what is cheating in school essay

Why Do Students Cheat?

• Posted July 19, 2016
• By Zachary Goldman

In March, Usable Knowledge published an article on ethical collaboration , which explored researchers’ ideas about how to develop classrooms and schools where collaboration is nurtured but cheating is avoided. The piece offers several explanations for why students cheat and provides powerful ideas about how to create ethical communities. The article left me wondering how students themselves might respond to these ideas, and whether their experiences with cheating reflected the researchers’ understanding. In other words, how are young people “reading the world,” to quote Paulo Freire , when it comes to questions of cheating, and what might we learn from their perspectives?

I worked with Gretchen Brion-Meisels to investigate these questions by talking to two classrooms of students from Massachusetts and Texas about their experiences with cheating. We asked these youth informants to connect their own insights and ideas about cheating with the ideas described in " Ethical Collaboration ." They wrote from a range of perspectives, grappling with what constitutes cheating, why people cheat, how people cheat, and when cheating might be ethically acceptable. In doing so, they provide us with additional insights into why students cheat and how schools might better foster ethical collaboration.

Why Students Cheat

Students critiqued both the individual decision-making of peers and the school-based structures that encourage cheating. For example, Julio (Massachusetts) wrote, “Teachers care about cheating because its not fair [that] students get good grades [but] didn't follow the teacher's rules.” His perspective represents one set of ideas that we heard, which suggests that cheating is an unethical decision caused by personal misjudgment. Umna (Massachusetts) echoed this idea, noting that “cheating is … not using the evidence in your head and only using the evidence that’s from someone else’s head.”

Other students focused on external factors that might make their peers feel pressured to cheat. For example, Michima (Massachusetts) wrote, “Peer pressure makes students cheat. Sometimes they have a reason to cheat like feeling [like] they need to be the smartest kid in class.” Kayla (Massachusetts) agreed, noting, “Some people cheat because they want to seem cooler than their friends or try to impress their friends. Students cheat because they think if they cheat all the time they’re going to get smarter.” In addition to pressure from peers, students spoke about pressure from adults, pressure related to standardized testing, and the demands of competing responsibilities.

When Cheating is Acceptable

Students noted a few types of extenuating circumstances, including high stakes moments. For example, Alejandra (Texas) wrote, “The times I had cheated [were] when I was failing a class, and if I failed the final I would repeat the class. And I hated that class and I didn’t want to retake it again.” Here, she identifies allegiance to a parallel ethical value: Graduating from high school. In this case, while cheating might be wrong, it is an acceptable means to a higher-level goal.

Encouraging an Ethical School Community

Several of the older students with whom we spoke were able to offer us ideas about how schools might create more ethical communities. Sam (Texas) wrote, “A school where cheating isn't necessary would be centered around individualization and learning. Students would learn information and be tested on the information. From there the teachers would assess students' progress with this information, new material would be created to help individual students with what they don't understand. This way of teaching wouldn't be based on time crunching every lesson, but more about helping a student understand a concept.”

Sam provides a vision for the type of school climate in which collaboration, not cheating, would be most encouraged. Kaith (Texas), added to this vision, writing, “In my own opinion students wouldn’t find the need to cheat if they knew that they had the right undivided attention towards them from their teachers and actually showed them that they care about their learning. So a school where cheating wasn’t necessary would be amazing for both teachers and students because teachers would be actually getting new things into our brains and us as students would be not only attentive of our teachers but also in fact learning.”

Both of these visions echo a big idea from “ Ethical Collaboration ”: The importance of reducing the pressure to achieve. Across students’ comments, we heard about how self-imposed pressure, peer pressure, and pressure from adults can encourage cheating.

Where Student Opinions Diverge from Research

The ways in which students spoke about support differed from the descriptions in “ Ethical Collaboration .” The researchers explain that, to reduce cheating, students need “vertical support,” or standards, guidelines, and models of ethical behavior. This implies that students need support understanding what is ethical. However, our youth informants describe a type of vertical support that centers on listening and responding to students’ needs. They want teachers to enable ethical behavior through holistic support of individual learning styles and goals. Similarly, researchers describe “horizontal support” as creating “a school environment where students know, and can persuade their peers, that no one benefits from cheating,” again implying that students need help understanding the ethics of cheating. Our youth informants led us to believe instead that the type of horizontal support needed may be one where collective success is seen as more important than individual competition.

Why Youth Voices Matter, and How to Help Them Be Heard

Our purpose in reaching out to youth respondents was to better understand whether the research perspectives on cheating offered in “ Ethical Collaboration ” mirrored the lived experiences of young people. This blog post is only a small step in that direction; young peoples’ perspectives vary widely across geographic, demographic, developmental, and contextual dimensions, and we do not mean to imply that these youth informants speak for all youth. However, our brief conversations suggest that asking youth about their lived experiences can benefit the way that educators understand school structures.

Too often, though, students are cut out of conversations about school policies and culture. They rarely even have access to information on current educational research, partially because they are not the intended audience of such work. To expand opportunities for student voice, we need to create spaces — either online or in schools — where students can research a current topic that interests them. Then they can collect information, craft arguments they want to make, and deliver their messages. Educators can create the spaces for this youth-driven work in schools, communities, and even policy settings — helping to support young people as both knowledge creators and knowledge consumers. 

Additional Resources

• Read “ Student Voice in Educational Research and Reform ” [PDF] by Alison Cook-Sather.
• Read “ The Significance of Students ” [PDF] by Dana L. Mitra.
• Read “ Beyond School Spirit ” by Emily J. Ozer and Dana Wright.

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Why Students Cheat—and What to Do About It

A teacher seeks answers from researchers and psychologists. 

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“Why did you cheat in high school?” I posed the question to a dozen former students.

“I wanted good grades and I didn’t want to work,” said Sonya, who graduates from college in June. [The students’ names in this article have been changed to protect their privacy.]

My current students were less candid than Sonya. To excuse her plagiarized Cannery Row essay, Erin, a ninth-grader with straight As, complained vaguely and unconvincingly of overwhelming stress. When he was caught copying a review of the documentary Hypernormalism , Jeremy, a senior, stood by his “hard work” and said my accusation hurt his feelings.

Cases like the much-publicized ( and enduring ) 2012 cheating scandal at high-achieving Stuyvesant High School in New York City confirm that academic dishonesty is rampant and touches even the most prestigious of schools. The data confirms this as well. A 2012 Josephson Institute’s Center for Youth Ethics report revealed that more than half of high school students admitted to cheating on a test, while 74 percent reported copying their friends’ homework. And a survey of 70,000 high school students across the United States between 2002 and 2015 found that 58 percent had plagiarized papers, while 95 percent admitted to cheating in some capacity.

So why do students cheat—and how do we stop them?

According to researchers and psychologists, the real reasons vary just as much as my students’ explanations. But educators can still learn to identify motivations for student cheating and think critically about solutions to keep even the most audacious cheaters in their classrooms from doing it again.

Rationalizing It


First, know that students realize cheating is wrong—they simply see themselves as moral in spite of it.

“They cheat just enough to maintain a self-concept as honest people. They make their behavior an exception to a general rule,” said Dr. David Rettinger , professor at the University of Mary Washington and executive director of the Center for Honor, Leadership, and Service, a campus organization dedicated to integrity.

According to Rettinger and other researchers, students who cheat can still see themselves as principled people by rationalizing cheating for reasons they see as legitimate.

Some do it when they don’t see the value of work they’re assigned, such as drill-and-kill homework assignments, or when they perceive an overemphasis on teaching content linked to high-stakes tests.

“There was no critical thinking, and teachers seemed pressured to squish it into their curriculum,” said Javier, a former student and recent liberal arts college graduate. “They questioned you on material that was never covered in class, and if you failed the test, it was progressively harder to pass the next time around.”

But students also rationalize cheating on assignments they see as having value.

High-achieving students who feel pressured to attain perfection (and Ivy League acceptances) may turn to cheating as a way to find an edge on the competition or to keep a single bad test score from sabotaging months of hard work. At Stuyvesant, for example, students and teachers identified the cutthroat environment as a factor in the rampant dishonesty that plagued the school.

And research has found that students who receive praise for being smart—as opposed to praise for effort and progress—are more inclined to exaggerate their performance and to cheat on assignments , likely because they are carrying the burden of lofty expectations.

A Developmental Stage

When it comes to risk management, adolescent students are bullish. Research has found that teenagers are biologically predisposed to be more tolerant of unknown outcomes and less bothered by stated risks than their older peers.

“In high school, they’re risk takers developmentally, and can’t see the consequences of immediate actions,” Rettinger says. “Even delayed consequences are remote to them.”

While cheating may not be a thrill ride, students already inclined to rebel against curfews and dabble in illicit substances have a certain comfort level with being reckless. They’re willing to gamble when they think they can keep up the ruse—and more inclined to believe they can get away with it.

Cheating also appears to be almost contagious among young people—and may even serve as a kind of social adhesive, at least in environments where it is widely accepted.  A study of military academy students from 1959 to 2002 revealed that students in communities where cheating is tolerated easily cave in to peer pressure, finding it harder not to cheat out of fear of losing social status if they don’t.

Michael, a former student, explained that while he didn’t need to help classmates cheat, he felt “unable to say no.” Once he started, he couldn’t stop.

Technology Facilitates and Normalizes It

With smartphones and Alexa at their fingertips, today’s students have easy access to quick answers and content they can reproduce for exams and papers.  Studies show that technology has made cheating in school easier, more convenient, and harder to catch than ever before.

To Liz Ruff, an English teacher at Garfield High School in Los Angeles, students’ use of social media can erode their understanding of authenticity and intellectual property. Because students are used to reposting images, repurposing memes, and watching parody videos, they “see ownership as nebulous,” she said.

As a result, while they may want to avoid penalties for plagiarism, they may not see it as wrong or even know that they’re doing it.

This confirms what Donald McCabe, a Rutgers University Business School professor,  reported in his 2012 book ; he found that more than 60 percent of surveyed students who had cheated considered digital plagiarism to be “trivial”—effectively, students believed it was not actually cheating at all.

Strategies for Reducing Cheating

Even moral students need help acting morally, said  Dr. Jason M. Stephens , who researches academic motivation and moral development in adolescents at the University of Auckland’s School of Learning, Development, and Professional Practice. According to Stephens, teachers are uniquely positioned to infuse students with a sense of responsibility and help them overcome the rationalizations that enable them to think cheating is OK.

1. Turn down the pressure cooker. Students are less likely to cheat on work in which they feel invested. A multiple-choice assessment tempts would-be cheaters, while a unique, multiphase writing project measuring competencies can make cheating much harder and less enticing. Repetitive homework assignments are also a culprit, according to research , so teachers should look at creating take-home assignments that encourage students to think critically and expand on class discussions. Teachers could also give students one free pass on a homework assignment each quarter, for example, or let them drop their lowest score on an assignment.

2. Be thoughtful about your language.   Research indicates that using the language of fixed mindsets , like praising children for being smart as opposed to praising them for effort and progress , is both demotivating and increases cheating. When delivering feedback, researchers suggest using phrases focused on effort like, “You made really great progress on this paper” or “This is excellent work, but there are still a few areas where you can grow.”

3. Create student honor councils. Give students the opportunity to enforce honor codes or write their own classroom/school bylaws through honor councils so they can develop a full understanding of how cheating affects themselves and others. At Fredericksburg Academy, high school students elect two Honor Council members per grade. These students teach the Honor Code to fifth graders, who, in turn, explain it to younger elementary school students to help establish a student-driven culture of integrity. Students also write a pledge of authenticity on every assignment. And if there is an honor code transgression, the council gathers to discuss possible consequences. 

4. Use metacognition. Research shows that metacognition, a process sometimes described as “ thinking about thinking ,” can help students process their motivations, goals, and actions. With my ninth graders, I use a centuries-old resource to discuss moral quandaries: the play Macbeth . Before they meet the infamous Thane of Glamis, they role-play as medical school applicants, soccer players, and politicians, deciding if they’d cheat, injure, or lie to achieve goals. I push students to consider the steps they take to get the outcomes they desire. Why do we tend to act in the ways we do? What will we do to get what we want? And how will doing those things change who we are? Every tragedy is about us, I say, not just, as in Macbeth’s case, about a man who succumbs to “vaulting ambition.”

5. Bring honesty right into the curriculum. Teachers can weave a discussion of ethical behavior into curriculum. Ruff and many other teachers have been inspired to teach media literacy to help students understand digital plagiarism and navigate the widespread availability of secondary sources online, using guidance from organizations like Common Sense Media .

There are complicated psychological dynamics at play when students cheat, according to experts and researchers. While enforcing rules and consequences is important, knowing what’s really motivating students to cheat can help you foster integrity in the classroom instead of just penalizing the cheating.

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Cheating In School Essay | Why Students Cheat? and What We Do About It?

October 21, 2024 by Prasanna

Cheating In School Essay: Cheating is a crime. Whether you cheat your friend, parents, or an unknown person, it is an unethical way of achieving your aim. For example – Cheating in exams is wrong as you’re supposed to study, practice, and understand the concept before answering in exams. If you skip all the previous steps and try to copy it from someone else or any other source, it is considered cheating.

Cheating is an act where a person acts dishonestly or in an unfair way to gain some advantage. Cheating in any manner or anywhere can not be justified. Cheating is also used by our children and most commonly they use it at school. Cheating in school is done in many ways like copying in exams, doing someone else’s work, copying the work from someone’s notebook without their permission.

You can also find more  Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Nowadays children have also started using mobile phones for Cheating in their exam papers and to tell the answers to their fellow students. All these forms of Cheating are wrong and unethical, no doubt they are the shortcut to the goal. But not all the students are involved in Cheating. Cheating has many major after effects like they can get expelled from the school which can make them lose their self respect, integrity, etc. So, as elders we should try to make our children understand that Cheating in no way is acceptable.

Long Essay on Cheating in School 750 Words in English

Cheating in school means an unethical way to get early and easy access to your aim. Cheating in school means when a student tries to get good academic grades through a dishonest and unfair way. Cheating is a false representation of the child’s ability which he may not be able to give without Cheating. It is unfair to everyone involved as it deprives the true one of the chance to come on the top.

In reality, the cheater, the teachers and the classmates all are getting deprived of the benefits. Actually Cheating is like a bad temptation which pulls you towards itself when you are able to get something easily with the help of it. Like if a child is able to get good grades in an exam by Cheating, he will try to do the same in other exams also as he will start finding it easy. It’s like an addiction which is not easy to get rid of. You can get an A grade in an exam through Cheating but you know that you didn’t earn it through fair means and will start self-doubting. It makes the student less self confident and gradually losing his sanity and integrity which hampers the overall growth.

The child is not trying to learn, rather he is trying to find ways which are easy but not right. Cheating also has major setbacks like suspension, repeating the same class, etc. Cheating is morally wrong because it gives the cheater an undue advantage over the others truly deserving. Students resort to Cheating because of many reasons – desire to get good grades, the fear of failing, competition with friends and classmates to excel in the class, parental pressure, etc. Cheating affects the child mentally as it increases the anxiety levels in the child. He may start feeling bad for himself as he knows that whatever he has achieved is not because of his own hard work, which will gradually make him feel helpless and trapped. The teachers and parents should make it a point to make the children realize that Cheating is not a good habit.

They can do so by giving their own life examples, making them understand and stressing that winning is not everything, teaching them how to cope with failure, and being compassionate with them while discussing this topic so that they do not feel embarrassed. Ask the child to do more practice of the topic he finds difficult, praise him in the little efforts he is putting to improve himself, try and explore new areas in which the child is good so that he can regain his self esteem.

Short Essay on Cheating in School

• Cheating is an act of behaving in a way that is unethical. Trying to achieve our goal through dishonest and unfair ways is not a way.
• We all at some point of time resort to Cheating whether consciously or unconsciously. Our children also follow us.
• Children follow the practice of Cheating in school in various ways and mostly during their exams.
• In our education system, children get so many opportunities to work hard and get good grades. But instead of doing hard work, some children feel encouraged to take Cheating as a shortcut.
• Students at that time don’t understand that Cheating is not the correct way to deal with it as it is leading them on a wrong path.
• Cheating in school can be due to many different reasons like peer pressure, parental pressure, etc. and can have negative effects on a student in the future.
• Cheating makes a child make wrong decisions as he is blinded by the aim of success. The student loses his ability of self confidence, honesty and critical thinking.
• To excel in education or a subject, one must be clear with the basics of the topic. But when a child resorts to Cheating he is making way for future Cheating also as he will not be able to understand high level topics because he is not clear with the basics.
• Cheating as all other unethical habits have serious consequences like suspension and expulsion from the school, spoiled academic reputation.
• Parents and teachers as the well wishers of the students should try to make them aware of the severe consequences of it and try to make them come out of this bad practice as soon as possible.

FAQ’s on Cheating In School Essay

Question 1. Is Cheating in school common?

Answer: According to a survey, Cheating is very common at school level and 86% of students have cheated in school at one or another level.

Question 2. Why is Cheating in school so common?

Answer: Students cheat in school due to poor study skills, lack of confidence and the pressure to get good grades.

Question 3. What are some consequences of Cheating?

Answer: Cheating can lead to expulsion or suspension from school, class failure, degraded academic reputation, lowers self respect.

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Education: Why Do Students Cheat? Essay

Introduction, works cited.

Cheating is a common phenomenon among students at all levels of education. It happens in high schools, colleges, and universities. In addition, it occurs in both traditional and online settings of learning. Students have sufficient time and resources that give them the opportunity to work hard and pass their exams through personal effort (Davis et al. 35). This begs the question: why do students cheat?

Research has revealed that several reasons and factors are responsible for cheating in schools. A study conducted to find out the prevalence of cheating in colleges found out that approximately 75 percent of college students cheat at one time in the course of their stay at school (Davis et al. 36).

There is need to find a lasting solution because cheating does not reflect the real potential of students. Effects of cheating are reflected in students’ performance at workplaces. Students cheat because many schools define excellence through grades, lack of self-confidence with one’s ability, pressure from parents and teachers to do well, and poor teaching methods that do not fulfill the goals of learning (McCabe et al. 51).

Students cheat because many institutions of learning value grades more than attainment of knowledge (Davis et al. 36). Many school systems have placed more value on performing well in tests and examination than on the process of learning. When assessment tests and examinations play a key role in determining the future of a student, cheating becomes an appropriate channel to perform well (McCabe et al. 51).

Few institutions encourage mastery of learning materials rather than tests. In such institutions, students develop a positive attitude towards education because they are not worried about their performance in tests (Davis et al. 37). They focus more on the attainment of knowledge and skills. Psychologists argue that placing high value on tests teaches students to value short-term effects of education and ignore the long-term effects.

True or false questions, multiple choice questions, and matching tests are examples of assessments used by institutions that value grades (McCabe et al. 53). On the other hand, essay questions, research papers, and term papers are methods used to teach in institutions that value the learning experience and attainment of knowledge more than grades (Davis et al. 39).

Lack of confidence in their abilities motivates students to cheat. Lack of adequate skills and knowledge are some of the reasons that lead to the loss of confidence by students. According to McCabe et al,

“Teachers who focus more on grades have poor methods of teaching compared to teachers who value knowledge.” (51).

Students who think that they are not smart enough to cheat are more likely to cheat in order to get good grades. Learning that puts emphasis on grades involves repetition and memorization of learning materials (Davis et al. 41). Students forget much of the knowledge gained after sitting for their exams. Bored students have little or no connection to their teachers and are therefore likely to cheat because they are never prepared.

Such learning methods make learning boring and uninteresting (McCabe et al. 53). It does not motivate students to work hard and attain knowledge that could be useful in their careers. Interactive learning endows students with the confidence, which makes them believe in their ability to handle all kinds of challenges and situations (Davis et al. 42).

Students cheat because of pressure exerted on them by their parents and teachers to attain good grades (McCabe et al. 54). Many teachers and parents gauge the abilities of students by their grades. Many colleges use grades as a way of choosing the students who are qualified to join college. Self-efficacy is an important aspect of learning because it gives students the confidence to handle various tasks (McCabe et al. 55).

Teachers can cultivate a sense of self-efficacy in students by believing in all students regardless of their grades. However, many teachers alienate students who get low grades and give more attention to students that get high grades. On the other hand, many parents promise to take their children to college only if they get high grades. This motivates students to cheat in order to gain entry into college.

It is important for teachers and parents to find the weaknesses and strengths of all students and help them to exploit their potential. Sidelining some students is wrong and a good enough reason to cheat.

Another reason that explains why students teach is poor leaning and teaching methods (Davis et al.44). Good learning methods involve movements, inventions, creativity, discussions, and interactions. These methods improve comprehension among students and facilitate proper sharing of knowledge. However, many teachers find these methods tedious and time-consuming.

The aftermath is resentment form students because the teachers use methods that make learning boring. People learning through various methods. In addition, different students have different learning needs (McCabe et al. 56). Therefore, using a single teaching method does not serve the needs of all students. Some students develop a negative attitude towards learning and their teacher.

These students are likely to cheat in exams. Teachers should evaluate their students in order to develop teaching methods that cater to them all (McCabe et al. 58). Otherwise, some students might feel neglected in case they fail to comprehend certain subjects or disciplines.

Finally, students cheat because of laziness and lack of focus. According to Parker, students cheat because of lack f goo morals and laziness. According to Parker,

“A startling number attributed variously to the laziness of today’s students, their lack of a moral compass, or the demands of a hypercompetitive society.” (McCabe et al. 59)

She further argues that society demands much of students. This leads to cheating because students feel under pressure to perform well. Laziness is common among students. Students who waste their time on unimportant things have little time to study and do their homework (McCabe et al. 62).

They are unprepared during exams and result to cheating in order to perform well. On the other hand, many employees determine the capabilities of potential employees based on their grades. This motivates students to cheat in order to get high grades.

Reasons for cheating include lack of self-confidence in one’s ability to perform well, pressure from parents and teachers, and poor teaching methods that do not fulfill the learning needs of all students. In addition, many learning institutions place great value on grades rather than the acquisition of knowledge. Cheating is a common phenomenon among students at different levels of learning.

More research needs to be conducted in order to ascertain why students cheat. Further research is necessary because different students cheat for various reasons. Moreover, it is important for teachers to lay more emphasis on the acquisition of knowledge and skills rather than good grades.

Students have different learning needs that are satisfied using different teaching and learning methods. Teachers should evaluate their students in order to determine the most important teaching methods that cater to the learning needs of all students.

Davis, Stephen, Drinan Patrick, and Gallant Tricia. Cheating in School: What We Know and What We Can Do . New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Print.

McCabe, Donald, Butterfield Kenneth, and Trevino Linda. Cheating in College: Why Students Do It and What Educators Can Do About It. New York: JHU Press, 2012. Print.

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Why Students Cheat: Causes of Cheating

Common Reasons Students Cheat

Poor time management, stress/overload, wanting to help friends, technological development, pressure to succeed, disinterest in the assignment, high schools aren’t teaching research, "everyone does it" phenomenon, different understanding of academic integrity policies, when cheating is acceptable.

• High-stake assessments . Many students believe that it’s okay to cheat during life-changing assignments, for example, when an exam determines whether they will proceed to the next academic level, receive a scholarship, etc.
• Boring and irrelevant subjects . Being more career-focused, students are likely to cheat without any remorse if the subject has no value in their future life. Moreover, they find it acceptable to behave dishonestly if teachers have failed to awaken interest in their subject.

How to Prevent Students From Cheating

• Encouraging a collaborative community . A cheating climate at school or college should be substituted with a climate of collaboration. Teachers should not only be considered the ones who evaluate performance, but also the ones who are ready to share their knowledge and answer questions to provide students with a better understanding of their subject.
• Developing academic culture . In their attempts to reduce academic dishonesty, educational institutions should provide their students with both horizontal and vertical support. Whereas the latter implies developing an honor code, comprising models and standards of ethical behavior, horizontal support can be explained as an environment where students show a good example to each other, thus underlining the unethical nature of cheating. One possible way to bring this idea to life is to establish honor councils, where students can take responsibility for spreading integrity within their institution.
• Using thoughtful language . There is a significant difference between praising a student for great results and their efforts. The former focuses on performance and may stimulate students to cheat while they are trying to meet teachers’ high expectations. The latter, in contrast, serves as a stimulus for further progress. Thus, it’s recommended to use phrases based on the formula “praise for achievement/effort + note what could be done better”.
• Reduce student overload . As mentioned before, students are more likely to cheat when they don’t have enough time to get into the details of a subject. Therefore, teachers should analyze their program to spot repetitive homework assignments, excessive tests, etc.

What Can Administrators and Faculty Do to Help?

What are the reasons why students cheat, why do students cheat cause and effect, in what ways do students cheat, what students are more likely to cheat, what does cheating do to a student.

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When does getting help on an assignment turn into cheating?

Policy Fellow, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University

Disclosure statement

Peter Hurley is affiliated with the Mitchell Institute for Education and Health Policy at Victoria University.

Victoria University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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Students – whether at university or school – can get help from many places. They can go to a tutor, parent, teacher, a friend or consult a textbook.

But at which point does getting help cross the line into cheating?

Sometimes it’s clear. If you use a spy camera or smartwatch in an exam, you’re clearly cheating. And you’re cheating if you get a friend to sit an exam for you or write your assignment.

At other times the line is blurry. When it’s crossed, it constitutes academic misconduct. Academic misconduct is any action or attempted action that may result in creating an unfair academic advantage for yourself or others.

What about getting someone else to read a draft of your essay? What if they do more than proofread and they alter sections of an assignment? Does that constitute academic misconduct?

Learning, teaching or cheating?

There are a wide range of activities that constitute academic misconduct. These can include:

fabrication, which is just making things up. I could say “90 % of people admit to fabricating their assignments”, when this is not a fact but a statement I just invented

falsification, which is manipulating data to inaccurately portray results. This can occur by taking research results out of context and drawing conclusions not supported by data

misrepresentation, which is falsely representing yourself. Did you know I have a master’s degree from the University of Oxford on this topic? (Actually, I don’t)

plagiarism, which is when you use other people’s ideas or words without appropriate attribution. For instance, this list came from other people’s research and it is important to reference the source.

Sometimes students and teachers have different ideas of academic misconduct. One study found around 45% of academics thought getting someone else to correct a draft could constitute academic misconduct. But only 32% of students thought the same thing.

Read more: Assessment design won’t stop cheating, but our relationships with students might

In the same survey, most academics and students agreed having someone else like a parent or friend identify errors in a draft assignment, as opposed to correcting them, was fine.

Generally when a lecturer, teacher or another marker is assessing an assignment they need to establish the authenticity of the work. Authenticity means having confidence the work actually relates to the performance of the person being assessed, and not of another person.

The Australian government’s vocational education and training sector’s quality watchdog, for instance, considers authenticity as one of four so-called rules of evidence for an “effective assessment”.

The rules are:

validity, which is when the assessor is confident the student has the skills and knowledge required by the module or unit

sufficiency, which is when the quality, quantity and relevance of the assessment evidence is enough for the assessor to make a judgement

authenticity, where the assessor is confident the evidence presented for assessment is the learner’s own work

currency, where the assessor is confident the evidence relates to what the student can do now instead of some time in the past.

Generally speaking, if the assessor is confident the work is the product of a student’s thoughts and where help has been provided there is proper acknowledgement, it should be fine.

Why is cheating a problem?

It’s difficult to get a handle on how big the cheating problem is. Nearly 30% of students who responded to a 2012 UK survey agreed they had “submitted work taken wholly from an internet source” as their own.

In Australia, 6% of students in a survey of 14,000 reported they had engaged in “outsourcing behaviours” such as submitting someone else’s assignment as their own, and 15% of students had bought, sold or traded notes.

Getting someone to help with your assignment might seem harmless but it can hinder the learning process. The teacher needs to understand where the student is at with their learning, and too much help from others can get in the way.

Read more: Children learn from stress and failure: all the more reason you shouldn't do their homework

Some research describes formal education as a type of “ signal ”. This means educational attainment communicates important information about an individual to a third party such as an employer, a customer, or to an authority like a licensing body or government department. Academic misconduct interferes with that process.

How to deal with cheating

It appears fewer cheaters are getting away with it than before. Some of the world’s leading academic institutions have reported a 40% increase in academic misconduct cases over a three year period.

Technological advances mean online essay mills and “ contract cheating ” have become a bigger problem. This type of cheating involves outsourcing work to third parties and is concerning because it is difficult to detect .

Read more: 15% of students admit to buying essays. What can universities do about it?

But while technology has made cheating easier, it has also offered sophisticated systems for educators to verify the work is a person’s own. Software programs such as Turnitin can check if a student has plagiarised their assignment.

Institutions can also verify the evidence they are assessing relates to a student’s actual performance by using a range of assessment methods such as exams, oral presentations, and group assignments.

Academic misconduct can be a learning and cultural issue . Many students, particularly when they are new to higher education, are simply not aware what constitutes academic misconduct. Students can often be under enormous pressure that leads them to make poor decisions.

It is possible to deal with these issues in a constructive manner that help students learn and get the support they need. This can include providing training to students when they first enrol, offering support to assist students who may struggle, and when academic misconduct does occur, taking appropriate steps to ensure it does not happen again.

• Exam cheating
• Contract cheating
• University cheating
• Academic misconduct

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Cheating — Argumentative Essay About Cheating

Argumentative Essay About Cheating

• Categories: Cheating

About this sample

Words: 602 |

Updated: 16 November, 2024

Words: 602 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Reasons for cheating, impact of cheating.

• Johnson, A. (2019). The Impact of Technology on Academic Dishonesty. Journal of Educational Technology , 12(3), 45-56.
• Smith, J., & Jones, R. (2018). Academic Pressure and Student Cheating: An Analytical Study. Education Research Quarterly , 21(4), 75-89.

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