Internal and External Factor in Funtion Management

Using Technology to Cheat

Technology has become and is a daily part of our life. Having technology makes our way of doing things a lot easier. On our everyday life we have technology supporting our basic needs from home, at work, and at school. For the most part technology is used in a positive way in our daily life. However and unfortunately some technologies are used the wrong way. Using technology to cheat in today’s society has become a lot more accessible and easier to do especially in an academic environment.

Academic dishonesty has been a big issue that many faculties have to deal with all the time in classrooms in today’s academic environment. In a report founded by Thomas & O’Reilly (2002), “74 percent of American students admit to cheating on an exam. So imagine how many really are. Forty percent of adolescents say they have stolen from a store and a whopping 93 percent say they lie.” With such a huge percentage of students cheating with the use of technology, it has become an epidemic that is spreading like wild fire. Since technology was introduced in the class environment, it has become the number one concern to some instructors because many students are not using it too learn, but instead students are using technology to cheat in assignments and other work that may involve school work.

There are so many ways that students use technology to cheat and so many devices that they use to accomplish this unethical behavior. The many different things that are commonly used in today’s society to make our life easier, but it is used in the wrong way are mostly small hand-held devices. Such things are cell phones, digital camera, PDA’s and lap-tops. These items are so high tech that they are able to store large amount of data that can be utilized to gather information to be used in assignments, exams and homework in the ways of cheating. Rather than worry about study for the test, students simply break into database and change their final grade.

But one question that is being asked is why students get to that point of risking everything that they have worked for. What can be a way of preventing students from using technology to cheat? Some reasons that can be mentions for the cause of a student having to cheat are: getting a good grade, lack of time to do the assignments, not being able to study on time and or just being lazy and not willing to put fort the effort. Couple of options that a student my not resolve to cheating is by planning out his/her homework assignment and giving oneself ample to actually do the work so that the stress level of finishing the homework can be alleviated.

In order to have a clear understanding of what students do is unethical, it is important to explain what the term cheat means. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, it describes cheating as the act of being dishonest or the practice of fraud. Even though all faculties have strict policies about ethical issues, student seems to not care about the policies published by the faculties. With having no care, it really becomes an issue for teachers and other student that my be doing the right thing.

Using technology to cheat in class room has become a big issue for the educational system and it is only growing as technology gets better everyday. According to Lagerkvist (2006), “Overall cheating in exams has risen by over quarter and of those who where caught had smuggled in mobile phones or devices.” Many researches have showed how many students use technology to pass tests, to write papers and to complete assignments that should have been done by the student. Technology is supposed to be used by student to increase knowledge and help to develop intelligent, but instead, students used it as an easy way of getting the grades they desire to accomplish their educational goal. According to Davision (2003), “When it comes to education, the challenge for those of us who care passionately about such things is how we deal with

that 70-80 percent of students in the middle cheating. What can we do to influence students in this group of cheater and help them care deeply about honor—about speaking the truth, about doing the right thing even when no one is looking, about having a keen sense of ethical conduct, about making all this an essential part of our lives?” The way students are using or abusing technology can be very harmful for the future of students and how the classroom environment will be. The harmful effect of using technology is having the lack of knowledge of what they as in the student know what the true meaning of education is and the things they should have learned. Since they are not making any effort to learn, the