Academic Dishonesty

Academic dishonesty undermines the purpose of graduate school because it devalues the student’s education and also hurts the reputation of the school. When a student devalues their education it shows that the student values a grade more than they value the lessons they are learning. In

Ethics are the principals that build an individual’s character and integrity. It is the code of conduct that a person lives by; it is the way that a person conducts themselves when no one is around. Stealing, lying, and cheating are wrong, yet every day in the workplace these issues occur. Growing competition lends to the need for people to do what they can to get ahead and stay ahead. Ethics are pushed to the side as people try to gain power or to stay out of trouble, all at the risk of tarnishing their character. This same mindset has spilled over into Academia. A student’s desire to successfully earn a degree by any means necessary has caused educational institutions to address these ethical issues by setting policies in place to combat academic dishonesty.

A study done in Source E shows that there are only eight percent of students that would turn in a fellow student for cheating. If that sort of dishonesty becomes rampant in a school, the honor codes can no longer be upheld properly. The honesty of students is key to the success of honor codes. If a student is dishonest about the misbehavior of another student, then the honor code goes to waste, because now the cheating has not been taken care of by the justice of the honor system. There is no foreseeable remedy for such behavior, and there will always be a “bad apple to ruin the bunch.”

Multiple studies have found that students are spending less time on their academic studies leading to a decrease in education and an increase in temptation of academic dishonesty.  Cheating has been prevalent since mankind existed, but writer William Chace gives his outlook on the issue in his article, “A Question of Honor”. Chace is able to use adequate reasoning to engage the reader in an article that depicts perspectives from every angle. Included within the article are a sense of sympathy, through explanations and even a proposed solution of how to end academic dishonesty.

If a college campus harbors an environent where cheating is seen as acceptable and an activity many people participate in, even students with correct morals and no desire to cheat themselves are less likely to report fellow students for unsavory behavior. This can also go a step further and that same student who failed to confront a peer for cheating, may give in to the school’s atmosphere and start cheating themselves. This makes them all the less likely to report other students for fear of appearing hypocritical and/or being reported themselves. A study on honor code effectiveness was completed by Sally Sledge and Pam Pringle at a small public university (Source E). Their results showed that only 8% of students would report a fellow student for cheating. Even more surprisingly, 40% of students anonymously stated that they had “violated the honor code and not been caught”. This points to a very cheater-friendly attitude at this particular school and shows that the honor system is not very effective in this

Add in that no dishonest students can work together and should be seated away from each other, and this will allow room for the honor code to take effect and be integrated accordingly. One might argue, that putting honest students with dishonest student will not work, because of the fact that cheating has already happened in schools that are known to have strict honor codes, such as the University of Virginia, in which Chris Khan, the author of the article “Pssst—How Do Ya Spell Plagiarism?” discovers, “Since last spring, 157 students have been investigated by their peers in the largest cheating scandal in memory. Thirty-nine of those accused of violating the school’s honor code have either dropped out or been expelled—the only penalty available for such a crime” (Source D.) However, Khan overlooks that just because an honor code is strict does not mean that it is effective in reducing cheating.

Chace, W. M. (2012). A Question of Honor: Cheating on campus undermines the reputation of our universities and the value of their degrees. Now is the time for students themselves to stop it. (Cover story). American Scholar, 81(2), 20-32.

Rules governing academic integrity among students and schools is a practice deeply entrenched in the American education system and that of those around the world. Likely beginning at the University of Virginia in the United States during 1842 as a way to discourage cheating, dishonesty, and plagiarism, it soon spread throughout the nation. Today, the overwhelming majority of schools in the US, from elementary to collegiate, have their own form of a honor code. Among these schools is Port Charlotte High School, PCHS abbreviated, whose own code of conduct is based heavily on students being educated about the effects that their cheating will have on their academic future and punishing those who are discovered to have cheated in any form. So far, these particular academic regulations have proven successful and because of this, the charge put forward by the school should continue to be maintained. Revising the Code of Conduct into a peer-enforced system creates is statistically inefficient, hostilities between students, and eliminating the honor code would easily produce a school where cheating reigns free.

In and out classrooms, students find various ways to cheat even without recognizing it. Having the honor-code ensures when the teacher isn’t paying attention students will take the initiative to not copy work off one another. However, Greenberg argues few students carry on that trust, “At Stanford, just 2.5 percent of honor code complainants during the 2008-2009 academic year were students.” The amount of time examined isn’t a large enough sample to determine if students hold each other accountable to the honor-code. Within a one-year span, there are many variables that can affect how students report cheating to assume they no longer feel the obligation to. “A 2009 survey by Princeton’s student newspaper revealed that, of the 85 students who said they had witnessed cheating, only four reported it…” (Greenberg). As a small percentage of the school population, observing one school and the total number of students is statistically insignificant. Even if Greenberg’s data suggest honor-codes fails to eliminate cheaters; much of her evidence is

Prior to completing the Academic Integrity Program, I thought academic integrity was as simple “not cheating.” I considered it a policy solely implemented to ensure that students learned the material. To me, cheating was mostly plagiarism, or trying to pass off someone else’s work as your own. It was not until I completed the program that I began to understand the long-term effects of cheating on the peers, the professor, and the institution. Now, I understand that cheating affects not just me, but also the other students in my courses and the university’s reputation. I also understand the reasoning behind the university’s strict policies regarding academic integrity violations, as they are in place to protect the student, the classmates,

America places a heavy emphasis on the crime of stealing. Starting at a young age individuals are taught that taking things that don’t belong to you is wrong. Once these children enter academic institutions, they learn that stealing does not just mean taking material objects, such as your friends Go-Gurt, or candy from the corner store, it also applies to idea and thoughts. In other words, intellectual property. Crimes involving intellectual property include, plagiarism, cheating on an exam, and submitting work that is not your own. Academic institutions have waged war on academic dishonesty through several methods, but the main combative tool they use is an honor code. These honor codes act as contracts that students agree to, acknowledging that they will be academically honest, not receive unauthorized aid, and so forth. These honor codes vary from institution to institution. The Honor Code in use at Hofstra University is a prime example of a classic honor code. However, to demonstrate the differences between honor codes we will also analyze the honor codes in effect at The State University of New York (SUNY) and University of Colorado Boulder (UC Boulder).

The principle of academic integrity stretches beyond the limits of a classroom. Good students are honest with themselves, their professors, their roommates, and their community.

Many researchers have indicated that cheating is a serious problem on campuses (Bowers, 1964; Engler et al., 2008; Gallant, 2008; Leming, 1978; McCabe, Trevino, & Butterfield, 2001). Studies completed by Bowers (1964) and McCabe and Trevino (1996) revealed nearly identical results regarding student-cheating behavior despite the 30 year time span; both studies identified that

Technology is rapidly evolving and changing, and as a result of the increasing availability and propagation of several forms of technology, academic dishonesty cases in every college and university have greatly multiplied and become a global issue. The issue on cheating behaviors in students is so pervasive and uncontrollable that it is almost considered as commonplace (Arhin & Jones, 2009). One of the hardest challenges for educators is knowing how and when to discipline their students. In the given scenario, there are several issues to take into account; the first and foremost being the issue of academic dishonesty. Academic dishonesty is defined by the Webster dictionary as the intentional participation in deceptive practices regarding one’s academic work or the work of another (Faucher & Caves, 2009). Jones (2011) states that many institutions of higher education have adopted academic dishonesty policies, instituted academic integrity tutorial completion prerequisites for next term registration, and acquired plagiarism software detection tools. They go on to say that within the past few years, high-tech cheating is gradually replacing the simple cut-and-paste cheating, and educators must be proactive and develop instructional strategies that integrate all facets of appropriate digital citizenship, that is, digital ethics. By implementing these academic dishonesty and integrity policies and making them attainable to

McCabe has said that an estimated seventy percent of college students have admitted to some type of cheating. He supports this claim by saying that the parties to blame here is the school system and the media. HBU defines academic dishonesty to when a student cheats or steals someone’s work and passes it as their own among these are a list of actions that count for academic dishonesty. Some examples being brought up about dishonesty is how in the NFL saw past the deflating incident in the Super Bowl were it seems like the media praised the player for his actions (Loschiavo). Therefor, students think it is correct to do be dishonest in their class work.