Academic Cheating and the Effects It Causes

Academic Cheating and the Effects it Causes

When students successfully cheat they are not just trying to get a better grade, they are changing the rules of education in favor of themselves. Cheating can take the form of working together rather than independently on projects, taking crib notes into an exam, looking off another student's paper or simply plagiarism.In fact, anything that allows a person to have education biased in favor of him or her can be construed as cheating.

At one time or another, every person has cheated. Sometimes the teacher's directions can be complex or difficult so that they are misunderstood. The result may then be rationalized by the student or teacher as being too insignificant to correct and so the cheat is allowed to stand. Academic cheating is not only an activity that exists in the classroom, it permeates our society.

A cheater can represent or misrepresent them self to acquire favoritism which in turn gives them access to resources which the rest of the class does not. Since concepts like competitive scores and fair play are resonant within the concept of cheating, the implication of having access to or knowledge of information or resources, which the rest of the class does not have, could be construed as cheating.

Because of this, cheating therefore does not need to be for personal gain. The person who helps others cheat is also cheating. Therefore, if a Professor allows cheating, they are cheaters. This is admittedly a broad definition of a cheater. Many might take issue with these generalizations. However, the objective here is to establish the action of the academic cheat as well as the actor. Just keep in mind that it is not the objective of this paper to condemn cheaters but to discuss the reasons why cheaters cheat.

Cheating is by general definition wrong, but it is also a fact of education. Our educational system participates in the process of cheating because they set the boundaries of the definition. It starts with those who profess to know something teach others and call themselves Professors. Then in an attempt to prove to the system in which they work that their knowledge has been passed on they test. On the other side of this arrangement, those who were ignorant attempt to prove that they possess knowledge, which has been transferred to them from their professors. Within the perspective of such situations, these are competitive perspectives and as long as they exist, there will be cheating. The reasons for cheating are therefore deeply embedded within the philosophy, ethics, and operations of our educational society.

Student access to the Internet is being blamed as the cause for cheating. That assumption is not true. The Internet may correlate to the quantity and quality of cheating within Universities, but the Internet cannot be the cause. The Internet is simply another efficient means to search and acquire information. It is also an efficient means to communicate. It may make the ability to plagiarize far easier but it also makes research easier. The Internet is a reference shortcut and there is nothing overtly wrong with the idea of taking shortcuts. Educational institutions are constantly expecting students to absorb more information and to do this requires the student's better use of time. They do this by encouraging students to study smarter. In the 1890s, students were primarily expected to memorize information at hand to complete their studies, and by 1990, students are primarily expected