Although receiving good grades is important, cheating is not the right way to do so. Students who cheat are hurting their futures in a post-secondary education and for their career. Cheating causes the student to lose critical thinking ability, honesty, self-image and integrity, self-confidence and respect, and reputation. Without critical thinking a student will have a hard time distinguishing clear, reasonable judgements. In order to move on and expand ones education, a student must first clearly understand the basic concepts of a topic.
Top students spend hours of their free time to study the course materials and do their homework. However, not everyone is the same. Some students choose to cheat to get good grades. Whenever, the word “cheating” is mentioned, people always assume it is a negative act to do. But what exactly is cheating?
Grades rather than education has become more important than learning (Haffe, D 2014). There are many arguments that there’s a connection between cheating and grades and that it gives those students an unfair advantage (Boulville, 2009). Teachers take cheating personally and take it as an insult (Drake, 1941). When students cheat, teachers don’t realize that they might have to change their style of teaching for that particular subject or assignment for that group of students to understand the material. This is a great example how cheating hinders learning.
Plagiarism doesn't just affect the plagiarist, but also the teacher, the school, and the original author. Plagiarising because there wasn't enough time, laziness, and lack of self esteem is not as easy to fix, and isn't the same as a minor mistake. Jonathan Bailey states that students,“learn to go ahead and plagiarize everything since the punishment is the same either way.” Students who know that their school policies are the same for any plagiarism may know it is not an equal punishment to the crime, and plagiarize because they can get away with it. Bailey also says, “Not only is the quality of education at stake, but so is the reputation of the graduates, current and prior,” meaning the school can gain a reputation for cheating, which affects how it's students are seen whether they are plagiarist or not. Students are less likely to be seen as good candidates for colleges or jobs if they are from a school that is known for plagiarizing.
Both of these laws have severe consequences. If educators familiarized their students with these, then plagiarism would decrease inversely with the understanding of the severity of the act. Teachers must make this effort, just as students must make their own effort to do their own work. Also, teachers ought to enforce discipline when it comes to a violation like plagiarism and create an association between plagiarism and punishment, not plagiarism and indifference. This is how plagiarism should be dealt with in the classroom.
Cheating, though, is a problem almost everywhere and everyone at one time or another has cheated. But why is cheating so widespread? Even if it is a way of getting higher grades at school, is it really worth it? Why do people cheat? To justify the practice, some students claim that school is boring and that they prefer to spend their time on things that really interest them instead of studying.
It may seem childish, but it does make a lot of sense. Schools can help develop us into better people n a lot of different ways. School is where you begin to learn most of your life lessons. If you choose to not learn life tools because you’re cheating, then you’re going to find yourself struggling and making poor decisions for your future. A second solution to cheating is for the teachers to watch their students very carefully while they are taking an exam.
Students spend time blaming others, especially teachers and their teaching styles, instead of taking initiative and doing the work. Students also, unfortunately, resort to cheating; because they feel like that’s what they have to do to pass the class. When in all reality if students just had a better, more positive attitude towards education; their learning would
Regardless of the fact that students know about the risks linked to cheating, some decide to continue with this activity and complete their work in a dishonest way. There is a variety of reasons why students decide to cheat, but prioritizing the value of a grade over the importance of learning, the stress caused by procrastination, and not having a complete understanding of the material being handled are the principal reasons why students decide to cheat. First of all, students have acquired the idea that higher grades indicate that they are more successful even if they are not learning the material being presented in the classroom. I believe that acquiring knowledge is the ultimate goal of education, and I agree that a transcript with high grades looks outstanding. However, if these grades are earned through the use of dishonest techniques, and if there is no knowledge attained, the entire purpose of education would be defeated.
Most of the students care about the number or the letter that is written on the top of the paper. Although some of the teachers provide comments and feedback associated with the score, but the students assume that what matters in the end is the number or letter grade because it is the only measure. Furthermore, assessment is a complex but fundamental process that must be based upon a well designed network of practices. A single assessment cannot completely describe and measure what a student has learned or understood. Consequently, associating the traditional assessment with certain alternative assessments could create better learning environment and enhance the learning-teaching process for both learners and teachers though engaging the learners directly in different stages of this process.