Anybody that has gone through the adventure of high school knows what happens in everyday high school life. Gossip, rumors, relationships, fights, and more often than someone would like to see, cheating. “According to surveys in the U.S News and World Report, 75% of college students admitted to cheating during high school, and of those people, 95% said that they were never caught” (Hau). Undoubtedly, cheating in education has occurred since the modern school system has been in place and almost everyone has cheated at some time. I have to admit I am a part of the 95% of students who have cheated in high school and got away with it. It was only copying someone’s math homework in homeroom before class, but is that really all it is? Is it
If students do not have any other extra goals in addition to a good grade, the student is most likely to cheat ("Students Cheat for Good Grades. Why Not Make the Classroom about Learning and Not Testing?"). When students stop caring about the actual “learning aspect” in education and only focus on getting the highest GPA possible, this is when you get the acts of dishonesty that will lead to the downfall of our society. This all stems from the way the education has been set up, too much emphasis grades. The pressure this system puts on students leads them to cheat. “Pressure by parents and schools to achieve top scores has created stress levels among students—beginning as early as elementary school—that are so high that some educators regard it as a health epidemic” (Palmer). The saying “you are going to drive me to drink” can be applicable to the way the current school system is over-concerned with grades, “you are going to drive me to cheat”. Another factor adding to the pressure on students is how much harder it is becoming to get into the top universities. “At Stanford, admission rates plummeted from 12.1 percent in 2003 to 5.7 in 2013. UC Irvine dropped from to 56.6 in 2002 to 41.1 in fall 2013. And even Cal State Fullerton 's acceptance rate dropped from 65.9 percent in 2002-03 to 48.1 in 2012-13” (Terrell). Not only does this extra added pressure put more strain on students’ health, but it drives them to cheat to get into the top schools. All of these issues stem from the heart of the problem which is described by a group of panelists at Stanford. Panelists linked cheating to the social pressure put on students to prize high grades over education and other values, including creativity and imagination (Palmer). Until students value other more important grades things like creativity and
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.
Students show bad academic integrity by cheating. but cheating has a wide range of examples. Most people think of cheating to be copying someone’s work, or using a study guide on a test, but it can mean much more than that. Students now have
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.
The thing that confuses me are the reasons why people cheat. I know that in college life, it is clear that grades are important. Since grades are so important, people want to do better and want to succeed in their classes that they are taking. By cheating, it makes it easier for them to get a better grade. I agree that it is not an honest thing to do, but it is clear that they are doing it for a reason, to benefit themselves. Also, people want to help their friends succeed so that is another part of it. I think if schools wanted to get rid of cheating, they should not focus on the grades as much. Grading people is important, but is it that important if everyone cheats? I also see how people want to be viewed as honest. I do not think people want to cheat because they think they will be viewed as immoral. Also, they could be punished which would hurt them as well. If everyone cheats in schools, why not just allow it? That is the way that the world is running currently and everyone is cheating their way through
How bad has cheating become over the years, the numbers in some cases are mind-boggling. In today’s day and age the amount of college students cheating is numbered to have maintain a steady figure of about 75 percent. (Lang, 2013) Cheating has been around since the beginning of time, some of the reasons behind most of the prolific cheaters are centered on what seems to be three main issues plaguing our society. Cheaters be it young or old, all seem to have what I call the “Big Three” in common. In my research on cheating, there were three things that continued to stick out, such as; procrastinating, the pressure to make the grade and it is easier to cheat rather then to do your own work. To the answer the question why college students cheat, we must first understand why, in order to find a solution on how to help avoid this continuing going forward. After reading this paper you will see that cheating has become prevalent in college, caused by a need to get better grades with less original work being done eventually the ends don't justify the means.
What is cheating? Cheating is the dishonesty of an individual for their personal advantage. Base on various studies conducted cheating is getting worse among students. Students are cheating to get higher grades so that they look smart. Students are even cheating their way into colleges and universities. This is becoming a major problem and it does not only affect students but school administrators, employers and even generations to come. Don McCabe (2010) conducted a survey among 24,000 high school students at 70 high schools in the United States. 64% Of students admitted to cheating on a test, 58% admitted to plagiarism and 95% participated in some form of cheating. For college students, 70% of students, report to some form of cheating.
A world that demands perfection is only more likely to create imperfections. In the article “Who’s Cheating Whom?” written by Alfie Kohn, he deconstructs cheating in school from why students cheat to the underlining cause. He sheds light on the fact that cheating could in fact be mainly caused by the environment our culture has created for students. Cheating is most often seen in situations where students find what they’re learning to be boring or something they have no interest in. Many social scientists also believe cheating is a result of both the educational system and society valuing and rewarding the high grades over actual learning and teaching. Due to this competitive environment created in school
Cheating is defined as to "deceive by trickery" or "to act dishonestly, practicing fraud." (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 1993). A recent survey has shown an overwhelming majority of students have cheated. They, however, have justified their actions and do not believe that is a “big deal” (Cheating is a Personal Foul, 1999).
Cost-benefit analysis is a systematic process for calculating and analyzing both the cost and benefit and then calculating which action is best for one to be involve in, actions such as; an activity, an decision, or an government policy and figuring out the benefits and costs of the project. One has to determine if the choice one is making is sound and that they would benefit from it rather than receiving zero gratification out of it. The cost of cheating in an University is that one will be on disciplinary probation, suspension, dismissal from Winthrop, and etc. Cheating is like a major crime in college. There are a few benefits from cheating include assuring one a good grade, with little work/studying required. However, the consequences of cheating and getting caught by a professor overweight any benefits that one might think cheating may have.
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 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.
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?
Isn’t technology a wonderful thing? Ask 100 people this question and you will probably get 100 different opinions. Most would agree that it is. However, as wonderful as it may be, it doesn’t always mean it is a good thing. There is no doubt technology has made our lives easier, more manageable, and most things can be done faster and in many cases simpler. Has technology also made it simpler for people to cheat?
The first cause as to why students cheat is because they are lazy. It happens all the time, where students go home from school, have a snack, watch television, take a nap, play some video games, and just keep saying that they will do their homework later. The next thing they know it eleven o’clock at night and time to go to bed, but no homework was accomplished. The student keeps pushing back the assignment until the last minute and the last minute is not enough time. This is also known as procrastination. The student does not want to fail, but they were too lazy to do their own work, so they ask to copy the work from a friend that did the work. I once said something to a guy about how this was cheating and he told me that he was, “using his resources wisely”. Another time I asked a student next to me to stop copying my answers in class and he told, “Then you shouldn’t let me see your answers”, he blamed his cheating on me. One time when I was in seventh grade in my ecology class we had to put together a presentation with a partner. My partner was a close friend at the time, and our topic was solar power. I ended up doing all of the research and put together the presentation a...
The major reason which leads to popularity of cheating is that students always desire to have good marks. Today’s academic system is generally based on grade point average or some other alphabetical or numerical representation of academic skill. If students notice that many classmates have high marks, they also want the fame of having good grades. Therefore, this pressure unintentionally causes students to value their goods marks much more than their knowledge. Eventually, students do anything to achieve good marks, even cheating in exams.