Will they do it anyway? Reactions to the Harvard cheating story by Bryan Mann

“No talking. Put all of your books away. Elevate a closed binder on your desk to block the view of your neighbor’s paper. Place your cell phone in my line of sight so I know you are not texting. No leaving the room until you hand me your test.”

When I taught high school, this is an example of something I would say to nullify my students’ ability to cheat. The statements annoyed my students, but I said them because I felt that without a deterrent, cheating would likely happen (and maybe happened anyway). Additionally, to buttress individual teacher practices like the in-class deterrents, the school created a committee for academic integrity, implemented a new list of standards, and wove discussions about honesty into a major portion of the agenda. A few instances of cheating, coupled with a fear that high pressure could lead to more cheating, caused our school to attempt to dispel any minor issues before they became problems.

These experiences put me in tune with the cheating discussion, so I was not surprised when I heard details about the alleged cheating scandal that befell Harvard University just before the fall semester. Essentially, the scandal involved up to 125 students who allegedly worked on an individual take-home exam in groups or other ways that administrators deemed inappropriate. This event has caused controversy and raised issues about cheating causes and cheating cures.  However, the topic of cheating is hardly new, as examples of discussions are readily available in books and reviews found in journal entries like one found in the American Journal of Education.

While the Harvard story was not a revelation into anything particularly new, I do think the distinct academic aura surrounding Harvard creates a timely moment to have a constructive discussion. I say this because the story made me wonder: in a time where honor codes and integrity agendas, like the ones found at the school where I taught, continue to be a major part of the academic discussion, do anti-cheating practices actually work? Or will students just cheat anyway? The answers I have found through literature, as well as my own experience, are that on a large-scale, it seems like students do cheat, and cheating will not stop. However, when studied locally, teachers and administrators can limit the degree of cheating.

One of the most shocking cheating statistics was highlighted in work done by Genereux and McLeod (1995). They found that up to 80% of all college students engaged in some form of academic dishonesty at some point in their academic careers (701). Likewise, while there are several variables that contribute to a student engaging in academic dishonesty, one of the most influential factors is academic pressure. Often, the more pressure students feel to succeed, the more they are tempted to cheat. So, as testing practices and competition seem to be a trend on the rise, it seems that cheating practices may head in that direction too (Finn & Frone, 2004, 120). Thus, a cultural message of “succeed no matter what” may lead to some students thinking that cheating is a necessary factor in the success equation.

However, while academic pressure may exacerbate cheating practices, there are ways to mitigate academic dishonesty, One main strategy is to focus on fostering an environment of honesty. For example, a student’s perception of cheating is a major factor in his or her likelihood of being dishonest, and “building a positive academic integrity culture appears to be an important avenue for promoting professional behavior and ethical conduct among students” (Kisamore, Stone & Jawahar, 2007, 391). What this means is that when teachers and administrators actively engage in creating a culture of honesty, students are more honest.

In addition to creating a school culture where honesty is valued, there are additional factors that individual instructors can control to lessen cheating in their own classrooms. Promoting an honest testing environment inhibits cheating, and “instructors who invest time and effort into being highly vigilant and constructing fair exams will reap benefits in terms of overall prevention and reduction of cheating in their classes” (Genereux & McLeod, 1995, 698). Ultimately, the main practices teachers can use to control cheating are to create fair assessments, to set clear expectations, and to enforce standards of ethical behavior.

Students cheat, and the pressures to cheat are certainly real. However, educators do have the power to mitigate cheating. What this means for teachers, professors, principals, and deans is that even if a school is highly competitive and its students do have the temptation to cheat, educators do not need to feel that the annoying statements, the honor codes, and the academic integrity committees are for naught. They do have an impact, and they do help ensure that cheating does not occur in the school. So, teachers, keep patrolling the room during test time because it really does make a difference.

 References

 Finn, K. V., & Frone, M. R. (2004). Academic Performance and Cheating: Moderating Role of

School Identification and Self-Efficacy. The Journal of Educational Research, 97(3), 115-122.

Genereux, R. L., & McLeod, B. A. (1995). Circumstances Surrounding Cheating: A

Questionnaire Study of College Students. Research in Higher Education, 36(6), 687-704.

Kisamore, J. L., Stone, T.H., & Jawahar, I. M. (2007). The Relationship between Individual and

Situation Factors on Misconduct Contemplations. Journal of Business Ethics, 75(4), 381-394.