Introduction
For ages, the question of why students cheat has remained unsolved, and this might explain why academic dishonesty is prevalent globally. While it may seem convenient to blame those who engage in the practice, new studies suggest that institutional frameworks and instruction practices might be complicit in encouraging learners to engage in various forms of dishonesty. Academic dishonesty carries weighty implications for both learners and institutions. Thus, delving deep into understanding why students cheat would be a noble attempt to address the problem. To this end, the following article explores the topic by examining why students cheat and the link between their motivation and institutional failures.
The Psychology of Why Students Cheat
Thanks to studies exploring why some students resort to cheating with a casual attitude, it has been discovered that the pressure to attain high grades encourages this practice. In highly competitive learning centers, the environment quickly conditions students to believe that grades rather than mastery are critical and will determine future success. Furthermore, external pressure from families expecting learners to register top results and scholarship requirements that reward the best outcomes exacerbates the pressure among individual learners to focus on outperforming others over gaining skill mastery. With the mindset that evaluation systems reward outcomes rather than competence, students resort to what it takes to post high results, even if that means using unethical methods such as cheating.
The casual acceptance of cheating within peer groups might also provide answers to why students cheat. This phenomenon can be explained by the social learning theory, which indicates that individuals are likely to engage in forbidden practices such as academic dishonesty after observing their peers engage in the practice without consequences. Soon, academic misconduct becomes an acceptable standard among learners instead of a deviant and punishable behavior. Additionally, the increased availability of contract cheating services and the emergence of AI-aided writing capabilities have made using external help so ubiquitous that it has become socially acceptable.
Institutional Failures Contributing to Why Students Cheat
The nature of traditional instruction methods, with their emphasis on rote memorization rather than teaching learners to develop critical thinking skills, contributes significantly to the problem of rampant academic dishonesty. The way that learning and assessments have been structured traditionally is problematic because this encourages learners to memorize only for assessment purposes. The problem with this approach is that students quickly realize the superficiality of these instruction and assessment methods, which breeds their indifference toward learning. Consequently, students resort to cheating to cope with education approaches that value performance instead of understanding.
Also, the education industry’s obsession with grades and rankings, which encourages institutions to obsess over outcomes at the expense of genuine learning, also encourages academic malpractice. Obsession with academic results as the standard for success unintentionally communicates that the result is more important than the means of attaining them. Furthermore, the lack of consistent implementation of strict academic integrity policies to stop academic dishonesty may communicate a carefree culture. In turn, this creates the perception that the industry does not strictly enforce academic integrity policies, encouraging students to engage in misconduct.
Unequal access to resources also significantly contributes to academic dishonesty. Some institutions lacking access to resources due to underfunding may lack the tools to check student work for plagiarism or effectively supervise exams. Also, class overcrowding limits the instructor’s ability to supervise each student’s work. Such deficiencies may leave learners without a choice but to cheat due to a need to compensate for the deficiency.
Case Studies in Academic Integrity Reform
At Duke University, the institution developed a novel mechanism to discourage offenders from further engagement in academic dishonesty, which yielded impressive results. The institution implemented an evaluative program for learners to reflect on their offense critically in writing. The purpose of the assignment was to engage them in a critical reflection of their decisions and the ethical consequences of their actions. The approach reportedly yielded a 40% reduction in repeat offenses over a two-year period.
Separately, Danville High School in California replaced its grade-based evaluation system with a competency-based evaluation to curb anxiety-driven academic misconduct. This transition effectively changed the focus of learning and education assessment in the school from being performance-oriented to skill competency. Subsequently, the reform yielded a reduction in academic misconduct by 60%. Similarly, this shift improved student engagement with material as the anxiety compelling them to use dishonest practices declined. The effectiveness of changing the goal of evaluation from outcomes to competency underscores the significance of properly aligning evaluation outcomes with teaching objectives.
The University of Maryland’s decision to change its assessment system to a systematic approach allowing learners to work on assignments in portions also helped reduce increasing cases of plagiarism in assignments. Breaking assignments into parts submitted separately – for instance, from outline to annotated bibliography followed by drafting – helped provide learners with adequate time to work on assignments. This helped curb the problem of rushing to complete assignments at once, causing the pressure to resort to dishonest methods like plagiarism. The approach led to an impressive decline in plagiarism cases by 75%. Additionally, the change in the structure of assessments improved student engagement with material, through the additional time this approach offered students to focus on various sections of the work.
Conclusion
In sum, although students must be accountable for their engagement in academic dishonesty, a critical analysis of why students cheat exposes the weak link that education and examination systems pose in encouraging academic malpractice. The example case studies showing how attempts to practically address concerns with traditional learning structures lead to improvements around the issue allude to the need to design measures tailored to specific problematic areas in the traditional education system. Nonetheless, the education industry also needs to hold individual students accountable and to ensure consistent enforcement of policy to avoid inconsistencies that encourage policy violations.
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