SUMMARY OF COMMENTS

Survey of SFU First-year Students on Perceptions of Academic Integrity in High School

1. Personal Motivations For Cheating in High School

Pressure and desperation were common reasons for cheating. Students commented on the following kinds of pressure:

· pressure to attain high grades

· pressure to get into university

· pressure from parents

· pressure from teachers

· pressure from society

· pressure from friends and peers

· pressure because “everybody did it.”

Sample of comments relating to pressure:

Marks are more important than actually knowing the information.

The mark wasn’t THAT big a deal or it was a really big one.

Nobody wants to fail a test (or anything) – we all want to succeed.

I’m not sure what motivated me to cheat, but I often did. Usually it was the stress – to get a good enough grade or to get the highest mark. Being a top student, everyone – parents, teachers, friends – always expected me to get the best marks . . .

Some of the exams are just so tough that cheating seems the only way out, it’s unfair that your future is dependent on these exams when, for example, you understand most of the stuff in a course, then most of the exam is based on one portion of the course . . . if you cheat, at least you’ll be able to be something in your future.

With dramatically increasing standards, people are willing to take part in even serious offences in order to make the grade.

Now that SFU is raising their requirements you can expect more cheaters to enter.

The pressure to succeed in high school is very great. University entrance and scholarships are very very competitive, and so there is great temptation to cheat to succeed. Also a number of others were cheating at high school, and so the only way to not fall behind these people in marks is to sink to their level.

If grades were not so important in our society and if our intellects were not based on some stupid grades or marks on tests, then there would be less cheating.

Besides the general concern with competition for grades, students commented on feeling pressure to cheat in the following situations:

· when they perceived that teachers didn’t give them enough attention or provide enough extra help

· when they perceived that teachers didn’t care about cheating

· when they didn’t trust themselves to get high enough marks

· when they didn’t understand the material

· when they perceived workloads to be too heavy

· when assignments were not completed or exams not studies for any number of reasons

· when they couldn’t memorize the details

· when they perceived everyone else as cheating

Sample of comments relating to situations that provoked cheating:

Some time the teacher did not give out enough time so cheating to pass and get into university was the only option.

I was motivated by the pressure to get such high marks in high school to enter university. As well some small assignments worth only 10 marks were so boring and pointless it only made sense to work with others to get it done. As well, sometimes after working very hard I felt I deserved an extra 1 or 2 marks that could be achieved through cheating. I mostly only cheated on little things, which I felt justified in doing so because so many other people cheated on really big things all the time.

I used cheat sheets when teachers ticked me off by watching people cheat and doing nothing about it.

When many other students are cheating in that class, they get away with it AND get a better mark. Therefore, to keep up with the rest of the class, get a good mark, I felt I HAD to cheat, because it was so unfair.

Some students reported cheating for a variety of other reasons:

· because they perceived a test or assignment wasn’t important

· because they perceived an assignment as pointless busy work or unnecessarily time consuming

· because they didn’t care about the course

· because they felt there were no penalties or only inconsequential ones

· because it was easy to do

· because of peer pressure

· because it was fun, exciting, a challenge, cool, a game, a joke

· as an act of defiance or rebellion

· for rewards such as gifts or money

· because they didn’t think it was cheating (often in relation to plagiarism)

· because they think cheating is the only way to get ahead

Sample of comments relating to other reasons for cheating:

I enjoyed cheating because it was challenging and I could help my friends to get a higher mark or even pass an exam without knowing a thing about the course!

I helped some people cheat because they really needed help, they would have done poorly if I had not. Besides it was high school, it’s a joke. This is university, it’s dog-eat-dog I want my peers to do badly, or at least worse than me, so no way . . . am I going to help somebody out on a test here.

I never received information, just gave it out, from time to time. Probably because of the ‘cool’ factor ie. being a geek if not sharing information.

I did it in courses which I thought were of little importance. It was also something everyone else did, so I did not see it as that wrong.

The profits from cheating easily exceed the downfalls.

It isn’t cheating, its using your resources.

My family has been in the business world for some time now and if I was to learn only one thing from this experience it would be ‘you do not get to move up in the world unless some proverbial corners are cut.’ So why would you not apply this theory to the schooling system?

Students also commented on their reasons for particular kinds of cheating such as plagiarism, fabricating or falsifying lab data, unauthorized group work, finding out what’s on the exam, and copying assignments.

Sample of comments on plagiarism:

I was not fully aware of the importance of proper referencing and citations in high school.

The paraphrasing of material is generally unintentional. High schools spend very little if any time teaching students the proper ways of citing sources.

The referencing of paraphrased research notes was not taught in high school; if it wasn’t a direct quote it didn’t need to be cited.

I copied parts of articles and used it in my own essays because I didn’t know that I had to acknowledge the article or the author and I know that the teachers won’t know about it.

Think that resources from the Internet/books are useful and didn’t know how to reword the sentence.

In a high school setting, paraphrasing without referencing is pretty petty because often you aren’t even required to give a bibliography.

I didn’t always footnote or reference information/sentences/ideas obtained from another source because I didn’t think that it was enough to worry about.

WHY do we do it? If it’s some sort of fact, or deep insight it’s clear that it should be cited, but in many cases it’s a statement that’s very simple and general, and is exactly what you want to say.

I know what I would write and then reading material that has the same words. This should not count as cheating.

On some assignments the teacher didn’t place extreme emphasis on proper referencing, and then we wouldn’t be as fussy about it. In junior high we didn’t reference at all.

I used sources that I didn’t footnote because I didn’t think it was enough information to footnote for or the source wasn’t “academic” enough in the teacher’s opinion. Or, I was just too lazy and didn’t think it would matter too much.

Sample of comments on fabricating/falsifying lab data:

It was not an activity intended to teach. It was supposed to give us something to do for an hour. In fact, teachers sometimes encouraged writing down what we thought should happen, to demonstrate that we understood the concepts.

There was no emphasis on “not” doing this during labs, it was never even mentioned. Seemed inconsequential when we just didn’t want to do an experiment a third time to verify results.

I don’t think anyone in my science classes ever properly completed a lab on their own.

Sample of comments on unauthorized group work:

Working with others when not supposed to/Receiving outside help: my school usually encouraged group work on assignments and so when such restrictions were put in place they were usually ignored by everyone.

The line between “helping each other” and “cheating” is sometimes very vague.

No one should care if you use other people to help you do work. Your contacts are your contacts. That’s how it is in business, so why is it different for high school? And why should SFU have the right to criticize someone for getting help on an assignment?

Sharing an assignment was a good way to learn from friends.

Sample of comments on finding out what is on the exam:

I didn’t think it was that bad to find out from others what sort of questions are on the exam/text, it just helps you feel more prepared, because exams can be really nerve racking. I think that’s the least serious form of cheating.

I asked other people what questions were on a text who took the test before me because I wanted to know what to study and be more prepared. Why study what’s not going to be on the test?

Sharing answers on a test was conducted regularly in some courses because everyone was doing it. If one doesn’t do it, he/she might be resented by others for not playing along. However, I strongly despised such actions. Although, there really isn’t much I could do.

Sample of comments about copying assignments:

Sometimes I would copy parts of other people’s assignments because I hadn’t finished and it was due that day, and I didn’t want to lose marks for being late.

I was too lazy to do all the assigned work and it was easier to share information with other people in the class.

I sometimes copied assignments because I didn’t understand them and was not receiving appropriate help at school or home.

2. Perception of Why Others Cheat in High School

The list of reasons students gave for others cheating were very similar to the list of self-reported reasons, with an emphasis on competition for grades to get into university, pressure from parents or society, teachers who are hard to approach for help, something easy to do without getting caught or with no serious penalties, and because students who cheated were lazy. The list also included bragging rights and concern only with marks and not with knowledge.

Sample of comments in response to why other students cheat:

My friends who cheated everyday in our classes got much better grades than non-cheaters. Even the ones who got caught more than once.

It really doesn’t matter how much you know, it’s how well you do on the test/assignment/ lab, etc.

They are “allowed” to do it because the teacher doesn’t notice . . . It is much more the teacher’s fault for allowing students to cheat, rather than those who engage in the activity.

I think that for students who cheat, marks are more important than anything, more important than honesty and more important than learning. School isn’t about what you learn, it's about what marks you get, what university you get into, and how much money you will make in the end.

School is HIGHLY competitive, whatever increases your chances of success is worth the consequences.

Students are pressured to do well by parents, teachers, etc. They feel they have to live up to expectations that they can’t meet based on their honest effort so they cheat. . . . . A majority of students who cheat feel they are incapable of successfully doing the work (ie. a paper or a test), so they perceive the work as unfair and justify cheating.

I know teachers who haven’t changed their course plans in 10 years. Of course people are going to look at what others did to get a good mark.

When it comes to citations in papers, some are still learning to cite properly and may have left out a citation here or there by accident or because they’ve attached their own thoughts to what they’ve copied.

This question “why do you think some students cheat?” is like asking “Why do people want to win the lottery?” Who on earth would not want to have something that is given for free?

3. Ways to Encourage Academic Honesty

Students offered a wealth of suggestions for encouraging academic honesty:

Reduce the need to cheat by creating a supportive teaching environment:

· Explain assignments clearly

· Allot time for questions

· Take more time to prep students for exams; more review before mid-terms and exams

· Follow the study guidelines and don’t surprise students on exams

· More in-class work and interactive testing (i.e., in tutorials) instead of papers or take-home tests

· Reduce class size

· Slow down the pace of delivering course material

· Allow a reasonable amount of time to study for exams and prepare assignments

· Less emphasis on grades and more pass/fail marking

· Encourage students to ask TAs for help and to learn how to use the library as an effective resource for research

· Use other methods of evaluation besides exams

· Give more assistance on where to find appropriate information, give examples of proper footnoting and quoting, and demonstrate what is considered plagiarism and what is not

· Let students know when they can work with each other and when individual assignments must be done “completely solo”

· Allow extensions based on personal problems not just health or family emergencies

Discourage cheating in the following ways:

· Promote self integrity by promoting the notion that their own work is more worthy than that of some cheat.

· Put cases of academic misconduct in permanent school records and in the cheater’s transcripts

· Use turnitin.com for assignments as well as for papers

· Announce the penalties for cheating before every assignment, text, and exam

· Define what constitutes cheating, explain the consequences, and offer students help

· Make more space for mid-term exams; spread people out

· Make different tests for different classes or use different tests for different rows in mid-terms when students are close enough together to see each others' papers

· Increase supervision for exams

· Have students present student cards for all tests and exams

· Have discussions of academic integrity in tutorials

· Outline what’s cheating for each course

· Put more emphasis on checking individual assignments

· Make assignments worth next to nothing

· Make homework assignments less “copyable”

· Monitor copying at the places where students hand in assignments such as drop boxes

· Monitor what students are doing in the assignment labs

· Get students who cheated to make speech about the consequences

· Use other methods of evaluation besides exams

· Give more assistance on where to find appropriate information, give examples of proper footnoting and quoting, and demonstrate what is considered plagiarism and what is not

· Let students know when they can work with each other and when individual assignments must be done “completely solo”

· Publicly expose cheaters

· Mandatory seminar on academic integrity/plagiarism/cheating for all first year students

· Teach students how to cite properly

· Tell students how they will be penalized and follow through and put it on their permanent record

· Explain why academic integrity is important

· Offer ways for students to anonymously report cases of cheating to the university

· Provide students with help in dealing with requests from friends and acquaintances to look at assignments

Sample comments on ways to encourage academic honesty:

Universities need to make sure that students understand what they need to do to avoid plagiarism. Some students, especially when they first come to university are unaware that paraphrasing without citation is plagiarism. This was my own case, and I’m sure there is much other confusion with regards to plagiarism. It should be explained to students that using the thoughts and ideas of others is okay, but only if it is communicated to the reader that you have done so, and the reader is able to find the original source of these ideas.

Encourage students to earn their degrees. Emphasize the pride and sense of accomplishment that is gained by honestly attaining a degree.

I think it must be stopped before it starts and that would have to be at the high school level.

Make the consequences not worth the actions and plagiarism will disappear.

Make it harder to cheat by using original questions, multiple varieties of tests, more supervision, and making consequences clearly known.

In exams, more TAs in the room – not just sitting but constantly walking around checking. Collecting test papers in silence and one by one, or one row by row not to give students the opportunity to discuss and cheat. Lots of cheating is done while the finished exam is being collected.

Open a writing centre so students could receive input and feedback on their papers. It would dissuade students to cheat if they were given more support.

It is very important for the professors to stress the importance of academic integrity. Most first years are already petrified of their profs and the values that the first-year teachers instill in us stick for awhile.

Explain clearly the importance of academic integrity and the penalties later in life, not just those that would be incurred while in a learning environment.

We are in strong need of spaces between test takers.

Perhaps a small seminar provided to university bound students by either the secondary schools, the universities (or combination) could talk about what studying in university is like, how it’s different from high school, and where they can get academic and emotional support.

The profs need to keep their eyes open. A lot of the time there is cheating going on in front of their eyes.

Make sure that extra help is always available so that if a person is stuck, they can go get help, rather than resorting to cheating, and make the tests and assignments achievable if work is put in. . . . If people see results come with hard work, what reason would they have to cheat?

Prevention is better than a cure. Give students enough help to encourage them to do everything themselves.

Tell students why it’s important not to cheat. Nobody cares to explain why we shouldn’t.

Workshops on referencing should be provided free of charge at the beginning of each semester and perhaps again in the middle of the semester to encourage students to attend these workshops. . . . I believe that professors make it clear that there are stiff penalties for plagiarism, but sometimes this does nothing but elicit fear from students. It does not SHOW students how to do it right. Quick explanations in tutorials are not enough. Often, students think they understand, but when they actually write the paper the night before it’s due, they have questions that cannot be answered because it is the night before the due date. Perhaps more time management or motivation workshops will help with procrastination, but workshops on citations would address the issue more directly.

4. Other Comments

Students offered a number of summary comments, including the following:

It is important for students to feel that they have other recourses to follow. The pressure to succeed in university is huge, as it should be, but I think that people without a well developed support structure, emotional and academic, are the ones who are most prone to cheating.

Awareness, not punishment is the ultimate solution.

Cheaters are not born, they are MADE by the way our society stresses that good marks make a good person.

Don’t use bell curves, they don’t do anything else except generate unfriendly competition.

In university, no one cares. That’s what makes it so hard.

It is important for instructors to distinguish between blatant plagiarism and improper referencing.

Professors, TA’s and whoever needs to find better and more effective ways of catching cheaters. They can’t just speculate. They can’t just blindly accuse. I have been accused of plagiarism when I honestly wrote my paper. It was stressful, unnecessary, and disheartening. How do honest students get wrapped up in these accusations? It’s not fair. I was told that I was simply not someone who can write at that level. Maybe it’s because I’m Asian. Maybe it’s because I’m only 18. Maybe because I physically look stupid? It’s ridiculous . . . they need a better way to find out who’s cheating and who’s not.

People should be educated on the importance of referencing and bibliographies. In my high school we didn’t learn to do one and I didn’t realize at first that citing things improperly could be considered plagiarism. EDUCATION IS KEY!!!