entry into college) is, in fact, a major goal in America.

Success by “whatever means necessary,” however, should not be. If parents, teachers, and students believe that the end (success) justifies the means (cheating) and student cheating becomes normative, the students themselves would actually be harmed in the long run. How could this be? Employers, universities, and graduate schools would no longer trust the evaluations and rankings being given by our schools, colleges, and universities. If students “use their resources” too heavily, society can no longer trust that a diploma or degree represents a certain level of independent ability and knowledge. At that point, cheating really has corrupted education, and the ramifications will be felt by all of society. As a result, society will not trust the education system to be fair, and economic growth, faith in business, scientific and political leadership, and a “sense of social cohesion” will be sacrificed. ¹⁰

In the Opinion of Experts

David Callahan, the author of The Cheating Culture (2004), argued that people cheat in the world today because our society has not only failed to punish cheating, but in some ways has rewarded dishonesty. “The yawning gap between winners and losers is also having a lethal effect on personal integrity. In a society where winners win bigger than ever before and losers are punished more harshly... more and more people will do anything to be a winner. Cheating is more tempting if the penalties for failure are higher, if you’re feeling pinched or under the gun... if the rewards for success are greater. When people ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Title
• Title
• Copyright
• About the Authors
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Cheating in Our Schools, Colleges, and Universities
• Chapter 2: The Nature and Prevalence of Student Cheating
• Chapter 3: Reasons for Academic Dishonesty
• Chapter 4: From Cheat Sheet to Text Messaging
• Chapter 5: Short-Term Deterrents
• Chapter 6: Long-Term Deterrents
• Chapter 7: The Call for Action and Wisdom
• Chapter 8: Refining Our Tactics and Strategies
• Chapter 9: An Optimistic (and Provocative) Conclusion
• Notes
• Name Index
• Subject Index