The Prevalence of Cheating in School
Cheating is a big issue that has reached the most competitive campuses around the United States. It is increasing more and more with the new technology that we have in the 21st century because students have easy access to many sources of information. Cheating is something all students have done at some point in their lives, but as they reach a higher academic level, they are faced with more rigorous consequences that can affect their futures in many different ways. Cheating might be seen as an easy way to obtain a good grade, get into a good college, or maintain scholarships or financial aid, but the consequences could affect the life and the future of the student.
Cheating is influenced by different factors
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Many students are using technology to cheat because they are able to find answers quickly online by just searching for them. Cheating is increasing in the United States at higher rates because many of the students in high school or in college have to deal with different responsibilities, pressure, and loads of different types of work. Richard Perez Peña states in “Studies Find More Students Cheating,” “Internet access has made cheating easier, enabling students to connect instantly with answers, friends to consult and works to plagiarize.” Plagiarism, which means using a work of someone else as if it were yours, is the most common form of cheating in high school and in college. Plagiarism occurs by not citing a source correctly or by not putting the proper quotation marks on a quote that you borrow to state your point. Some students don’t even know what plagiarism is, and they do it using the technology that we have today. Therefore, Julie Rasicot states, “High schools and teachers should make clear what constitutes plagiarism, how to avoid it and what the consequences will be if students are caught.” If students are not informed about plagiarism, then they tend to use technology as an easy way to do an assignment, which prevents them from learning. On the other hand, many professors have argued that the technology is developing
The better educated you are, the better off you are socially, and economically. Having a degree is, in general, a good indicator of your level of education. To get it some students study very hard. Others, on the contrary, prefer to take some shortcuts that seem to be easier for them. Those, not so much interested in acquiring a solid education, simply want to plagiarize to pass their classes, to get that degree. Plagiarism spreads out through any level of our education system. It even extends beyond that limit to reach almost any aspect of our society. With the internet revolution, this problem becomes more acute. “The web has provided global access to an unfathomable cornucopia of term papers, essays, and other scholarly works, right there out in the open for purchase or outright theft” (Simonson, Smaldino, & Zvacek, 2015, p. 160). This paper will discuss the different types of plagiarism. Before getting deeper into that discussion, we will start by explaining the word plagiarism.
Without the proper use of digital technology, students are prone to commit plagiarism that can detrimental to their future. I say, there are many positives to the digital age and that if the conversation of plagiarism started
That stomach churning feeling of guilt for many seems to appear as a small price to pay when completing an act of academic dishonesty. Colleen Wenke wrote an essay on cheating eighteen years ago called “Too Much Pressure”. In the past fifty years, the number of students who admit to cheating has increased fifty to seventy percent(Gaffe). Many people wonder what leads the students to make this unjust decision. Today, the reason for a rise in cheaters is because of how easy it has become, leading many students to the false conclusion that they aren’t breaking any rules; It is simply viewed as a shortcut to success in the classroom and beyond.
Why do so many people use 123HelpMe.com simply to plagiarize other people's writing? Is it even possible that someone cannot write their own essay, or that someone cannot read a book of any length? If you plagiarize, aren't you sentencing yourself to failure? And if you cannot gather information, aren't you opening yourself to attacks from the System?
When times get rough and tough it seems like most students do turn to the internet for a little extra "help". In Cybercheats it clearly shows how students use certain websites to get free or even pay for important papers and essays. As technology gets more advanced it appears that some people actually get lazier. Plagiarism plays a very important and major part in this article. It is clear that if caught plagiarizing you can be suspended, expelled, and/or receive an F on your assignment. For most students though it is worth the risk. Plagiarism is an act of cheating. Plagiarism is cheating.
So, to help students across the country cheat better, saving themselves both from easy detection and from incurring the wrath of insulted faculty, and leading to a much more harmonious school environment, I offer the following tips, based on recent experience:
Pressures from society to obtain a successful career require achieving an education in most cases. In today's economy having a thriving career could depend on our educational background as part of the ingredient to fuel our lifestyles. Students attending high school or college can relate to the pressures of sustaining adequate grades. Students who are overwhelmed with trying to maintain higher GPA standards push the academic barriers using technology to cheat. Our society is more advanced with technology such as computers, cell phones, text message systems, as well as various other electronic devices that could provide the avenue for a desperate student seeking a way to cheat in order to receive a higher GPA score. According to Ad Council (1999),"Grades, rather than education, have become the major focus of many students" (Ad Council, 1999). For those students in high school maintaining high GPA's could equal college scholarship programs needed to attend college. Students with peer pressures as well as pressures from parents to achieve higher grades could thrust students who are not motivated to study, to resort to cheating as an easy solution to an unethical problem. This research paper will discuss ways in which students are using technology to cheat. Other aspects of this paper will include statistics on academic cheating as well as ways instructors are catching students cheating. The pros and cons after using cheating detection programs as well as statistics that show significant changes after using the detection programs will also be discussed.
In conclusion, cheating is a dishonest action, and its effects could tremendously impact other people around. Alerting authority figures about dishonesty actions can help motivate students to learn the subjects thoroughly and build meaningful life experiences. Although we might lose a friendship, but in the long run, friends will be thankful, since who knows if they are in a situation, where they actually need to use their knowledge, in the workforce they are
Academic dishonesty has been a big issue that many faculties have to deal with all the time in classrooms in today’s academic environment. In a report founded by Thomas & O’Reilly (2002), “74 percent of American students admit to cheating on an exam. So imagine how many really are. Forty percent of adolescents say they have stolen from a store and a whopping 93 percent say they lie.” With such a huge percentage of students cheating with the use of technology, it has become an epidemic that is spreading like wild fire. Since technology was introduced in the class environment, it has become the number one concern to some instructors because many students are not using it too learn, but instead students are using technology to cheat in assignments and other work that may involve school work.
Children are taught to use computers at incredibly young ages, and according to Ann Lanthrop plagiarism has become a problem even in the lowest levels of elementary education. It has become so easy for students to access information for their homework and papers on the Internet that some students feel they should not have to work even a little to receive the grades that they desire. High school students get out of reading novels for their English classes by reading "book notes" online. While in the past students had access to these materials, websites such as Spark Notes, Monkey Notes, and a number of other websites have made access to these "study guides" free to students, causing the temptation to cheat to be even harder to ignore. The Web also offers many ways for students to obtain term papers or essays at a low cost. In many cases, these students do not even bother to change any piece of the paper! The simplicity of the Internet has made cheating on assignments much more effortless than in the past, even if students are not directly copying and pasting from Websites, they can also email homework problems and essay questions to every member of the class. Plagiarism is a severe issue that needs to be addressed by both teachers and parents with children while they are still young enough to fear the consequences of their actions.
Cheating on academic work is a serious issue that most students admit to doing at some point in their academic career. Elite students are surprisingly the culprits of cheating, but hide it well. (Romm, para 5) Cheating is such a large issue that “70% of students from a sample of 1,800 from nine campuses said they had cheated at least once during their college careers.” (Schneider, para 9) Students cheat on academic work because of different, ongoing pressures in their lives. Understanding the student’s motives and pressures are essential to preventing cheating from occurring in the future. Students cheat for different reasons specific to them regarding their priorities, pressures and because of how easy it has become. Even though eliminating cheating will not happen, there are actions that educational professionals can and should take to prevent most of it from happening so often. Therefor cheating problems are minimized and have a positive impact on the student’s education and understanding of concepts.
Modern students face many pressures for academic success. They are often unwilling to disappoint their parents or spouses. Some fear that not cheating will weaken a student’s ability to compete with their peers. They rationalize their unethical behavior, unwilling to accept a poor grade, consequently justifying cheating as the only means to that end.
From a young age we are taught the differences between right and wrong, but as we get older the line between moral and immoral is often blurred. Things that were once thought of as unacceptable are now perfectly fine in our minds. Have you ever seen anyone cheat on an assignment or exam? Do you know anyone that’s been expelled from school for cheating? What if it was discovered that a U.S. senator plagiarized his college thesis paper? Imagine if it got out that one of the most respected universities in the U.S. was involved in a huge fraud scandal that involved thousands of students. Academic cheating is a terrible offense because it is unethical, self-degrading, and can be detrimental to the learning environment.
The reasons for cheating on college exams has many facets, however the behavior not only impacts the cheater but, has unintended consequences, which can affect others as well. Some of the well- known implications or consequences of cheating may involve getting a zero on the exam or failing the course. Furthermore depending how severe the offence, they may be expelled. In fact they can be required to go before a disciplinary board. Depending on the circumstances it may result in academic probation. However, some profe...
Cheating among students has been a well-known problem which is difficult to gain knowledge of. There are different ways of cheating in exam; students can copy from each other, write short notes on their hands or other body parts, use of mobile phones, and others methods. Therefore, the intent of this paper is to discuss the causes and effects of exam cheating.