Incivility often manifests itself on campus in the form of cheating and plagiarism. According to an extensive four-year survey of 14,000 undergraduate students conducted by Donald McCabe, two-thirds of students admitted to cheating on tests, homework, and assignments. Research shows that while cheating occurs among students of all levels, students at the top and bottom tend to cheat the most. According to McCabe, “The top’s cheating to thrive, the bottom’s cheating to survive.”
Researchers believe that students are seduced into cheating for a number of different reasons. One of the main drivers is the intense academic pressure some students put on themselves to succeed. Competition to get into good colleges and universities is fierce. Admission into top schools is often seen as a ticket to future success, and many highly motivated students will do whatever it takes to get in—even if it means bending the rules.
Another factor contributing to cheating is peer acceptance of the practice. According to David Rettinger, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Mary Washington, even when students know cheating is against the rules “most still look to their peers for cues as to what behaviors and attitudes are acceptable.” The belief that everyone is cheating creates a social norm among students that academic dishonesty is just a part of college life. This social norm of cheating may encourage students who might not otherwise cheat to do so just to stay competitive, especially when so many cheaters seem to get away with it.
Others cheat simply because they are not aware their conduct offends academic norms. This often occurs in the context of plagiarism when a student does not completely understand what is required for proper reference and citation. However, psychological research suggests that students that habitually cheat stop viewing their conduct as immoral.
Students typically just don’t start cheating when they arrive on campus. Most cheating begins in high school. A study by the Josephson Institute of Ethics of 40,000 high school students released earlier this year found that more than half of teenaged students cheated on a test during the last school year and one in three admitted to using the Internet to plagiarize an assignment. Likewise, cheating does not typically stop when students leave academia. There is research that suggests that academic cheating continues with other forms of dishonesty later in life, such as breaking workplace rules, cheating on spouses, or lying to a customer. Accordingly, curbing academic dishonesty and creating new community norms about cheating is crucial to educating responsible and civil adults.
Kent M. Weeks
