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How modern technology has made it easier for academic dishonesty to occur
Academic dishonesty introduction
Other forms of academic dishonesty
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In the education system, there is an expectation that students must succeed and earn exceptional grades. To meet this expectation, some students are willing to use alternative methods or cheat on academic work to gain higher grades. In the media, there have been several high profile cases of students committing academic dishonesty at prominent universities such as Harvard and Duke. Academic dishonesty is the term that describes any act of cheating in a formal academic setting. This includes acts such as plagiarism, fabrication, deception, bribery, impersonation, and sabotage. Access to the Internet and advancements in technology has made academic dishonesty easier for students to commit. The number of students who engaged in acts of academic dishonesty has increased exponentially (Aaron and Roche 161). Acts of academic dishonesty can also ruin the reputations and credibility of schools. Academic dishonesty is more prevalent in education in the United States today and has negative effects on students and academic institutions. Academic dishonesty is easier to commit today due to the increased access to the Internet and advancements in technology. Technology is involved in every aspect of modern American culture and society. In the 21st century, the Internet and electronic devices, such as computers tablets, and …show more content…
Plagiarism is easier to commit because students can copy and paste the research and the intellectual property of others into their work and submit the assignments as their own, original work. Students can search for answers during their tests and quizzes on the Internet using electronic devices such as smartphones (Roche and Aaron
Moeck, P. G. “Academic Dishonesty: Cheating Among Community College Students.” Community College Journal of Research and Practice 26 (2002). 479-91.
That stomach churning feeling of guilt for many seems to appear as a small price to pay when completing an act of academic dishonesty. Colleen Wenke wrote an essay on cheating eighteen years ago called “Too Much Pressure”. In the past fifty years, the number of students who admit to cheating has increased fifty to seventy percent(Gaffe). Many people wonder what leads the students to make this unjust decision. Today, the reason for a rise in cheaters is because of how easy it has become, leading many students to the false conclusion that they aren’t breaking any rules; It is simply viewed as a shortcut to success in the classroom and beyond.
Pressures from society to obtain a successful career require achieving an education in most cases. In today's economy having a thriving career could depend on our educational background as part of the ingredient to fuel our lifestyles. Students attending high school or college can relate to the pressures of sustaining adequate grades. Students who are overwhelmed with trying to maintain higher GPA standards push the academic barriers using technology to cheat. Our society is more advanced with technology such as computers, cell phones, text message systems, as well as various other electronic devices that could provide the avenue for a desperate student seeking a way to cheat in order to receive a higher GPA score. According to Ad Council (1999),"Grades, rather than education, have become the major focus of many students" (Ad Council, 1999). For those students in high school maintaining high GPA's could equal college scholarship programs needed to attend college. Students with peer pressures as well as pressures from parents to achieve higher grades could thrust students who are not motivated to study, to resort to cheating as an easy solution to an unethical problem. This research paper will discuss ways in which students are using technology to cheat. Other aspects of this paper will include statistics on academic cheating as well as ways instructors are catching students cheating. The pros and cons after using cheating detection programs as well as statistics that show significant changes after using the detection programs will also be discussed.
On a research paper, how much information can you “borrow” with or without citing the original author? How do you cite the resources you “borrowed” or quoted from the original author? Will anyone know if you submit a friend’s research paper? No one can see you taking an online test from your living room – should that change how you take a test?
Cheating by students in American schools has become a serious and growing problem. A 2005 poll of 12,000 college graduates in the contiguous United States with a 62% response rate showed the following: 45% of all students cheated on an examination that counted toward 10-20% of their grade and 51% cheated on an exam that counted toward 33-50% of their final grade. When asked why they cheated, 70% of cheaters stated that they did not fear failing the exams on which they cheated and that cheating for a "higher grade" was the primary motive. The most common method of cheating involved electronic technologies such as instant messaging via telephone, e-mail, internet searches, and other devices holding electronic versions of material covered on an exam. For outside classroom work, 71% of all poll responders admitted to copying homework from someone they considered "smarter". Of all the reponders, 43% of students stated that they had turned in an essay copied from the internet. Of the cheaters, 88% had turned in an essay copied from th...
How bad has cheating become over the years, the numbers in some cases are mind-boggling. In today’s day and age the amount of college students cheating is numbered to have maintain a steady figure of about 75 percent. (Lang, 2013) Cheating has been around since the beginning of time, some of the reasons behind most of the prolific cheaters are centered on what seems to be three main issues plaguing our society. Cheaters be it young or old, all seem to have what I call the “Big Three” in common. In my research on cheating, there were three things that continued to stick out, such as; procrastinating, the pressure to make the grade and it is easier to cheat rather then to do your own work. To the answer the question why college students cheat, we must first understand why, in order to find a solution on how to help avoid this continuing going forward. After reading this paper you will see that cheating has become prevalent in college, caused by a need to get better grades with less original work being done eventually the ends don't justify the means.
43% total graduate students, admited they have cheated on either written assignments or tests. 68% of undergraduate students admited that they have cheated on either written assignments or tests. “70,000 high school students at over 24 high schools in the United States demonstrated that 64 percent of students admitted to cheating on a test, 58 percent admitted to plagiarism and 95 percent said they participated in some form of cheating, whether it was on a test, plagiarism or copying homework (ICAI).”
Cheating is a big issue that has reached the most competitive campuses around the United States. It is increasing more and more with the new technology that we have in the 21st century because students have easy access to many sources of information. Cheating is something all students have done at some point in their lives, but as they reach a higher academic level, they are faced with more rigorous consequences that can affect their futures in many different ways. Cheating might be seen as an easy way to obtain a good grade, get into a good college, or maintain scholarships or financial aid, but the consequences could affect the life and the future of the student.
Academic dishonesty has been a big issue that many faculties have to deal with all the time in classrooms in today’s academic environment. In a report founded by Thomas & O’Reilly (2002), “74 percent of American students admit to cheating on an exam. So imagine how many really are. Forty percent of adolescents say they have stolen from a store and a whopping 93 percent say they lie.” With such a huge percentage of students cheating with the use of technology, it has become an epidemic that is spreading like wild fire. Since technology was introduced in the class environment, it has become the number one concern to some instructors because many students are not using it too learn, but instead students are using technology to cheat in assignments and other work that may involve school work.
Academic integrity has been a major concern among many colleges and universities across the world. Many people may ask the question: what is academic integrity? University of Missouri’s Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities (n.d.) states, “Academic integrity is the core set of values and principles that underwrites the very mission of the University itself; integrity, honesty, hard work, and the determination to translate personal and professional principles into behavior.” Some also may view academic integrity as the act of sustaining honest and rightful behavior in an academic setting that avoids, prevent and provide disciplinary actions for those who commits academic dishonesty, plagiarism and cheating of any kind. Majority of college and universities in all disciplines has academic ethics and honesty policies for all students regardless of their academic statues as undergraduate or graduate students. For example, Webster University’s Statement of Ethics (n.d.) for both graduate and undergraduate programs says, “Those who elect to partici...
Honesty and integrity are two major core Catholic and humanist values that many students in modern times seem to lack. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, honesty is defined as "the quality of being fair and truthful." Honesty plays a huge role in our society and daily lives. Honesty is a key characteristic that makes up a person, and defines who they truly are. Usually, if a person is very honest, which according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary means, “the quality of being honest and fair.” As you can see, the definition of honesty and integrity go hand in hand. Just as Spencer Johnson tells us, “Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.” Without honesty, there is absolutely no integrity. In the past few years, many major corporations conducted tests to determine how much of the world’s population was considered, “honest.” WalletTest.com conducted an experiment in which one hundred wallets were left on the streets on purpose, filled with a good amount of cash, and a picture identification card to explicitly show who the wallet belonged to. Of those one hundred wallets, seventy four of them were returned and twenty six were not. The sample of people they used were of mixed gender, age, and race, giving a good testing sample. The results were good, showing that most people were honest, and the honest people outnumbered the dishonest people nearly three to one. Honesty and integrity does not only play a large role in daily life situations, however. Honesty and integrity play a large role in academics in different levels of expertise: Elementary, High School, and College.
Cheating in the classroom has been happening since the first schoolhouse was built; however, it has more than doubled in the last decade due to the emergence of new technologies that give students high tech alternatives to looking at their classmate's paper. "A 2002 survey by the Josephson Institute of Ethics of 12,000 high-school students found that 74 % of students had cheated on an exam at least once in the previous year. According to Donald McCabe, who conducted the Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, study, the Internet is partly to blame. The Internet makes plagiarism very simple. In-class cheating has also gone high technology. Experts say students who cheat are not just scribbling tiny crib sheets anymore. They are using their cell phones to instant message questions and answers or storing notes on their graphing calculators." ("Eye on Cheaters," 2004)
Cheating on academic work is a serious issue that most students admit to doing at some point in their academic career. Elite students are surprisingly the culprits of cheating, but hide it well. (Romm, para 5) Cheating is such a large issue that “70% of students from a sample of 1,800 from nine campuses said they had cheated at least once during their college careers.” (Schneider, para 9) Students cheat on academic work because of different, ongoing pressures in their lives. Understanding the student’s motives and pressures are essential to preventing cheating from occurring in the future. Students cheat for different reasons specific to them regarding their priorities, pressures and because of how easy it has become. Even though eliminating cheating will not happen, there are actions that educational professionals can and should take to prevent most of it from happening so often. Therefor cheating problems are minimized and have a positive impact on the student’s education and understanding of concepts.
Academic dishonesty, specifically cheating and plagiarism, recently has increased in popularity. Students often justify unethical academic behavior. Technological innovations, like the cellular telephone, have provided students with new methods of cheating. Plagiarism has also been influenced through technologies, specifically internet companies have emerged that provide unethical solutions to academic assignments.
From a young age we are taught the differences between right and wrong, but as we get older the line between moral and immoral is often blurred. Things that were once thought of as unacceptable are now perfectly fine in our minds. Have you ever seen anyone cheat on an assignment or exam? Do you know anyone that’s been expelled from school for cheating? What if it was discovered that a U.S. senator plagiarized his college thesis paper? Imagine if it got out that one of the most respected universities in the U.S. was involved in a huge fraud scandal that involved thousands of students. Academic cheating is a terrible offense because it is unethical, self-degrading, and can be detrimental to the learning environment.