Academic Integrity in Our Educational Systems
I. Introduction:
Prior to my first college mid-term exam as a freshman, I stood outside the door of the classroom where I would take the test and mentally reviewed the material. As I questioned whether I had studied enough, noise from a group of girls caught my attention. The girls were helping one another write the answers to the exam on their arms. I watched this in complete shock; my sense of right and wrong had been violated. It only took a few seconds to realize that I did not like what they were doing. My feet seemed to move before my brain kicked in and I walked over to the group and confronted them. The girls were quite amused by my outrage at their cheating. The low sound of their laughter filled the air as they walked away.
Students today are under great and increasing pressure to be successful. Whether they cheat or not, the pressure challenges them ethically. Cheating is a serious offense that hurts the students who cheat, those who have worked hard to attain their grades fairly, and the institutions where the cheating occurs. With the availability of Internet resources in today’s world, the path to academic integrity is hard to navigate. This has become a vital concern for learning institutions around the world.
All academic programs today are faced with the challenge of cheating. Unethical behavior affects more than the institutions and students involved. It eventually flows onto the larger world stage. Plagiarism, cheating on exams and misuse of academic resources represent only a small part of a multifaceted problem. Businesses will end up with employees who are unable to do their jobs properly and this will reflect badly on the university from which students obtained their education.
Academic honesty and integrity must exist. It is a student and an institutional issue. Respect for the academic code of honor must be rekindled in all institutions of learning. We need to have mechanisms in place that clearly delineate what is considered cheating for students and faculty and lay out the consequences for cheating so that students who attain their grades fairly believe that they are working on a level playing field. Students and the business world must know that the degree in question is worth the paper it was printed on.
II. Definitions:
a. Academic integrity
Perhaps it would seem easy to define the term “Academic Integrity”. The Center for Academic Integrity (CAI) delineates five values required to reach the standards of being academically honest. These are honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. The Center defines academic integrity as a commitment to these five principles in the face of any and all odds. Adhering to these principles will allow academic communities to act on the problem, but the situation is not as clear cut as one might hope. It is suspected that some students might not realize the behaviors that constitute cheating and many students may not view cheating as a serious academic infraction. (CAI, 1999) The Center paints a daunting picture. Their study reports data gathered by Who’s Who Among High School Students that as many as 80 percent of all college bound high school students cheat. (CAI, 1999) The Center feels that academic cheating in American high schools and colleges is widespread and growing. The problem needs to be addressed.
b. Ways of cheating :
Plagiarism is certainly a major source of cheating today, but that may be no different from what was true in the past. Plagiarism is defined as using or passing off someone else’s words or ideas as your own (Fulwood 2003), but plagiarism is just one of many ways to cheat. Until the advent of the Internet in the early 1980s, plagiarism was generally confined to encyclopedias and very popular books. Even when the Internet arrived on the scene as a major source of learning, it didn’t initially represent a common or widespread source of cheating. Ironically, it also grew to be a means to avoid cheating. It has not made cheating, especially plagiarism, easier because it is so easy to detect material obtained from the Internet. Still, many students are prone just to copy material from online sources and submit is as their own. They are not learning any skills or adding to their bank of knowledge.
There are many other ways to cheat besides plagiarism. Other methods include copying from other students, taking exams for someone else, doing homework for another student, purchasing essay papers, fabricating quotes, stealing exams by breaking and entering the teacher’s office and more. (Petress, 2003; Park, 2003) While some students might state that they are uncertain as to what constitutes breaking academic integrity, it is clear that some of these acts (such as breaking and entering) clearly involve crimes. Who could fail to realize that letting one student take an exam for another goes over the accepted line?
By contrast, a few things that might be viewed as cheating are not so clear; for example, collaborating on homework. The purpose of homework is to learn the skills required to do the work, but there are clear instances where students are encouraged to work in groups (collaborate). In such in cases, students are expected to collaborate, so collaborating would not constitute cheating. Thus, there really are instances where the line between academic cheating and honesty is blurred, but certainly, instances of copying from others, taking exams for others, plagiarism and breaking and entry to steal exams constitutes cheating and more!
How common is cheating today? In a survey of 3,210 students, Newberger (2000) reports that eighty-eight percent felt cheating was common. Only 20 percent anonymously admitted to cheating in the 1940s, but in a 1997 survey, seventy-six percent confessed to cheating. Of these, sixty-five percent claimed that copying someone else’s homework was their most frequent way of cheating. In fact, all the statistics suggest that cheating is on the rise. Newberger cites other studies to indicate that cheating among college students by collaborating on homework has increased from eleven percent in 1963 to forty-nine percent in 1993. Clearly, academic cheating appears to be on the rise. Is this rise fueled by our modern technology, just a sign of the times or both?
III. The reasons why students cheat.
Naudé ; Hörne (2006) found that students generally cheat for one or more of the following reasons: many students are involved, they disguise their cheating, they did not achieve a satisfactory learning outcome and/or the assessment of the task contributes to the final outcome of the course. Clearly, at least one of these reasons (lack of a satisfactory learning outcome) is self-defeating. Newburger (2003) finds that males cheat for several reasons. In general, these include giving in to temptation, being exposed to cheating and the threat of being embarrassed. He points out that boys are particularly tempted to cheat in matters pertaining to sports or related to their after-school employment and that they are familiar with cheating long before academic reasons for cheating arise.
a. Environment on campus.
Studies demonstrate that the academic environment affects cheating, but the effect can be both positive and negative. McCabe et al. (1999) found that faculty can take actions to reduce cheating and McCabe and Pavela (1997) conclude that having an academic code on campus, although not one-hundred percent effective, does reduce cheating more than not having one. The latter study found that students felt that violating the trust of the academic ethics might jeopardize some of their privileges. Thus, “the real power of honor codes may be in the desire of students to belong to such a community.” (McCabe and Pavela 1997) They feel that if schools without honor codes are to reduce cheating, they need to engage students in dialogue which stresses academic integrity. Thus, the campus environment or, as this report calls it, the campus “community”, can play a role in reducing student cheating. However, campuses that use academic codes must support faculty members who raise allegations of academic dishonesty, employ sanctions against students caught failing to honor the academic code and do other things to demonstrate that cheating will be met with “strong disapproval”. (McCabe et al. 2001)
Does age affect the likelihood to cheat? At least one study has investigated how big a factor age is in cheating. This study was a bit confusing because in most cases, it determined that age was not a factor in cheating. In fact, it found that statistically, there were no significant differences in the likelihood to cheat based on whether students were fulltime or part time, their gender, their course performance to date or their age, but in one area, it determined that the older students were less likely to cheat. This finding was only marginally encouraging because it found that, when asked their reasons for not cheating, one of the reasons older students were less likely to cheat was because it was “against their moral values” and another was because they did “not know…how to cheat.” (Sheard et al. 2001) The ultimate conclusion one could reach from this study is that age had little to do with the probability of cheating. However, Smith (2005) found that first grade students were less likely than more advanced students to see their behaviors as cheating. The Smith study focused on copying the work of others, having others do their work, and various forms of dishonesty (such as stealing or cheating in games) without getting caught. Smith notes a report (Schab, 1969) where many college students admitted to having cheated as early as the first grade. Clearly, the motivation to cheat begins early, but it is not clear whether the propensity to cheat increases or decreases with age.
IV. How to prevent cheating.
Yes, we can take action against cheating, but can we take effective action? Unfortunately, the probable answer is “No!” What can we do? Certainly educators can play a role. (Stearns 2001) McCabe and Pavela (1997) propose that academic integrity requires a joint effort between faculty and students and suggest that creating an environment of honesty and a commitment to learning might foster a means to academic integrity. This environment may be implemented by discussing the issue in the classroom and having students write out and sign a code of honor at the beginning of a class. (CAI, 2004) The discussion should clearly define what constitutes academic cheating but the signed commitment would only be as binding as the integrity of the students involved. However, once the academic code of honor has been signed, it allows instructors and academic institutions to take action on infractions.
Perhaps a signed would be legally binding, but that would not matter unless students caught were expelled or denied the right to complete their education and the right to a refund of any money already paid to obtain their education. Even then, it might be possible for some students just to transfer to another institution and continue cheating unless measures were taken to prevent that. Certainly, we can have educators and academic institutions stress the community standard for honesty. At the beginning of each class, educators must make their students aware of how they, the educator, feel about cheating. This is comparable to stressing or instilling a code of honor, but is only succeeds to the extent that students care. On a related approach, teachers could exercise authority and confront students regarding unethical behavior. Of course, once again, this only succeeds to the extent that students care, plus, if you must confront students, it is generally because they have already cheated. Therefore, it is not a preventive measure, but occurs after the fact. You wouldn’t confront someone who hasn’t cheated.
A totally different alternative is to ban all devices that transmit information. This would include cell phones, PDA’s, laptops, etc. Of course, this would only prevent cheating on exams but it certainly wouldn’t prevent cheating in general. In fact, it would be an impediment to learning. We now recognize that laptops and the Internet are cornerstones to learning. Banning them would be counterproductive to learning.
Clearly, to eliminate or reduce cheating, we must remove the incentive to cheat. That is easier said than done. If learning were more fun and/or more relevant, then students might pursue learning for the joy of learning. For example, who would cheat in a sex education class where each student got to practice and improve their most intimate sexual skills with the student or students of their choice? I am not suggesting this, but while it may be unethical, it drives the point home that learning for the joy of learning will increase the desire to learn honestly (without cheating. Perhaps there would be some cheating in that instance, but no lack of effort.) That would go a long way in preventing cheating. It is clear that in today’s academic environment, most students never become aware how much fun it is to learn—the pure joy of learning just for the sake of learning. As has been true in the past, students today get an education for better jobs, better income, a better standard of living and other things unrelated to the joy of learning.
CAI proposes seven guidelines to help prevent academic dishonesty. (1999) They suggest that institutions of learning 1) have clear and clearly implemented academic policies, statements and procedures, 2) educate and inform the entire community of those policies and procedures, 3) rigorously practice and make known their policies and procedures, 4) have a clear, equitable and accessible means to adjudicate infractions, 5) develop programs to promote academic integrity, 6) keep alert to trends in technology that affect academic integrity and 7) regularly assess how effective its policies and procedures are with regard to academic integrity. These strategies involve policing strategies, preventative strategies, enforcing procedures and adjudication rules. While they may not be one hundred percent effective, these strategies certainly represent a start, and they will encourage cheaters to be honest because there are real consequences in getting caught.
V. Conclusion
In conclusion, cheating is a serious matter in academic circles at the high school level (or earlier) and in colleges. There are many forms of cheating. Perhaps the most commonly acknowledged form today is collaborating on homework, a form that may sometimes blur the line between academic honesty and cheating, but other forms of cheating clearly constitute dishonest acts. Breaking and entering to steal exams, stealing the work of others without citing them, and having another person do the work of the student clearly constitute forms of academic cheating. Collaborating on homework and some other situations may be less clear cut. The statistics strongly suggest that academic cheating is on the rise. It is important that we maintain our standards of learning as a nation if we are to excel as a nation. Academic cheating will not allow that. It would mean fewer qualified people for available jobs, slower progress towards future advances and less ability to resolve our problems as a nation and as a world. Who is responsible to stem the tide of academic dishonesty? Well, we could place the blame squarely on the shoulders of academicians and academic institutions, but that would probably be inappropriate. It would be like blaming the city council because crime is on the rise in a good neighborhood. Yes, they would bear part of the blame, and likewise, academicians and teachers are partly responsible for the fall in academic integrity, but in the end, the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of those cheating. They are the ones who must find jobs after their education. They are the ones who will be inadequately trained for the skills they might have learned (or failed to learn) in college. So, in reality, there is enough blame to go around, but clearly the students must bear most of the blame themselves. In the end, no matter how academicians and others assess the cause and blame for this issue, the students involved will only be able to blame themselves! Only they are really responsible and they will suffer mostly.
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