Cheating in College: Students Do It, but Faculty Can Stop It

Among the most important and least tasteful of our deanish duties is serving as chair of the College Committee on Academic Integrity at CCU, which is to say we prosecute cheaters. So alert and gentle reader Scott brings to our attention two provocative articles on the subject of cheating in higher education:

• USA Today reports on a study of a class of 64 students, among whom 47 students demonstrably cheated on an exam. The findings: (a) the students did not exhibit greater self-interest or lower moral reasoning than those who didn't; (b) few of the students who cheated admitted to themselves that they were cheating, even though each one accessed the answer key to an exam via the internet.
• The Scotsman reports that around a quarter of faculty members in one Scottish university department made any effort to prevent, discover or report plagiarism. The reason? It's too much work.

Both articles agree that the only way to reduce cheating in higher education is for faculty and staff to communicate that their institution's policies are real, important, clear and enforced. Having a rule that no one talks about and that is rarely enforced does nothing. Rules must be alive: clear in the minds of all and active in the lives of all.

So we urge readers of this blog who are engaged in higher education to:

• be diligent in watching out for plagiarism and in reporting it, if they are faculty members.
• take seriously the rules and consequences of plagiarism, the greatest of which is cheating themselves of education, if they are students.