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.
Quite simply, cheating is
…show more content…
According to Harvard Business School and Duke University researchers, “Cheaters pay for the short-term benefits of higher scores with inflated expectations for future performance” (qtd. in Sparks). When someone passes a test or gains a degree under false pretenses, their ill-gotten success is destined not to last because they misrepresented themselves. Imagine how embarrassing it will be when they finally do get caught in their lie, especially if they’re in a position of prestige and power. Earlier this year, it was found that Senator John Walsh plagiarized his master’s thesis paper for The Army War College. On October 10th his master’s degree was rescinded because “he had copied large portions of the paper he submitted as a requirement to graduate,” according to Jonathan Martin of The New York Times. Mr. Walsh accepted the decision “with great humility” and although he chose not to step down from his current position in senate, he did announce his withdrawal from the race for next term (Martin). He cheated to get ahead and it wound up damaging his reputation and quite possibly destroying his political career. Cheating is also habit-forming, which only further serves to erode one’s self worth. Professor Anita L. Allen notes that students often “break the rules against plagiarism because they are insecure …show more content…
This unmerited advantage can be a distraction to other students and possibly even affect their grades or potential careers. According to Dakota State University, “Widespread cheating causes honest students to become cynical and resentful. This is especially true when grades are curved and the cheating directly affects other students” (“Does”). Cheating also devalues educational achievements of not only fellow students, but also the academic institution itself. Dakota State University notes that “alumni, potential students, graduate schools, and employers learn to distrust degrees from schools where cheating is widespread” (Does”). Just this month, it was discovered that over 3,000 UNC-Chapel Hill students were involved in an academic fraud scandal that spanned nearly two decades. This could kill the school’s reputation, as well as the credibility of the degrees of honest graduates. Brian Rosenberg, president of Macalester College, suggests that “falsified grades and transcripts for more than 3,000 students over more than a decade [is] . . . an egregious violation” of accreditation standards. What happens to the current students if the school loses accreditation? And what about the ones that planned on attending UNC-Chapel Hill? American University claims that “a sound education is built through many laboring minds doing honest intellectual work, but its enduring value
“It 's important that athletes can compete on a level playing field. And youngsters coming into the sport can know that if they are working hard and training hard, they 'll see a true reflection of where they stand and what they can achieve worldwide and not be swayed by people who are cheating.” This was said by Paula Jane Radcliffe, a long-distance runner and Olympian. Cheating in sports is considered to be immoral. In sports there are many different forms of cheating. Whether it is illegal taping, bribes, or foul play, it is never the way to go. Undoubtedly the most extreme and controversial form of cheating is through the use of PEDs, better known as Performance Enhancing Drugs. There are many different types of Performance Enhancing Drugs. The two most popular being anabolic steroids and
Almost every student has cheated at one point or another for some reason they use to justify it and they could be any one of these forms of cheaters. Although all these types of cheaters will attempt to rationalize their cheating with various excuses and reasons there is no real justification. They all know it is the wrong thing to do, but will cheat anyways as they can get away with it and it will create the illusion of greater intelligence for themselves and that is a problem for the youth of America. It will make students learn to cheat better instead of actually learning the material assigned to them, resulting in a less intelligent generation.
However, this may stem from a lack of enforcement of the rules. Even at the most prestigious schools, such as Harvard University, students are not upholding the rules implemented: “The possibility that 125 Harvard students ‘improperly collaborated’ on an exam in the spring has galvanized … discussion about … honor codes” (Source: C). In this case, people may argue that the only party at fault consists of the students. However, the faculty may be partially guilty as well, as their lack of care towards the rules has created a situation that jeopardizes the school’s integrity. Revision may then seem like the least of the school’s priorities, as they must show they seriously consider educational integrity. Likewise, at the University of Virginia, “157 students have been investigated by their peers in the largest cheating scandal in memory” (Source: D). Again, the school and all those who work there hold at least part of the fault for this ignorance because, theoretically, they should preserve and enforce the rules provided. The fact that the scandal exists means that they were not doing their jobs to their fullest. Although revision may seem simpler to carry out, the school’s staff must show an attempt at intervention within the student lives to keep them on a path towards
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.
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.
More and more students are showing bad academic integrity for numerous reasons. To put a stop to this, I believe that teachers and parents should make a bigger deal about being honest in their work, rather than pressuring students to end up on top. Students need to learn how to take pride in their own work. They need to realize that being honest in your achievements is much more rewarding than achieving something higher, but cheating your way through
There is an ever broadening problem spreading throughout colleges all across America: cheating. Is it a serious offence or just a harmless crime? Cheating is on the rise, but schools and colleges are not far behind with ways of dealing with it. Mark Clayton deals with this issue in his essay entitled “A Whole Lot of Cheatin’ Going On.”
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.
Situations of cheating have seemed to become more and more commonplace when the student is bored by the subject material, poor teaching and or feels they have no use for the knowledge. Kohn even states in his article, “cheating is more common when students experience the academic tasks they’ve been given as boring, irrelevant, or overwhelming.” This infers that if a student were attending a school interested in learning about art, the student maybe more inclined to cheat in a business accounting class due to the fact the student would find the subject material irrelevant to them and their future. Students seem to be less inclined to cheat and it “is relatively rare in classrooms where the learning is genuinely engaging and meaningful to students and where a commitment to exploring significant ideas hasn’t been eclipsed by a single-minded emphasis on “rigor”” (Kohn). To simplify everything mentioned above; students are inclined to cheat in school when they are disinterested in the subject material and or are overwhelmed by in assignment or finally the result in a poor teacher. Everyone who has attended school can relate to this in some way or another, most people do not want to retain knowledge they have no interest in or use for in their
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.
Academic knowledge is the basis on which future prosperity, and financial security has been determined. As a consequence, students feel inclined to perform above average in school. Now, as students perform less and less, they sink to obtain good grades by cheating. This method to acquire the desired grades will only harm the student, instead of the imagined result. Prompted by a child’s inability to perform basic tasks throughout his education , academic cheating spawns numerous negative consequences.
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.
"I’m preparing for the real world. Business is unethical. Cheating is just good training. I’ll be better able to handle what’s put at me when I get out." "‘Oh, it’ll only be this once’ or ‘Everyone else does it, so why shouldn’t I?’" Sly glances at a neighbor’s work, an open book on the lap, or even high-technology methods—the resources of the cheater are many and varied. Whatever the methods, there are many statements like those above to justify cheating. For example, in the United States, surveys show that more than half of all students cheat, or have cheated, during their school years.
The failure of our education system is demonstrated by the fact that students are sacrificing their integrity for a handful of points on an assessment. Despite the efforts of honor codes, scholars have become numb to their purpose; they break such a promise of honesty to themselves, their teachers, and their peers without second thought. America’s children have lost the value of trust, compromising invaluable relationships with excuses regarding societal pressure and their excessive workloads. We cannot let such actions continue; if educators continue to tolerate cheating, our world may transition into one socially, economically, and politically operated by dishonest individuals. Society’s obsession with creating good academic performers has led to the subsequent creation of deceitful children and the possibility of a fraudulent