Cheating the System

THEHAWKEYE

May 29, 2018 Volume 16, Issue 3

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Cheating the System

Students and teachers discuss issue with academic dishonesty

YASMIN HAQ DESIGN EDITOR

Photo illustration by Aparnna Manoj

Academic dishonesty is an ongoing part of the education system in America as cheating scandals have been uncovered around the nation in colleges such as Harvard University in 2012 or Ohio State University in 2016, and high schools such as Stuyvesant High School in New York.

At Hebron, out of 106 students surveyed at random during block lunch at both campuses, 63.2 percent admitted to cheating on a test, quiz or form of assessment. In a national study, 76 percent of high school students confessed to cheating.

Several teachers agreed that reasons for cheating involve different sources of pressure including parents, class rank, grades and most notably, college.

“There’s this overriding desire to get an A,” AP U.S. history teacher Travis Zuber said. “And I don’t know if that’s because of the system we’ve built up with GPA, the competition, colleges with the financial aid and stuff like that. I don’t know where the pressure’s coming from.”

The majority of teachers interviewed and students polled agreed more cheating occurs in higher level classes due to rising competition. When asked which class level they were most likely to cheat in, 47.2 percent of students selected AP classes, 34 percent selected Pre-AP, 25.5 percent said regular and 31.1 percent selected all.

“I’ve been teaching for 26 years,” English II teacher Kimberly Nickerson said. “I’ve taught on level, below level, AP, Pre-AP, 6-12, and in my experience, most of my plagiarizers and cheaters are in the advanced classes.”

Several Pre-AP and AP teachers interviewed agreed that having grades and/ or class rank impact the rate of academic dishonesty and that the emphasis on having the highest grades or GPA for college has hindered the learning experience of the student.

“[Academic dishonesty won’t stop] until we either get rid of grades, or we instill an atmosphere in our school where grades aren’t that important, where we don’t give out A/B honor [rolls] every nine weeks,” AP human geography teacher Kelley Ferguson said. “If you’re giving out A/B honor [rolls] and giving out class rank, you’re telling kids that grades do matter, but they don’t.”

The majority of students surveyed linked increasing ranks to academic dishonesty through personal experience and reasons such as pressure to keep or climb up in class rank. Those who did not think rank affected cheating said it was more of a morality issue.

“[Cheating] shouldn’t be a thing,” senior Anthony Allam said. “People should try to do their own work. School is there to test your performance, not other people’s, so it should be your work that goes into your grades.”

A few students justified cheating through the lack of a suitable teacher, too much work or the grading system. However, less than 30 percent of students said it was OK to cheat or that it depended on the circumstances in the survey. The other 70 percent said cheating was not OK. When asked why, several of the responses stated that it ruins the learning experience or it is unfair.

“I feel like I can relate to it a little bit,” sophomore Zoya Niazi. “[I] haven’t cheated, but I get [ overworked]. But everybody goes through that, so you’re not the only one. If you’re cheating it’s still unfair. If you’re cheating out of stress, well there’s other people stressed and not cheating. They found a different solution.”

AP physics teacher Christine Cone said she has had a lot of issues with students cheating with phones in their lap. The more popular ways of cheating are through newer technologies like the iPhone, iPad or smart watches. Answer keys are sometimes posted online, and students snap pictures to send to their peers or even access answers during assessments using phones. Because of technology and internetaccess, cheating has become more convenient, according to The New York Times.

Along with new ways to cheat, there are new ways to stop cheating, such as banning technology during standardized tests, websites detecting plagiarism or creating several versions of the same assessment.

“This is this weird game of cat and mouse that we’re playing,” Zuber said. “We came up with ways to try to detect cheating. And the students find some other way. It’s become this toxic cycle.”

Several student responses in the survey defined cheating as copying or getting help from another source.

“You could study stuff online, and that might just be on the test,” Allam said. “So that’s the gray area between cheating and not cheating. There’s different forms of cheating.”

In the first offense for academic dishonesty, the assignment can be made up if it is a major grade for up to a 50. On the second and third offense, the assignment is an automatic zero and the consequence is ISS (In School Suspension). After the third offense, the student may be sent to DAEP, depending on the severity.

“If you become a problem, all your teachers know about it,” Ferguson said. “Good luck getting a teacher recommendation.”

Nickerson said she catches at least one student a year, but is sure that some other students in her class get away with plagiarism. Zuber said there is probably more cheating going on than is accounted for. Most of the teachers interviewed could account for a specific cheating incident in their class.

“Usually once a year I’ll catch a group of them, or one or two,” Zuber said. “One year was a project, and they all turned in basically the same project, hoping I wouldn’t read it.”

Cone said cheating is treated as if it was acceptable in today’s culture, and it is ‘OK’ for students to cheat if they can be successful. In a New York Times article, it was reported that experts said cheating has become more widely tolerated, and the seriousness of cheating isn’t emphasized enough.

Out of 67 students who said they do cheat, a little less than a third of them said they consistently cheat on assignments, quizzes or tests. Algebra 2 teacher Randi Riordan describes cheating as an addiction.

“You get away with it once, you’re going to do it again; you get away with it again, you’re going to do it again,” Riordan said. “You go to college, you’re going to have cheats written on your arm, your smart watch, on a paper and you’re going to get kicked out of college.”

Fourteen percent of students thought it was hard to get away with cheating. However, 67 percent said it was easy, and the rest said it depends or other.

“This is an issue that has always been around, and until students care more about learning, understanding, and progression of skills than the grade, it will continue to be an issue,” Nickerson said.

The above statistics were complied from responses to a random survey of 107 students on both campuses.