12/11/98

Issues in Education: Student Cheating

Questions about academic integrity and independent work arise when teachers begin to assign number or letter grades to student performance, often as early as kindergarten or first grade. Parents get caught up in the competition, too, because many view their child's grades as a measure of parenting success. Competitive waters are tough to navigate with children. Self-esteem can rise and fall with grades, even though there is no direct causal link between them.

Competition intensifies in middle and high school years as a student's academic performance opens or closes doors to honors classes, independent study, team sports eligibility, college preparatory classes or college admission. Such pressures lead some students to copy homework or test answers or to turn in plagiarized reports in order to keep their grades up; other students thrive on the competition or seem relatively immune to it, confident in their talents and accepting of their deficiencies, apparently comfortable with the fact that their worth is measured by much more than grades and scores.

A school may not be able to eliminate cheating entirely, but there are many steps faculty, students and parents can take to keep it to a minimum.

In the early grades its helpful for teachers to develop a system for letting students and parents know which assignments are collaborative and which assignments are for independent work only. Class discussions about the reasons for assessment and how it benefits teachers as well as students help to make performance and grades less a matter of life and death and more a necessary part of the learning process. Teachers need to know what their students have and haven't mastered, so they can target unmastered skills and information in subsequent lessons.

In the middle and high school years, when students work daily with several different teachers, student handbooks are virtually indispensable. Developed by staff and administration (with student input, too), the student handbook informs the school community about a wide range of policies, including expectations and consequences related to academic integrity. Many school administrators require students and parents to sign a form sent home early in the school year, a signature that means that parents and their children have read and discussed the procedures and regulations outlined in the handbook.

Handbooks can only be guidelines, however. Students are individuals, so schools need procedures to address individual infractions as they arise. I do not recommend student participation in this process because of the potential for peer backlash against any student acting in a punitive or judgmental role toward a fellow student. Dealing with incidents of cheating can be handled effectively at administrative, departmental or individual classroom levels.

The purpose behind establishing consequences is to eliminate repeated incidents and to reestablish trust between and among teachers and students. Consider some of the following consequences as part of your classroom, departmental or whole-school response to student cheating:

(These responses are not listed in priority order.)

• Completion of an alternative to the same assignment or test, before or after school.
• Receipt of a double-zero for the disputed assignment or test.
• Automatic ineligibility for honor society membership.
• Automatic ineligibility for team sports for that quarter.
• Mandatory parent/guardian conference with student and teacher(s) or administrator involved.
• Required extra assignment for each infraction.
• Before or after school detention for as many days as it takes to make up the assignment or complete an extra one.
• Required essay about academic integrity and student's reasons for adhering to its principles in the future.

In the long run, we want students to take pride in their work, done to the best of their abilities, with an understanding of their ethical obligation to present their own best efforts or to give proper credit when they have borrowed the work of others. Students need to learn how to assess the quality of their work, set personal learning goals and feel comfortable about asking for help or clarification from teachers and parents. When students view learning as a collaborative task with educators, and when they understand that the best competition of all is with oneself rather than with others, it greatly minimizes the temptation to cheat.

Please send questions or comments to bbruno@snet.net.