One of the biggest problems faced today in classrooms from elementary schools through colleges is cheating. Whether on a minor in-class assignment or a final exam, cheating is prevalent in almost all different scenarios. As a result of cheating, many professors have implemented test-taking policies designed to help reduce such activity: forcing students to sit far apart, creating multiple test versions test to complicate copying from others, or just monitoring students closely as they complete their tests, making note of anything out of the ordinary or suspicious. More interesting than strategies to prevent cheating or catch students who cheat, however, are attempts to explain the reasoning behind cheating -- why some students choose to cheat and others don’t. Overall, the reasoning behind cheating comes down to three major things: cost and benefits, impact on a student’s self-image, and negative externalities that cheating causes for the entire class.
The most basic factor in a students decision whether or not to cheat comes down to the simple analysis of the costs and the benefits of cheating. If a student comes well-prepared to an exam, believes that he can score a high mark on the exam, and is not worried about the results, then he will have very little incentive to cheat. Even if he can score a few more points by his looking at his notes or copying the work of another student who may know the material better, this small benefit is outweighed by if he is caught and receives a zero on the exam. On the other hand, if a student comes ill-prepared to an exam, does not know the material very well, and believes that cheating can improve his score from a failing grade to an A, he may then feel that this benefit is worth the risk.
A second major driver of the decision whether or not to cheat – and one which in effect counteracts the cost-benefit approach outlined above -- is the impact cheating will have on one’s self-image. If the cost-benefit approach was the ultimate answer on cheating, then we would anticipate that as potential gains from cheating increase and the probability of getting caught decreases, students would likely cheat at an even higher rate. However, this has been demonstrated to be not the case for most students, specifically in a study conducted by behavioral economist Dan Ariely of University of Chicago who tested the amount of cheating under differing situations. Ariely found that because people want to feel good about themselves, they will tend only to cheat in small amounts. Even if incentives rise and risks fall, people will not increase their level of cheating. Ariely refers to this willingness to cheat a little and still feel good about yourself as an individual’s “personal fudge factor.” One psychology study showed that students are less likely to cheat when they are viewing themselves in a mirror, and this reinforces the idea that because they want to feel good about themselves and not guilty, despite the circumstances they will only cheat in small amounts. Williams College, a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts has implemented a policy of having students sign the Honor Code before taking any exam, large or small (this has been implemented now at several other schools). The professors then leave the room and let the students continue on with the exam without them present. While this creates a lower-risk cheating environment, having the students sign the code, thus reminding them of the immorality of cheating, actually should work in the opposite way and help to reduce cheating. This is because of the idea that people want to feel good about themselves, and thus another cost of the cheating becomes the negative image of yourself that will be created if you do decide to cheat.
The final factor that plays into the decision to cheat is the negative externalities that are created through a student’s cheating. At classes at Williams and in other college level courses, the class average on an exam determines the curve for the class on that exam. However, if one or multiple people cheat, then it hurts the entire class as a whole, by raising this class average. A student through cheating can raise his or her grade from as low as a D or F up to an A, and this could act to raise the class average by a fairly large amount. The more students that decide to cheat, more the average will raise. And as a result of the raised class average, the curve for the entire class will be lowered. If a student beforehand recognizes this negative externality that their behavior will cause, then they will be less inclined to cheat, as cheating will hurt all of their classmates and once again make them feel guilty. In conclusion, cheating is a large problem faced in classes and schools around the world. The decision of students to cheat really seems to boil down to three things, the costs and benefits of cheating, the amount that the cheating will affect their own view of themselves, and the negative externalities that cheating will impose on their fellow students. Hopefully through weighing all these things students will come to realize that there is much more to lose than to gain and it is not worth it to cheat
Nicholas Jared
References
Ariely, Dan. “We’re All Predictably Irrational.” 2010. http://danariely.com/
Schacter, Gilber, Wegner. Psychology. New York: Worth Publishers, 2009.
Sager, Ryan “The Economics of Cheating.” March 19, 2010. http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/rip-offs/the-economics-of-cheating/
No comments:
Post a Comment