Perception of students about cheating on exams

Despite all the laws, there is an acute problem of students cheating on exams in higher educational institutions. Teachers believe that students are simply too lazy to learn the subject. There is no denying that laziness can actually prevent some students from starting their studies. But it is not uncommon for even hardworking students to cheat. To find solutions to a problem, you need to know its causes. This article was written to find out why students still decide to use cheat sheets on the exam, what their motivation is and what can be done in order to interest them in the subject and reduce the cheating rate.

Key words: students, exams, cheating, university, teachers.

The participants of the research are university students of different majors. The research purpose of the study was to examine what encourages students to use various types of cheat sheets on exams. Main research questions were:

— Does making cheat sheets helps to remember material better?

— How often do you cheat and is it always successful?

— What advantages and disadvantages of cheating?

— Is cheating necessary in studying?

— What can be done to prevent cheating?

The urgent problem of the research was that cheating contributes to the deterioration of the quality of education and the question about students who cheats cannot become full-fledged specialists, since they have not learned the material and will soon forget it, and they also will not be able to use it in their future career. This was the reason I chose to conduct qualitative type of research. Information was collected in the form of an interview. 6 students from different universities were interviewed: 3 of them were interviewed by face to face meeting, others 3 by having conversation on the phone due to the long distance. The participants were not pressured. Each of the interview lasted about 15–30 minutes including distraction moments like off-topic conversation.

Table 1

Theme 1: Why do some students can cheat easily and some cannot?

I suppose the reason may take place in individual person's psychotype more than in certain circumstances. The thought came to my mind after the answers of one of the interviewed students who referred her own personality like the reason that stopped her from cheating. She has always been a diligent student who preferred to learn the material rather than relying on cheat sheets. I highlighted the finding: The reason why a student doesn’t cheat it's her inability to cheat in general.

My idea can also be confirmed by the result of research conducted by Robert T. Burrus, Kim-Marie McGoldrick, and Peter W. Schuhmann (2007) [1]. They found out that students with higher GPAs and students who believe that they are honest are less likely to be cheaters. And students who participate in different organizations and university athletics and who have witnessed other students cheating are more likely to be cheaters.

Theme 2: While some students blame themselves for cheating, other are blame teachers and education system.

Some participants claimed that the problem of cheating because of methods of teaching and education system. They felt like they didn’t receive enough knowledge due to a lot of information to remember and during cheating he thought only about to get any results. But still they thought that cheating was not necessary, though not useless.

The quote from one of the interviews: «It feels like our education doesn't take into account the fact that progress doesn't stand still and all this huge amount of information simply impossible to carry in the head».

My finding is that if a teacher was responsible and gave enough knowledge to students then it’s unlikely that they (students) will cheat on exam. My finding differs from finding of the research conducted by Daniel Owunwanne, Narendra Rustagi, Remi Dada (2010) [2]. They explained that one way to control cheating is actually to reduce cheating by cultural change. Ethical behavior is defined as behavior that conforms to generally- accepted social norms. Basing at the study' results, the response to one particular question; i.e., “cheating includes giving help to a friend to complete an out-of-class assignment that was supposed to be done independently” was surprising, especially when you look at this response in light of their response to “getting help from a friend to complete an out-of-class assignment that was supposed to be done independently,” for which a much larger proportion answered that it is cheating. This may be a good case for the discussion on ethics.

Theme 3: Does herd instinct have an effect on students?

All the students’ answers about their peers cheating were the same. They all answered “It’s not my business”. So I came to the conclusion that if a student notices that another student cheats he/she will not do anything. Every student is busy with his/her own work.

One of the students’ representing quote: “If I see someone cheats, I am neutral about this, since this are his/her own notes and his/her own responsibility. I relate worse to those students who cannot cheat and they complain to those who are able to cheat.”

Theme 4: How strictly should be students checked before and during an exam?

According to the respondents’ answers, usually, on exams they do not checked strictly. Most students thought that teachers should trust them more. Here I found out that if a teacher is acquainted to students (and vice versa) he/she does not check them strictly. Opposite situation happens when a teacher is a new face for students (and vice versa).

One of my respondents said: " It is very important when students are shown that they are trusted and better if teachers show it by their own doing». Summing up the above, if a teacher is acquainted to students (and vice versa) then he/she acts calm then students feel less stress. In stress situation student easily forgets simple things and he/she feels the need to cheat. Checking strictly will not prevent cheating. If teachers have trusting relationship with their students, then it may work good for students' conscience.

Summary

According to the results of the study I came to conclusion that the problem of cheating lies not only in students. As I investigated the problem deeply it was clear that education system and teaching is far from perfect. The study showed advantages and disadvantages of cheating. It was seen what ordinary students prefer to learn material in advance or use cheat sheets to save time for studying. Now it can be seen how cheating is important for students and if they are able take exams without using a single cheat sheet. The problem of the prevalence of cheating is uncovered and may lead to clear ideas on how to deal this and why it is important to give student a study goal so they would like to learn material by themselves. The importance of my study is that it makes to look at the cheating from different angles. If we know all the vulnerabilities of the problem, we can try to solve it.

References:

1. Burrus R. T., McGoldrick K. M., Schuhmann P. W. Self-reports of student cheating: Does a definition of cheating matter? //The Journal of Economic Education. — 2007. — Т. 38. — №. 1. — С. 3–16.
2. Owunwanne D., Rustagi, N., Dada, R. Students perceptions of cheating and plagiarism in higher institutions //Journal of Business & Economics Research (JBER). — 2010. — Т. 7. — №. 11.