What are we dealing with?

Understanding the motivations behind a student that cheats is a challenge. Often the pressures that inspire cheating can be external. From my years teaching international students, cultural perceptions were also vastly different when it came to cheating and plagiarism. In some countries, plagiarism is commonly practiced in writing. Understanding when something was cited was considered the role of the reader, not the writer. From misunderstandings about cheating, external pressures such as high stakes testing or fear of failure, cheating is a reality in both online and face to face classrooms. 

One thing that is generally clear: The higher the stakes, students are more tempted to cheat. 

A Download literature review

compiled by our dear friends at the University of Central Florida summarizes and addresses the current themes we face on academic integrity in the higher ed community. Review the highlights of their research below. For full citations refer to the linked document. 

 

What is cheating? How does cheating in online courses differ from cheating in face-to-face courses? 

  • Surveys indicate that students found the following behaviors to be acceptable: using an open book, relying on print reference sources, and using class notes during an online test. The behaviors that were viewed as clearly inappropriate involved relying on another student to complete exam questions (King, Guyette, & Piotrowski, 2009).

 

  • Academic dishonesty is not more frequent in online classes but differs from behavior in face-to-face courses. Students in online courses are more likely to receive answers from someone during a test (Watson & Sottile, 2010).

 

  • Many students misunderstand what constitutes academic dishonesty. Only 58% of students identified obtaining information about an exam from someone previously enrolled when prohibited by the instructor to do so as cheating (“Cheating: Friends,” 2005).

 

  • Faculty members perceive the following as the most serious cheating violations: sabotaging someone else’s work , forging a university document, stealing a test, using crib sheets, obtaining answers from someone else during an exam and using a term paper or exam from a fraternity or sorority test file. Lesser violations include studying from someone else’s notes, failing to report a grading error, not contributing a fair share to a group project, delaying taking an exam due to false excuse, and utilizing a tutor or writing center inappropriately (Pincus & Schmelkin, 2003).

 

Why do students cheat? What are the demographics/characteristics of those who cheat versus those who do not cheat? 

  • Students who are more likely to cheat are those who perceive that their instructor is less concerned about them and those who are physically father away from the classroom. Students in face-to-face classes are more likely to cheat than those in online classes (Stuber-McEwen, Winseley, & Hoggatt, 2009).

 

  • Students who cheated in high school are more likely to cheat while non-traditional students are less likely to cheat (Stuber-McEwen, Winseley, & Hoggatt, 2009).

 

  • Perceptions of peer behavior has the most influence on cheating frequency –when students perceive high levels of cheating by their peers, they are more likely to cheat themselves (McCabe, Trevino, & Butterfield, 2002).

 

How can faculty/institutions minimize cheating?

  • Technologically based countermeasures include supervised finals, personalized assignments, practical application exams, required interactive with instructor via email (Kennedy, Nowak, Raghuraman, Thomas, & Davis, 2000)

 

  • Defining cheating and encouraging honesty through policy statement, know the test takers, informal discussion, maintain assessment security, proctor tests, control the test situation, do not make overly difficult or easy tests, vary test formats, use entrapment (Rowe, 2004)

 

  • Studies show that receiving a tutorial on the methods of plagiarism and alternatives reduces plagiarism (“I didn’t know,” 2010).

 

  • Define objectives and inappropriate behavior in the syllabus, present information well and emphasize what is important, communicate with students often, vary the type of assessment and use questions that cannot be easily researched, use time limits on tests, use a Webcam during assessments, use statistics for tracking activity, create a student to monitor any communication among students (Christe, 2003)

 

  • Use of webcams, lock down the browser so computer resources cannot be used, look out for suspicious text such as unusual margins or inconsistent quotations marks, use of antiplagiarism software (Krsak, 2007)

 

 

Click Next to discuss your experiences about student's cheating in the classroom