Should Universities And Colleges Should Require Students To Report Their Classmates?

In the article, LA Times, by Mari Pearlman “Cheating in School Reflects Basic Confusion in Society” talks about how cheating is wrong. Pearlman explains how cheating in school can affect students later on in life. Many students cheat whether their in elementary, high school, or college, cheating is everywhere and everyone does it. Cheating is wrong in numerous ways and can result to bad habits in the future.

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

Source B shows us graphs of scenarios teachers and students see about cheating, such as taking out a phone, skipping class, or searching things up. The bar graph show that teachers greatly see more cheating than students. This might be because students really see cheating as helping and not something they aren’t supposed to do. It doesn’t help them realize that cheating is bad and they just don’t feel bad about it.

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

No matter what their reasoning is taking someone’s work and making it your is a fraud. Students have many reasons as to why they cheat however none of them are justifiable. They believe that what they are doing is not plagiarize or that no one will find out. Writing a paper is difficult it takes time to write a well thought out paper and that is the professor job to help his/her students write one. They need to figure out a why that will make sure the students will not go to the Internet for help. Tim Gabriel and David Callahan both have different views as to why students plagiarize but agree on the fact the these students are cheating because it is easy too. They also do not have the same reasons as to why students cheat but they do believe that plagiarism is wrong and it needs to end. Either the Internet needs to penalize students who copy and paste big paragraphs, or the university’s need to start putting more effort in educating their students on

The requirement of students reporting cheating they witness seems unnecessary as well due

The student becomes a sort of “accessory,” or “accomplice of crime”. That notion is not a solution to solving the problem of cheating, instead, it instills guilt, and consequently stress, into students who could have seen something they may not have wanted to see. Students should not be the police; it is not their responsibility. Although, it is there responsibility to discourage cheating. If a student wants to inform a superior about cheating, that should be the student’s choice, and should be based the student’s own conviction, not because they do not want to be

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.

The article “Moving From Cheating to Academic Honesty” by Eugene Bratek, speaks about cheating and how it is affecting students. It explains that students have learned to cheat to get a higher grade in school, and because of this many students at the top also cheat to stay at the top. Another topic the article spoke of is, that students use copy and paste, cheating by using others ideas and information. I completely agree that students have taken a liking to cheating to get a better score on a test and to get a better grade overall.

Cheating for many is simply a way of life. For others it is a sin in which they would never think to commit. For students in todays world they are stuck in the middle. Many students see cheating as the only way of passing a class. Where other students see as it as a last resort. No matter what side students are on, cheating is wrong, but even though it is wrong and extremely risky millions of students around the nation do it on a daily basis just to get by. Cheating is exactly what Mark Clayton talks about in the article tittle, “ A Whole Lot of Cheatin Going On.” The word that is most often associated with cheating is plagiarism. A word that makes students like myself cringe at the thought. The reason being if caught in this act of despair it can simply ruin your life, your academic life that is. Throughout the article Mark Clayton makes many good points about cheating, but because of his lack of opinions it takes a little more reading between the lines to find out his position on the touchy subject.

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.”

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

I believe that colleges and universities must follow and respect the laws of their states. Certainly it is known that many killings are happening in schools, colleges, and universities must find a better solution for such acts. Sure, I think that no one should bring a firearm to school, college, but how can we be sure that no one brings weapons. I do not think anyone will check each student or teacher to see if brought his gun or not. That would be nearly impossible and difficult. I think we have a better education in values, and respect the differences of each person. Something we are a Muticultural country, full of different races and cultures. I think that this change should start a change in the family home of each person. That's where

Schools should not punish students for off campus bullying because when the students are off campus the school has no control of the student.

When asking a student do they think cheating is bad most will say yes and will even admit to cheating.Cheating doesn’t affect many students on a regular day basis until they have been caught red-handed.When it comes to cheating blame automatically goes to the student but what about the adult as well.Some teachers have admitted to seeing student cheat but haven't said anything because it was on homework.Some teachers have even gone to the depth of helping a student cheat on a test.There was a survey that was taken through all of the high schools asking students if they had ever cheated on a test, the results were that there were 64 percent who cheated,58 who plagiarised, and above all 95 percent of them admitted to cheating of some sort.(Academic Integrity Under Statistics paragraph 3 )Students cheat to make it through a semester and to make their parents proud.Students cheat simply because of lack of knowledge, pressure from the adult looking for them to do their best, and last lack of time.