Cheating in College: Why Students Do It and What Educators Can Do about It

9. Creating a Culture of Integrity: Practical Advice for Faculty and Administrators

164 chapter nine Creating a Culture of Integrity Practical Advice for Faculty and Administrators Based on the research cited in this book and our experience in the field, we can state with certainty that an academic dishonesty problem exists in our educational institutions. Research has found unacceptable levels of cheating in high school, college, and even professional school environments. Where longitudinal data exist, we have learned that while some types of cheating appear to have declined (e.g., some kinds of test cheating), other types have increased with changes in technology (e.g., more Internet-based cut-and-paste plagiarism) and changes in society (e.g., more collaboration-based cheating). As a reminder , almost all (if not all) of the multi-campus studies of cheating are based on self-reports. And recent studies have been conducted online , leading to lower response rates. These methodological issues, along with the open-ended comments offered by students and faculty in our surveys, suggest that the prevalence of cheating is probably even higher than reported in these studies. Cheating also seems to be rampant in the broader culture, where scandals have emerged in every sector of society , from sports to religious institutions, nonprofits, and business. All of this might cause us, like some of the faculty and students we have surveyed, to conclude that cheating is simply part of human nature and that nothing can or needs to be done about it. But, as should be evident by now, we believe strongly that something can and must be done, and we have some ideas about how we might approach the problem. We do not profess to have easy or foolproof answers. It has taken a long time to arrive at the current state, and it will take time and much hard work to reverse the trends. Commitment, patience, and persistence will be the keys to success. Before we get to our ideas, you might ask, as we did earlier, why we or anyone else should take this problem on. Shouldn’t ethical training and Practical Advice for Faculty and Administrators 165 development be the responsibility of parents and religious institutions? And, if they’re failing, isn’t college too late to do anything about the problem? As we said at the beginning of this book, we don’t think so. First, many if not most students attend college far from these earlier influences. We know from work discussed in earlier chapters that contextual influences are important, and for most undergraduate students, especially those living on campus, the college environment represents their most influential context for four or more years. That’s a lot of time given to us, as educators, to have an impact on their thinking and actions . And it is certainly not too late. Research tells us that the college years are crucial to ongoing moral development and that such development continues at least into early adulthood (Feldman and Newcomb 1969; Rest and Thoma 1986). According to the most prominent moral psychology research, in the Kohlbergian tradition of cognitive moral development (Kohlberg 1969), young people at this life stage are continuing to develop their cognitive capacity to reason about ethical issues (Rest and Thoma 1986). College is a time of questioning and realigning values and beliefs before heading out into the “real world,” and it is typically a time of continuing moral development. According to Kohlberg’s theory, individuals advance in cognitive moral development by having their current way of thinking challenged, either through hypothetical moral dilemmas or, better yet, by engaging in discussion of real dilemmas that they face. Educators have many opportunities to challenge students’ thinking both inside and outside the classroom. We believe strongly that, as educators, we should take on this responsibility , because (as we noted in chapter 1) we are educating the leaders, managers, and professionals of tomorrow. We have a moral obligation to teach our students that it is possible and preferable to live and operate in an environment of trust and integrity where cheating is simply unacceptable. Is such an environment really possible? It is hard for many to believe that one could experience four years of college without observing any cheating. But one of us who attended a traditional honor code institution actually had that experience (albeit a long time ago). Even today, ask students attending a college with a strong honor code environment about cheating, and you’ll probably be surprised at the experience they relate and the pride...