Cheating is a very large problem in schools today. Cheating is when one student uses the work of another, with or without the other’s permission. Cheating can include taking answers from another student on a test, copying another’s homework answers if the instructor prohibits such activity, and various forms of plagiarism. Current methods for battling cheating do not work, and new solutions taken from different points of view are required, such as increasing the respectfulness of teachers and changing the classroom environment, increasing the punishments for cheating, and having teachers pay more attention to cheating.
As stated above, new solutions are required to remedy cheating. According to Michael Witek, et al., cheating has increased by 4.5 times the rate of cheating in 1942. (376) Whilst this cannot be attributed to any one factor, the number is still staggering. And, to this point, cheating has not been remedied because the rate of cheating is still increasing. Because current methods of battling cheating do not work, new methods need to be examined from entirely new points of view, which are proposed here.
A common misconception of cheating is that cheating is solely the “fault” of the student who cheats; however, research shows that this is not always the case. While a student always does make the final choice whether to cheat or to not cheat, the way a teacher conducts his or herself in the classroom can affect a student’s likelihood to cheat. According to research done by Tamera Murdock, Anne Beauchamp, and Amber Hinton, if a student perceived a classroom to be more performance based, which focuses on “ability, social comparison and absolute correctness,” compared to mastery based, which focuses on “effort, improvement and mastery,” then a student is more likely to cheat. (478) This can be used to claim that if a teacher has his or her classroom based more on mastery and less on performance, there will be less cheating. However, this may be considered idealistic, considering that standardized tests are still weighted heavily in a school’s performance and standardized testing leads to a more performance based classroom. This is a drawback of mastery-style classrooms, but it can be theorized that if a teacher had his or her classroom leaning more towards mastery than performance, there would be less cheating whilst still within the bounds of the performance paradigm of the school system. Also in the research of Murdoch, Beauchamp, and Hinton, is teacher respectfulness. They conclude that when a teacher is perceived as more respectful to his or her students, there is less cheating in the classroom. (486) Ideally, this would imply that to remedy the problem, teachers simply need to be more respectful; however, this is not the case. The findings state that how respectful a teacher is perceived to be to his or her students affects whether or not a student cheats. To solve this, teachers may need more classes or lessons on how to be respectful to students; however, if a teacher is the most respectful she can possibly be, this does not always mean she is perceived to be respectful, which causes a large variable in the solution.
While cheating is just stated as not always being a student’s sole fault, it can be considered that way in many cases. One large issue with cheating is that students feel that they can cheat and not get caught or that when they are caught, there will be no consequences to cheating. According to a study performed by Edward Vinski and Georgiana Tryon, the majority of students in a sample group admit that cheating is considered wrong, but 90% of this sample group had cheated anyway and only 30% of the sample group had ever been caught cheating, and that those who had been caught cheating were not punished. (224) This suggests that teachers do not pay enough attention to cheating or that they simply do not care or do not wish to get involved with the issues of cheating. Also, Vinski and Tryon suggest that because of this hypocrisy from the teachers, students may also follow suit, which would explain the hypocrisy of students admitting that cheating is wrong but cheating anyway. (224) To solve this issue, teachers would need to be educated further in how to watch for cheating, but schools also need to streamline the process to report cheating and increase the penalties for cheating to discourage cheating.
Overall, the issues of increasing the respectfulness of teachers and changing the classroom environment, increasing the punishments for cheating, and having teachers pay more attention to cheating are issues that need to be examined when attempting to solve cheating. If these issues are partially or fully solved, it may lead to a large drop in cheating, or, at least, a significant drop in cheating.
Works Cited
Murdock, Tamera B., Anne S. Beauchamp, and Amber M. Hinton. "Predictors Of Cheating And Cheating Attributions: Does Classroom Context Influence Cheating And Blame For Cheating?." European Journal Of Psychology Of Education - EJPE (Instituto Superior De Psicologia Aplicada) 23.4 (2008): 477-492. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Mar. 2012.
Vinski, Edward J., and Georgiana Shick Tryon. "Study Of A Cognitive Dissonance Intervention To Address High School Students' Cheating Attitudes And Behaviors." Ethics & Behavior 19.3 (2009): 218-226. Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 Mar. 2012.
Witek, Michael B., et al. "Methods Of Cheating And Deterrents To Classroom Cheating: An International Study." Ethics & Behavior 18.4 (2008): 373-391. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Mar. 2012.
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