Running Head: What causes students to cheat in college?

What causes students to cheat in college?

LI, QINA

LIQ4D1803

ALC 099

Instructor: Michele Secret

Submission Date : July 29, 2019

What causes students to cheat in college? !2
What causes students to cheat in college?

William Bowers, who first investigated cheating among college students across the

country 50 years ago, believes that academic cheating is more serious than educators have

estimated (Yu, Glanzer, Sriram, Johnson & Moore, 2017). According to his survey of 5,000

college students from 99 different schools, three-quarters of the students had cheated in one way

and half of the students had cheated in two ways (Yu, 2017). In recent years, the probability of

students cheating in schools is still increasing (Elias, 2017). As we all know, children represent

hope and future, they are the focus of attention in every country. Educators, schools and parents

should think about these questions: how to educate children? How should we stop the

proliferation of cheating? What is the root cause of students' cheating? This paper describes the

three main factors of students' cheating in school. It is hoped that schools and parents will

understand the root causes of students' cheating. Although some people think that students cheat

only because of their moral loss, there is no other reason, but this concept is one-sided.

Understanding the root causes of students' cheating is very important for schools, teachers,

parents and even the society, because education regulators can solve the problem of cheating

from the root causes, rather than through punishment and rules to regulate students' behavior. In

fact, the factors that lead to students cheating in school are their own factors, family factors and

peer factors.

The student’s own personal factors are one of the factors in school cheating (Bates,

2009). Regarding the situation of students cheating, whether they are subjective or objective,
What causes students to cheat in college? !3
students themselves account for a large proportion. However, one can not unilaterally believe

that students are only cheating because of their moral loss, and that the reasons for cheating are

diverse. If students are under too much pressure in their studies and lives, they may include

enrollment, average grades, rankings or pressure from parents and their own hearts (Bates,

2009). They are more likely to use illicit means such as cheating or plagiarism to achieve grades

and scores, thereby alleviating their stress and anxiety. The second reason is that some students

want to get higher scores by cheating (Bates, 2009). In schools, scores are the most direct basis

for students' excellence. However, some students cheat because they do not want to work hard or

in order to get scores beyond their ability. The third reason is the students' own attitude towards

cheating. Researchers believe that students' attitudes towards cheating, the environment of

cheating and teachers' attitudes towards cheating are all very important factors in cheating (Yu,

2017). If the students themselves has a tolerant attitude towards cheating, or the surrounding

environment is lax attitude towards cheating, or the teachers do not strictly prohibit cheating,

then it is possible to cause more students to join the ranks of cheating (Yu, 2017). Society,

parents and teachers should understand the students' own factors, pay attention to their growing

environment and psychological activities, and fundamentally avoid cheating is the important

thing. When schools discover that students cheat, relevant participants can not just focus on the

results of the incident and one-sided evaluation of students’ morale problems. They should think

more about personal factors of students.

The second important factor is the influence between peers, in other words, between

students and students. In school, a good learning atmosphere and environment are very
What causes students to cheat in college? !4
important, because students spend most of their time with their friends or classmates, whether

their peers cheat or not has a great impact on other students. When a student's friends or

classmates are successful through their own efforts, then they are more likely to learn and

progress together. If some people who are accustomed to cheating to achieve their goals form a

group, they will cooperate in cheating and plagiarism in an exam or other places. In addition, if

people around them get high marks by cheating, other students will be more likely to join in

cheating (Elisa, 2017). However, there is another situation that will affect students. If students

who cheat get high grades but fail to achieve the corresponding results through their own efforts,

then students will think that the results of cheating is a reasonable behavior, so more and more

students have cheating behavior (Elisa, 2017). The third point is that if most students around a

student cheat, then he will think that this is a normal thing, many people will do, such a

psychological will reduce guilt, more and more students are likely to be assimilated. In school,

peer pressure is one of the important factors that affect students' cheating. Parents and teachers

should try their best to understand the students' personality and their friends. The education

stakeholders should work together to create a good learning atmosphere and atmosphere to avoid

and control cheating among students.

The third factor comes from family factors. Many times people do not think that there are

family factors that lead to cheating, because most parents don't let their children cheat. However,

through research, it is found that children of highly educated parents are more likely to be

involved in cheating (Yu, 2017). The psychology of children of highly educated parents, one

hypothesis is that children of educated parents have more sense of vanity and stress than children
What causes students to cheat in college? !5
of other uneducated parents, so when students find that their abilities or efforts fail to achieve

high scores or good results, they want to succeed by cheating. In addition, the second reason for

family factors is that parents also have an important influence on the education of students in

childhood. A study of 231 students from three universities found that eighty percent of the

respondents admitted to cheating, while thirty five percent of the respondents claimed that they

had experienced corporal punishment in their childhood, such as being beaten or slapped (Qualls,

2014). Investigators believe that if parents had corporal punishment education for their children

in childhood, it would be more likely that children would participate in cheating (Qualls, 2014).

In addition, Madill and other investigators found that family communication is also very

important (Qualls, 2014). If parents seldom adopt open education and actively communicate with

their children and punish them when they make mistakes, they are more likely to cheat. Family

has an indispensable influence on children or students. Parents' attitude towards their children's

education has a great influence on a child's character and behavior. Parents should think about

the underlying reasons behind children's cheating, whether there are parents' own factors, and

how to solve the problem of children's cheating.

To sum up, there are personal factors, family factors and peer factors that lead to students'

cheating in school. Some people believe that students' cheating is due to lack of morality, but this

view is one-sided. If the education department wants to stop and control students' cheating in

school, parents and teachers need think about the root causes of students' cheating. From the root

cause, relevant participants should solve the problem from the source of cheating, instead of

blindly restricting students' behavior through strict means and regulations. Compulsory means
What causes students to cheat in college? !6
can not eradicate the causes, but can cause students' rebellious psychology or lead to students'

greater psychological problems. Young students are the hope of every country, so society and

schools should pay attention to the influence of cheating.

(1228 words)

What causes students to cheat in college? !7
References

Bates, C. (2009, February 20). A Student’s View: Why Cheating Matters. Chronicle of Higher

Education, p. A36. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/

login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=36815883&site=ehost-live

Elias, R. Z. (2017). Academic entitlement and its relationship with perception of cheating ethics.

Journal of Education for Business, 92(4), 194–199. https://doi- org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/

10.1080/08832323.2017.1328383

Qualls, R. C. (2014). The Relationship between Disciplinary Practices in Childhood and

Academic Dishonesty in College Students. College Student Journal, 48(3), 362–374.

Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=aph&AN=98748701&site=ehost-live

Yu, H., Glanzer, P. L., Sriram, R., Johnson, B. R., & Moore, B. (2017). What Contributes to

College Students’ Cheating? A Study of Individual Factors. Ethics & Behavior, 27(5),

401–422. https://doi- org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/10.1080/10508422.2016.1169535


What causes students to cheat in college? !8
Academic Summary A

In the article, “Academic entitlement and its relationship with perception of cheating

ethics,” Elias (2017) discusses the relationship between College Students' academic entitlement

and cheating ethics. According to the author's statistics, business school students are more likely

to cheat than other majors, and they are more likely to cheat in the workplace (Elias, 2017) .

Elias (2017) takes business students as samples, makes four hypotheses for research and

investigation, compares the relationship between cheating and academic entitlement through

questionnaires, data statistics and comparison, and finally summarizes the results and

conclusions. In the investigation, the author further studies the topic by studying the relationship

between the types of cheating and morality (Elias, 2017). In the first hypothesis, students

majoring in business have significant differences in their moral attitudes towards cheating in and

out of class (Elias, 2017) . The second hypothesis is that business students have different ethical

attitudes towards cheating in terms of age, GPA, gender, age and major (Elias, 2017) . Academic

dishonesty is negatively correlated with easiness and responsibility (Elias, 2017) . The third

hypothesis is that the academic entitlement of business students vary according to age, GPA,

gender, age, specialty and other factors (Elias, 2017) . The fourth hypothesis is about academic

entitlement and moral concepts; eligible students believe that cheating is more moral than high-

qualified students (Elias, 2017) . Elias’s (2017) research shows that younger students are more

qualified to receive education than older students, and that if they work in the future, they will

generate greater profits. Elisa (2017) demonstrates the relationship between the academic

entitlement of business students and the theoretical concepts of cheating through hypothesis
What causes students to cheat in college? !9
proving. At the same time, Elisa (2017) also explores the influence of cheating methods and

environment on moral concepts. The limitation of this study is that most of the students sampled

in this study come from big cities, and the first generation of college students with part of their

income and can not represent all business students (Elias, 2017). Therefore, it is necessary to re-

investigate the impact of socio-economic factors on academic entitlement (Elias, 2017). The

overall conclusion of this study, Elias (2017) argues students with high academic entitlement

believe that if their scores do not reflect their sense of entitlement, cheating is justified and does

not violate morality. For this article, I focus on the reason why college students cheat in school.

My essay topic will be divided into several aspects to illustrate and support my argument

according to the four hypotheses in this article.

APA Reference for Entry A:

Elias, R. Z. (2017). Academic entitlement and its relationship with perception of cheating ethics.

Journal of Education for Business, 92(4), 194–199. https://doi- org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/

10.1080/08832323.2017.1328383
What causes students to cheat in college? ! 10
Academic Summary B

In the article, “What Contributes to College Students’ Cheating? A Study of Individual

Factors,” Yu, Glanzer, Sriram, Johnson, and Moore (2017) discuses the relationship and

influence between college students' cheating in school and various personal factors. The author

and researcher (2017) define that “undermine the common rules and norms governing learning at

higher education institutions” (Yu et al., 2017). According to the author's article, the researchers

conducted a variety of surveys and analyses on 2503 college students (Yu et al., 2017). The

results show that college students' cheating has a significant relationship with their demographic

characteristics, personality traits, college experience and students' attitudes towards academic

cheating (Yu et al., 2017). On the one hand, the author's research focuses on students' personal

factors (Yu et al., 2017). Firstly, studies on student demography show that female students report

cheating less than male students, but smaller studies show that female students cheat equally or

more than male students (Yu et al., 2017). Secondly, for age, the results show that older college

students cheat less than younger students (Yu et al., 2017). In addition, researchers found that

many people do not have the idea of cheating themselves, but they are influenced by their peers

and join in cheating (Yu et al., 2017). Thirdly, the results of the economic and social ranking

survey show that children of college-educated parents are more likely to cheat (Yu et al., 2017).

Fourthly, there is no clear data on the personal students, but it can be confirmed that religion has

no impact on cheating; if students have a tolerant attitude towards cheating, they will have a

greater chance to participate in cheating (Yu et al., 2017). In addition, the author conducts a

nationwide study in four major areas, investigates students' views and attitudes towards cheating,
What causes students to cheat in college? ! 11
and describes in detail the methods, tools, data and results used in the survey (Yu et al., 2017).

The limitation of the survey for this article is that the reports of the respondents are self-reports

(Yu et al., 2017). It is possible that some of the data are not true and that each person has a

different understanding of the academic cheating incident, which can not be measured by the

same degree (Yu et al., 2017). In conclusion, Yu, Glanzer, Sriram, Johnson, and Moore (2017)

research on the relationship between the four major areas of college students' personal factors

(gender, age, economic class and moral attitude) and cheating which fills in some blank areas in

this field. The various personal factors investigated in this article can correspond to the causes of

college students' cheating that my essay has noticed. Some of these arguments can support my

conclusion.

APA Reference for Entry B:

Yu, H., Glanzer, P. L., Sriram, R., Johnson, B. R., & Moore, B. (2017). What Contributes to

College Students’ Cheating? A Study of Individual Factors. Ethics & Behavior, 27(5),

401–422. https://doi- org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/10.1080/10508422.2016.1169535