Academic integrity should be motivated by personal values

By Sehar Siddiqui

Since the 2006-07 academic year, there have been over 1,600 violations of academic integrity at the University.

I never thought it was that prevalent of a problem until I noticed how often my professors felt the need, in the beginning of a semester, to give us warnings about cheating despite including information about it in their syllabi. 

Last year I took STAT 100, and the first day we received a talk about academic dishonesty. The professor said she had to videotape every exam because of instances of cheating in previous semesters. She gave us the incentive of extra credit on the final exam if nobody cheated, but also mentioned that over all the years she had taught, she was never able to give out that extra credit.

Obviously cheating has become a larger issue than it should be if a professor is going to the extent of rewarding students for practicing academic honesty — something all students should naturally uphold anyway.

Even with the threat of being watched and offering extra credit as incentive, my class didn’t receive that extra credit on the final exam.

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I was shocked because I don’t think cheating on any exam is ever worth it, but especially because I didn’t realize college students were so willing to put their reputation or academic career at risk for one exam.

Despite warning her students each semester, our professor always had at least one student who cheated. 

This shows that in some cases  the motivation to get a good grade is stronger than the desire to actually learn something. The International Center for Academic Integrity reports that “grades, rather than education, have become the major focus of many students.” Like many things in our society, for some, education is becoming more about instant gratification than hard work.

This could be attributed to the fact that it is simple for a student to get an A in a class without actually learning anything or trying too hard. It makes sense if these students who are used to minimum work for achievement are more prone to cheat when they are thrown into an environment where they must work harder to get an A.

And when many of these classes follow a model requiring only memorization and occasional participation as a means for success, then they are more prone to cheat to get ahead.

Rote memorization, for example, measures an individual’s ability to regurgitate information and facts rather than an actual application of what has been learned.

Memorization can be achieved much more quickly than application of concepts which could be why sometimes most of the academic violation cases are concentrated in programs known for difficulty in application — such as in the engineering department.

Even participation points that encourage students to attend class are usually just points for being there and there are no violations for getting the wrong answer. I have taken many classes where memorization and simple participation was good enough to receive an A in the class.

Some students’ actions are driven purely by labels, such as whether they receive an A, while others care more about the means to the ends, such as how much work they put into the grades they receive and how honest they are about their efforts and consequent grades.

Students who are only concerned with a letter grade would be more likely to cheat because there is more riding on their result rather than their experience.

Cheating allows this kind of student to bypass many other steps and speed up the process of achieving a good grade. And if the student can get away with it, there isn’t much else motivation to learn.

Despite the fact that many professors address academic dishonesty on paper and in person, warn students of being recorded and offer incentives to remain honest, students will cheat. 

Although a solution could be as simple as requiring all students to take a course on academic integrity, the type of student who blatantly cheats on an exam probably has different educational and moral values that cannot be altered by a course. Such a class could help alleviate cases of accidental incidences of plagiarism, however, outright cheating during an exam is obviously a reflection of an individual’s morals in a stressful situation. The action of cheating can only be changed through the independent actions of the individual and cannot simply be taught. 

Sehar is a junior in LAS. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @Nimatod.