Cheating in College: Morality vs. Behavior Survey Study

Introduction

Cheating is a significant problem among college students, and prior studies have shown that a majority of students either cheat or implicitly condone cheating. In order to study this issue in a particular campus setting, self-report surveys were administered to 161 students inquiring about their opinions and experiences regarding cheating, and the likelihood that they would report a cheater. This study concluded that while a majority of students believe that cheating is never justified, that same majority has participated in cheating either actively or passively and would not be very likely to report cheating. This demonstrates that cheating is not a problem rooted in confused or "alternative" morality, but reflects a "hypocrisy gap" between student morality and student behavior.

Cheating is a significant issue in schools today. According to a study performed by California State University, "Most students (78%) reported cheating of at least one type" (Butler et al.). Past studies have apparently been somewhat conflicted regarding the causes and incidence of academic dishonesty. One campus study found that only 16.7% of students reported cheating in college, though far more reported cheating in high school. However, that study was skewed because it only included cheating on tests, while prior studies had included other tasks such as paper-writing and projects. Considering the ease of ordering custom papers online at any number of websites, one would be surprised if cheating on tests were the primary form of cheating in an academic setting. The California State University results included "thirteen cheating behaviors" (Butler et al.), which no doubt accounts for its higher positive results.

Background and Prior Research

Past studies on this issue have shown that intelligence is negatively correlated with cheating behaviors, which has consistently been identified as resulting from "a relationship between intelligence and moral development. Individuals with a higher level of moral development are less likely to cheat because that sort of behavior is morally wrong" (Rittman). However, one study's actual results seem to indicate that more intelligent students simply have less need to cheat in order to succeed, and may be less inclined to cheat regardless of morality. Those results show that honor students cheat slightly less than non-achievers, but that students who are qualified to be at the honor level yet choose to take regular classes instead are drastically less likely to cheat. This seems to indicate a meaningful connection between the relative difficulty of assigned work, rather than concrete intelligence quotients, and cheating frequency. Fear of failure is also listed as a significant motivator for cheating behavior.

The objective of this study is to determine what relationship, if any, exists between the moral perception of cheating and the tendency to cheat or to fail to report cheating in others. Gender is also considered as a possible correlating variable. It is hypothesized that there will not be a strong positive relationship between moral beliefs regarding cheating and the likelihood of actually cheating.

Method

All subjects were located on campus. Interviewers approached students randomly at various locations around campus, such as gyms and cafeterias, and asked if they were willing to take a short, informal, and confidential survey.

Students were asked four basic questions. The first asked them to indicate the degree — from "agree strongly" to "disagree strongly" — to which they agreed with the statement: "Cheating is sometimes okay if necessary to pass or do well in a class." The second asked whether they had cheated or observed cheating in class. The third asked, "How likely would you be to report someone that you saw cheating in one of your classes?" This question may have been slightly skewed, as it offered only three possible responses: "Very likely," "Somewhat likely," and "Not likely." The first two responses both imply that one would in fact report cheating, while only the third implies the opposite, which may have weighted responses toward reporting. The final question asked about gender.

Results were tabulated separately by each interviewer and then combined to create final tabulations. While interviewers had slightly different percentages for the individual questions, no interviewer showed particularly significant differences in overall trends.