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Fact Sheet on Cheating in College

Academic Integrity

Fact Sheet on Cheating in College

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Cheating and its related issues have been studied extensively for decades. There’s an overwhelming amount of literature. However, results from the past and the present confirm that cheating has been and continues to be a serious problem in higher education. Here’s an overview of what’s been studied and is known about cheating. The answers provided are broadly supported by the research and illustrated here with brief highlights from a few sample studies. This overview focuses on work published since 2000. Plenty of good research was done before then and is well summarized by McCabe, Trevino, and Butterfield (2001). The findings reported previously continue to be supported by more recent research. How widespread is cheating? It depends on the study but most report the percentage of students who cheat in the 50-90% range. Cheating in classrooms
  • 75% of 824 students in 14 different graduate and undergraduate business classes. (Chapman, David, Toy, and Wright, 2004)
  • 5% of all students at a small liberal arts institution. Cheaters were defined as students who more than once engaged in any one of 17 cheating behaviors. (Kidwell, Wozniak and Laurel, 2003)
  • 92% of students surveyed in an online business course had cheated or knew someone who had (Jones, 2011)
  • 86% of a 268-student cross disciplinary sample reported they had cheated (Klein, et. al. 2006)
Cheating in online courses
  • Almost 75% of a cohort of 121 undergraduate business students believe that was easier to cheat in online courses than in traditional classrooms (King, Guyette, Piotrowski, 2009).
  • When 84 MBA and undergraduate business were asked, 47% of MBA students and almost 38% of undergraduates thought it was easier to cheat in online courses (Larkin and Mintu-Wimsatt, 2015)

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Cheating and its related issues have been studied extensively for decades. There’s an overwhelming amount of literature. However, results from the past and the present confirm that cheating has been and continues to be a serious problem in higher education. Here’s an overview of what’s been studied and is known about cheating. The answers provided are broadly supported by the research and illustrated here with brief highlights from a few sample studies. This overview focuses on work published since 2000. Plenty of good research was done before then and is well summarized by McCabe, Trevino, and Butterfield (2001). The findings reported previously continue to be supported by more recent research. How widespread is cheating? It depends on the study but most report the percentage of students who cheat in the 50-90% range. Cheating in classrooms Cheating in online courses Are students cheating more than they used to? Yes. Why are students cheating? The reasons vary but most commonly they do so for better grades, for reasons related to time pressures and because they can. What behaviors are considered cheating? With some behaviors (copying answers, turning in someone else’s work) there’s widespread agreement. For other behaviors (like plagiarism) there’s confusion. And there are certain areas of significant disagreement between students and faculty (such as collaboration on take-home exams). Do students recognize that cheating is unethical? Yes, in a very general sense, students understand that cheating is unethical. However, the seriousness of the offense appears to be declining. How often do students report the cheating and which students are more likely to report it? The percentages who report vary but most are well below 50% and women are more likely to report it than men. Who cheats the most and the least? A variety of individual and situational factors have been shown to be related to cheating. However, in most cases, research results are mixed, with the most notable example being gender. Most of the research exploring who cheats was conducted before for 2000. See McCabe and Trevino (1997) for an example. Does cheating in college predict cheating in the workplace? Yes. What works to decrease the amount of cheating? The fear of getting caught. What is the faculty response to the cheating problem? References Beasley, E. (2014). Students reported for cheating explain what they think would have stopped them. Ethics and Behavior, 24 (3), 229-252. Becker, D., Connolly, J., Lentz, P. and Morrison, J. (2006). Using the business fraud triangle to predict academic dishonest among business students. Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, 10 (1), 37-54. Blau, G., Kunkle, M., Mittal, N., Rivera, M., and Ozkan, B. (2017). Measuring business school faculty perceptions of student cheating. Journal of Education for Business, 92 (6), 263-279. Brernardi, R. Goetjen, E., and Brax. J. (2013). Whistle-blowing in the classroom. The influence of students’ perceptions of whistleblowers, Accounting for the public interest: An international perspective on accounting in society. In S. Mintz (Ed.) The advances in business ethics research series (4th ed., pp. 247-271), Dordecht: Springer Science Press. Chapman, K., Davis, R., Toy, D. and Wright, L. (2004). Academic integrity in the business school environment: I’ll get by with a little help from my friends. Journal of Marketing Education, 26 (3), 236-249. Brown, B. and McInerney, M. (2008). Changes in academic dishonesty among business students in the United States, 1999-2006. International Journal of Management, 25 (3), 621-632. Grimes, P. (2004). Dishonesty in academics and business: A cross-cultural evaluation of student attitudes. Journal of Business Ethics, 49 (3), 273-290. Gullifer, J., and Tyson, G. (2014). Who has read the policy on plagiarism? Unpacking students’ understanding of plagiarism. Studies in Higher Education, 39 (7), 1202-1218. Jones, D. (2011). Academic dishonesty: Are more student cheating? Business Communication Quarterly, 74 (2), 141-150. Kidwell, L., Wozniak, K., and Laurel, J. (2003). Student reports and faculty perceptions of academic dishonesty. Teaching Business Ethics, 7 (3), 205-214. King, C., Guyette, R., and Piotrowski, C. (2009). Online exams and cheating: An empirical analysis of business students’ views. The Journal of Educators Online 6 (1), 11 pages Klein, H., Levenburg, N., McKendall, M., and Mothersell, W. (2006). Cheating during the college years: How do business students compare? Journal of Business Ethics, 72, 197-206. Lawson, R. (2004). Is classroom cheating related to business students’ propensity to cheat in the “real world”? Journal of Business Ethics, 49 (2), 189-199. McCabe. D., and Treveno, L. (1997). Individual and contextual influences on academic dishonesty. Research in Higher Education, 38 (3), 379-396. McCabe, D., Trevino, L., and Butterfield, K. (2001). Cheating in academic institutions: A decade of research. Ethics & Behavior, 11 (3), 219-232. Nonis, S. and Swift, C. (2001). An examination of the relationship between academic dishonesty and workplace dishonesty: A multicampus investigation. Journal of Education for Business, 77 (2), 69-78. Simon, C., Carr, J., McCullough, S., Morgan, S., Oleson, T., and Ressel, M. (2004). Gender, student perceptions, institutional commitment and academic dishonesty: who reports in academic dishonesty cases? Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 29 (1), 75-90. Smyth, M. and Davis, J. (2003). An examination of student cheating in the two-year college. Community College Review, 31 (1), 17-32.