Cheating in schools: causes, prevalence, and contextual factors

Ethical Issue in Education: Cheating in Schools
1.1. Introduction
Cheating is a big issue of concern in many educational institutions. The word cheating can be simply defined as the act of presenting the work of others as your original work. It may involve copying during exams, seeking unauthorized assistance when doing assignments, or plagiarizing other peoples works (Wilkinson, 2009). As mentioned above, cheating in academics is already a big issue of concern and the issue is seemingly getting out of hand in many countries. It is a problem from elementary schools straight through to graduate schools. Several researchers have confirmed this and are in agreement that it is a problem that is global (Mc Cabe, Terivino, & Butterfield, 2001). The problem of cheating is also evolving. For instance, while cheating in the past was simplistic, it nowadays involves the use of technology. Students are now using smartphones and other technological devices to get unauthorized access to examination materials before the date of examination or to get answers illegally during examinations. The use of technology in cheating has made the academic cheating even more difficult to stop for education officials and policymakers (Johnson & Martin, 2005).
Many studies have been done to investigate the school contextual factors that lead adolescents into certain unwanted or wanted behaviors and mannerisms (Granvik-Saminathen et al. 2018; Ramberg et al. 2018; Rutter & Maughan, 2002; Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000). However, not as many studies have specifically investigated the link between school contextual factors and cheating among students (McCabe et al. 2012). Moreover, the existing body of research on the factors influencing cheating in schools also does not have many studies that take into account the morality of individual students (Yu et al. 2017).
Cheating has become more prevalent in high schools and even college campuses throughout the country. It has become a huge problem and turned students into seekers of unwarranted success instead of honest young men and women with the integrity and courage to take tests without any assistance. Cheating is defined in different ways throughout literature. Simply put cheating is academic dishonesty. But a comprehensive definition of the vice is that it is the act of students receiving or giving unfair and unauthorized assistance for the purpose of passing an exam or an assignment. It is an unfair and an unethical behavior. Plagiarism is also considered a form of cheating throughout the body of research on student cheating (Kaufman, 2008).
Assumptions
Several assumptions were made for the purpose of understanding why individuals engage in academic cheating. The main assumption is that students cheat because it pays. There are obviously huge risks for academic cheating but those who do it undetected usually end up getting into the elitist colleges and graduate schools they want to get into and end up with high-paying jobs.
The study also assumes that students cheat because they fear failing, because they are lazy, because they do not have good role models, because of poverty, or because of lack of enough time to prepare for exams (Roberts, 2002).
Another assumption is that technology has made it easier for students to cheat. Technology includes smartphones and hearing aids that have made it easier for students to get unauthorized access to answers during examinations.
Some students also feel a lot of pressure to perform. The pressure usually results in them plagiarizing assignments or cheating during exams to impress their parents or peers (Moeck, 2002).
Lastly, this study assumes that many students do not regard academic cheating as a serious offense. They think of it as sort of bending the rules and not breaking it. This makes them justify cheating and do it while downplaying the possible consequences (Dahiya, 2015).
1.2. Ethics and Cheating
School officials have to make many decisions every day in the running of schools. For example, they have to develop and implement school programs. They also have to evaluate the said programs regularly to make sure things are going as planned. Additionally, they have to administer the day to day operations of the school, supervise the schools teachers and other employees, respond to the needs of the students, manage the financial aspects of school operations, respond to and implement government policies, and to manage public relations. All the decisions that school officials can influence either the school, the teachers, the students, or other stakeholders in one way or the other. Apart from the direct effects, it is also known that the decisions taken by the school officials and their behavior influences the ethical culture of the schools they run. When school officials understand this, they can gain a lot by then positioning themselves to offer ethical school leadership. The positioning involves taking active steps to learn about ethical leadership and becoming more aware that most decisions involve taking into account ethical issues. This will help them to learn how to take the right decisions, how to prioritize the right things, and how to positively inspire and mentor students into doing the right thing. And when the officials consistently provide ethical leadership, they will create an ethical culture that will be automatically adopted by most stakeholders (Tomal, Brierton, Wilhite, & Graham, 2015).
Ethics is the English word for Greek term Ethos. The meaning of the term in Greek is character. Character is moral behavior and can be influence by religion, culture, and society. Therefore, ethics with regards to school leadership is the sum of moral behavior or rules that dictate behavior or conduct in schools. Ethics always reflects the generally held beliefs about what is right or wrong, just or unjust, and good or bad in terms of social behavior. In other words, it is what the society holds as acceptable or unacceptable. Ethics can be measured by both unwritten and written principles and standards. Accordingly, ethical leadership is a leader’s ability to model followers to follow certain behaviors and rules in their decision-making. Ethical behavior is always not standard; perception and analysis of situation usually determines the actions or decisions that will be taken (Tomal et al, 2015).
1.2.1 Ethical Priming
One’s ethical behavior is usually influenced by both his or her conscious and subconscious mind (Reynolds, 2006). The subconscious influence of ethical behavior can happen via priming. According to Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971), priming is a psychological concept where when one is exposed to a certain stimulus and made to react in a certain way, they will react in a similar type of way when exposed to the same stimulus. So ethical behaviors can be primed. In other words, one can be molded to act the right way. In a study conducted a couple of years ago, it was found that students primed to consider their relational selves were less likely to cheat compared to those primed to consider their independent selves (Cojuharenco et al., 2012).
A study by Mazar and Ariely (2006) concluded that many people can tolerate a bit of cheating. They also concluded that honest students and cheating students do not have major differences in terms of the perception of their morality and honesty. Their point was that those who do a bit of cheating do not update/ adjust their perception of self in any negative way and that this makes them to think of cheating as more of bending existing rules rather them (Mazar et al., 2008; Shalvi et al., 2011; Welsh et al., 2014). Nevertheless, it has been found that such types of students can be primed to do the right thing. This can be done in several ways e.g. by reminding them that it is bad to cheat, by telling them the effects of cheating, by asking students to abide by the school moral code, and by having students do a mandatory ethics course (Mazar et al., 2008; Welsh et al., 2014).
1.3 Factors Associated with Cheating
An old study conducted in the 1990s by McGregor, Becker, Grover, and Davis, found that as many as 60% of students admitted to cheating at least once in school. The results were anonymous so no student was discriminated against for their response. In another study that had a population sample of 15,000 humanities, science, business, and engineering students from top universities, it was revealed that 87 percent of the business students cheat or have cheated at least once in college (Caruana, Ramaseshan, & Ewing, 2000). So cheating is a big and somewhat prevalent problem in colleges and universities. But why do students cheat? What factors make them or lead them to cheat.
Well, the modern American society is the number one reason why. The American society is capitalistic and very competitive. It is expected that everyone should work as hard as they can to beat all odds and succeed. This is not wrong in any way. However, when the competition becomes too much especially in schools for grades that could get one admitted to top schools, the pressure and stress can lead to young men and women resorting to cheating. So the pressure from the society to succeed and to do everything you can is a factor. Another factor that makes students resort to cheating is the failure to adequately prepare for an exams. This failure makes cheating to sound like the only other alternative. Researchers have discovered that there are also situational factors that can lead to teaching e.g. a lecturer’s teaching methods, the difficulty of an assignment or a class, where a student is seated in class, the size of class, and the size of the educational institution. In many studies, researchers have noted that students seem to demonstrate a lack of fear for punishment (Arnold, Martin, Jinks, & Bigby, 2007). Most cheaters usually just weigh the risks versus the rewards before deciding on whether to engage in academic dishonesty. If the situation is right, they cheat and if it is not, they are less inclined to cheat.
Researchers have also investigated the influence of personal factors in the inclination to cheat. Some of the personal factors that have been investigated previously include self-esteem, membership in certain character building organizations, course enrolled, personality, work ethic, GPA, and gender (McCabe, 1992). Some of these factors contribute to cheating while others make it difficult to cheat. In yet another study, researchers Barnett and Dalton (1981) noted that some of the factors that have very significant influence on whether or not someone will cheat include: moral will and judgment, lack of awareness of what constitutes cheating, personality, intelligence levels, the environment, and pressure to obtain good grades. Understanding these and the other factors of cheating discussed in this section will help in the development of solutions.
1.4 Cheating and Emotions
Several studies have attempted to investigate the emotions that cheating and non-cheating students feel about the academic dishonesty. Some have concluded that non-cheating students feel that they have been robbed and that it is unfair when they find out there has been cheating. However, the non-cheating students have also been found to be forgiving when the cheating students confess, apologize, and show remorse. Those who do not confess or show remorse are usually perceived negatively and for a long time (Kerby & Johnson, 2005). Nevertheless, the most frequently reported emotion by non-cheating students is indifference (Caruana et al., 2000). This has been explained as having to be related with the fact that cheating is quite frequent in campus that those who do not cheat do not care about it or quickly look past it.
1.5 Theoretical Framework
The literature review below looks at the theories that explain academic dishonesty and aspects related to it.
1.5.2 Social learning theory. Albert Bandura’s main argument in his social learning theory is that learning is cognitive and that it occurs in a social manner e.g. through direct instruction or observation regardless of whether there is direct reinforcement or motor-reproduction. Apart from observation and direct instruction, learning also happens via the observation or awareness of the rewards and the punishments for certain actions. This is referred to as vicarious reinforcement. Bandura’s theory is an expansion of several classic behavioral theories that primarily posited that learning was by reinforcements but did not clarify what internal processes resulted in a behavior being picked up or shunned.
The social learning theory (SLT) posits that learning is by observing and forming behaviors based on the observed consequences. SLT explains academic cheating as a consequence of observed behavior. Practically, SLT can be used to explain cheating as a consequence of students observing or becoming aware of the positive results of cheating e.g. better grades or less work. The results or ‘rewards’ push them to cheat. SLT can also be used to explain cheating in terms of moral disengagement. A student who cheats several times is likely to suffer cognitive distortion resulting in them viewing the transgressive behavior as acceptable and not an abandonment of societal norms. Thus, moral disengagement can lead to more continued cheating regardless of the risks. Moral disengagement is usually utilized to explain how people known to be generally committed to certain moral and ethical principles may end up violating some of them without being conflicted or feeling any guilt or shame (Farnese, Tramontano, Fida & Paciello, 2011).
1.5.3 Social development theory. Vygotsky’s theoretical framework main theme insinuates that social interaction has a huge role in cognition development. According to Vygotsky (1978), all functions in the cultural development of a child appears two times: earlier in the social level and later in the individual level; earlier among individuals (inter-psychological) and later inside the kid (intra-psychological). The same equally applies to logical memory, creation of concepts, and voluntary attention. Each of the higher functions actually commence as actual relationships among people (p57).
Vygotsky’s research partner Leont’ev (1932) based his research on the social originators of intentional action. The researcher concluded that signals issued by supervisors, working songs, and rhythmic drum beats gave continuance and direction to collective work. Therefore, the collective intentionality and inter-psychological origins of voluntary action would be seen in the rudimentary uses of shared maps, plans, reminds, prompts, and external signals. The potential of mediated intentionality and double stimulation are observed daily in the education sector. Academic cheating is a prime example. The test questions and instructions can be regarded as the object or first stimuli for a student. The mediating tool or second stimuli is the device used for cheating. It could be a hidden small piece of paper, smartphone, or hearing aid. Most students frequently use a small paper to write down as much information as possible in a small font of the topics they expect to be tested in the exams.

for the student. The cheating device, for example a paper slip, is the “second stimulus,” or the mediating tool. The cheating slip is typically a small piece of paper that can be hidden away from the teacher’s eyes and on which one writes what one considers to be the most essential information about a topic one expects to be included in the examinations. The ‘best cheating slip’ is that which is uses the small piece of paper economically to include as much relevant information as possible. Therefore, the creation of such a slip follows what the researcher Vygotsky referred to as the creation of an auxiliary means to master an object. The process of reviewing topics, summarizing information, and putting everything down neatly on a small piece of paper reflects the thought process of exam preparation. Therefore, cheating is not very contradictory to the purpose of going to school which is mastery of certain subjects by learning. Because the making and use of a cheating slip shows that a student is creating a new mediating tool for the mastery the subjects and topics going to be tested, which is essentially the purpose of traditional schooling. In other words, “good cheating” is a way to beat the traditional system of education (Daniels, Cole & Wertsch, 2007).
1.6 Rationale
The issue of academic cheating is seemingly on the up despite the fact that the problem is morally and societally unacceptable in many countries. Some students might through moral disengagement or other psychological processes consider cheating to be normal but it is unacceptable. This study looks into the issue and develops a plan to deal with it comprehensively. The thinking behind the development of the plan is that cheating is a huge problem in global education and that is why it must be checked and properly controlled. Many students are already aware of the fact that cheating is breaking the rules and that it is not fair to those who actually work hard but they still do it. Even though cheating has its rewards it almost always leads to catastrophic failure. This is why educational institutions must invent strategies and plans to deal with cheating and to punish those who are not ready to learn and master their subjects the right way.
1.7 Action Plan
1.7.1 Prevention of cheating. One of the best ways of minimizing cheating is to come up with a surrounding that does not entertain cheating itself. When a good relationship is existent between a professor and his learners and amidst learners themselves, the act of cheating is significantly minimized. It is a lot easier and simpler to cheat when the professor is unfriendly and cold. A pupil that sees themselves as a number and knows that their professor has no knowledge of their name finds it much easier to cheat when compared to a pupil that the professor knows by name. There is less cheating in class of learners with common goals and where learners are excited to learn. A class whereby the learners view their professor as a learning partner will most likely have very little cheating. Additionally, a professor that develops a repute of coming up with fair tests and also fair grading will experience less cheating when compared to a professor that has a repute of coming up with unfair tests or being a “difficult” grader. Learners must be challenged, but not overwhelmed. Discussing the rules of plagiarism and cheating with learners is important. A lot of learners are simply not aware of the rules regarding plagiarism, and so this particular discussion is very important and should definitely be held (Wankat & Oreovicz, 2015).
Another way of reducing cheating is minimizing the anxiety placed on exams (Kibler et al., 1988). Pressure on exams could be minimized by giving several tests or quizzes to learners. Allowing equal access to examination files minimizes the need to cheat among those who do not have access. Also, a short help session or access to TA’s or professors for assistance right before the exam helps minimize pressure as well. Open book tests or exams with important relations charts of equation handouts assist to minimize pressure as well as eradicates the usage of cheat sheets. Prior to the administration of an exam, some security measures could minimize the urge to cheat among learners. You might want to implement some of the suggestions below to help stop both intentional stealing and casual cheating of examinations. Write up a new test a few days prior to the examination date itself. Use a secretary to do the typing and produce copies, and not one of the learners. In case of waste copies, they should not be discarded as learners are known to search in waste baskets. They should, instead, be safely kept with other exams and later on thrown away after the test.
Computer files without password security ought to be cleared and/or disks locked up. Exam copies need to be locked up, carefully hidden or carried home. Even an honest pupil might be tempted if there is a copy of the exam on a desk. Have extra exam copies, but ensure that they are all numbered so that you can know the exact number of copies that have been handed out. Most common types of cheating happen during exam administration. Exams with long answers and several calculations are the most challenging for learners to cheat on. Multiple choice questions, on the other hand, invite cheating and are actually the simplest to cheat on. Questions with short answers are intermediate in terms of their ‘cheating ability”. In case of large classes, the professor and TAs should both supervise the exam. Supervision has been found to have a huge deterrent impact on cheating during tests (Kibler et al., 1988). The supervision should be should be conducted in a manner that is obvious that the supervisors are vigilant so that they can assist learners with questions.
Having a TA stand at the back of the class or lecture room is a good deterrent in the huge lecture halls as learners will not be capable of easily keeping track of the supervisor’s location. Also, if possible, have the learners sit in alternating seats as this significantly minimizes cheating involving wandering eyes. If a large room is not readily available, you could consider making use of two rooms. Allocate learners to both rooms in advance with supervisors for each room. Another option is to use alternate exam forms that contain either the answers or questions in different orders, or to simply use different values for calculations. Before commencing the exam, have the learners place their books beneath their desks, not unless it is an open book exam. Given that a lot of calculators are now capable of storing huge quantities of alphanumeric data, they are now considered a potential cheat sheet. The temptation to utilize the calculator in this manner could be minimized if you walk around the room looking for learners that might be in need of some assistance. Sharing of calculators amidst learners should be prohibited unless the calculator is first cleared by a TA. The importance of cheat sheets is eradicated if every pupil is permitted to carry one in the exam room or simply if the test is an open book test. Given that the intent is prevention and not finding proof of any cheating, you should take immediate action when something suspicious takes place. An appropriate deterrent might be going to stand near the learner while waiting to give answers to the queries of fellow learners. Asking the pupil of thy have any question is an intelligent way if making them aware that you are actually watching. However, if the situation still persists, tell the pupil to move elsewhere. If the pupil mentions that they prefer remaining in their present seat, suggest that you would prefer that they move. Other professors state to the entire class that learners should not look around the class. This could be effective, especially if the professor stares at any suspicious learner, but is somewhat distracting for the rest of the learners (Wankat & Oreovicz, 2015).
1.7.2 Cure for cheating. As soon as cheating is detected, solving the situation could be quite time consuming and painful. Cheating should be totally documented. Where possible, have an individual witness your evidence. In case of reasonable doubt that cheating has indeed taken place, put down the learner’s name on a piece of paper and be watchful. When proof of cheating is very clear, then get a copy of the institution’s regulation and carefully read them. Follow the institution’s regulations. The majority of institutions, especially universities, have rules and regulations in place that offer learners a proper due process for such occurrences. If the cheating allegations are made in good faith and you abide by the regulations of the university, then you are going to be protected from individual liability even when the learner is found not to be guilty of the offense (Kibler et al., 1988).
An effective way of affecting norms and minimizing cheating in higher learning institutions is using honor codes. Learning institutions with honor codes generally have lower cheating levels compared to those without. It has, however, been debated that it is actually not the honor codes themselves, but instead the learner’s perceived outlook towards integrity, ethics, and the supposed seriousness of the act of cheating that impact behavior (McCabe et al., 2001). Learning institutions without official honor codes might come up with a casual code of conduct which minimizes cheating. Indicating an institution’s devotion to integrity appears to be a major factor amidst these particular findings. For instance, various researches reveal that for the effectiveness of the honor code, learners actually need to be constantly reminded of the high ethical standards (McCabe et al., 2001), with using ethical primes in examination scenarios being a good way reminding learners (Grym & Liljander, 2017).
You will, however, be accountable if the learner is found innocent and you still decide to enforce penalties regardless. There are universities that permit the learner and their professor to discuss the case, and in case the learner confesses their offense, the penalty is decided by the professor. The penalty might range from scoring a zero in the exam to a lower overall grade in the unit or course. According to Kibler et al. (1988), this informal process that does not involve reporting of the case is slightly dangerous.