Academic Dishonesty Essay

Children are warned not to be dishonest throughout multiple aspects of life, and this ideal is consistently reminded throughout higher academic institutions and other professional settings. Academic dishonesty describes student behavior which is not in accordance with the ethical standards or ideas considered to be good in a specific culture (Muñoz-García & Aviles-Herrera, 2014). In one study related to academic dishonesty among children, experimenters concluded after the first test that there was a large rate of children who were engaging in academic dishonesty (Callender, Olson, Kerr, & Sameroff, 2010), however the reasoning behind the majority of children cheating can be due to the young age of the children and the innate disregard to follow

Academic dishonesty can impoverish the quality and evaluation of the educational system (Muñoz-García & Aviles-Herrera, 2014), making more meaningful learning much more difficult. One of the main problems with cheating is that students may be going to college with less academic skills than in past years. That may ultimately result in the student feeling forced to cheat again, in order to keep up with peers. The excess amount of cheating can ultimately cause great distress on the student. Academic dishonesty has cognitive, emotional, and social consequences directly affecting students’ well-being. According to Shu and Gino, academic dishonesty has been linked to poor mental health. The negative feelings associated with dishonesty may include guilt, discomfort, or even anxiety. However, some research shows that in order to reduce the psychological distress, one must modify the way they view cheating so that cheating may seem as less of a problem than it really is (Shu & Gino, 2012). One study by Shu and Gino revealed, participants who cheated in a task remembered fewer moral items than those who did not cheat. The study shows how acting dishonest motivates people to forget moral rule, and this can be linked back to academic dishonesty. Academic dishonesty can also cause dangerous problems in future professional contexts. In a study done by Rebekah LaDuke, medical students who cheated in the classroom were more likely to behave dishonestly in nursing school and in practice. Some of the reported behaviors included stealing medication, lying on patents’ charts, and coming into a professional setting while under the influence of drugs (LaDuke, 2013). All of the behaviors can be extremely dangerous in the medical field, and could ultimately hurt others. The multiple studies have shown how dishonest behavior can harm the person, their