Learning That It Is Okay to Cheat

Abstract Vignettes are used to examine the relation between students observing faculty actions and students' attitude that it is okay to cheat. The action is that the instructor uses either a low or a high level of cheating deterrence for the exam. The results indicate a statistically significant difference in attitudes upon observing the actions. Keywords: cheating, attitudes, deterrence ********** The fact that academic cheating by students, hereafter cheating, is common suggests that, at least in some way, many students think that it is okay to cheat. Not surprisingly, a large number of studies have identified student attitudes that are correlated with cheating (Whitley, 1998). However, only a few studies have looked at how students learn the attitudes that lead them to think that it is okay to cheat. Sykes and Matza (1957) introduce the concept of "techniques of neutralization" as "justifications of deviant behavior." These "justifications for deviance ... are seen as valid by the delinquent but not by ... society at large." Thus, neutralization allows the deviant to "remain committed to the dominant normative system and yet so qualifies its imperatives that violations are 'acceptable' if not 'right.' " Haines et al. (1986) find that cheaters have higher neutralization scores than non-cheaters and conclude that neutralization "is fundamental to cheating." Murdock et al. (2004) find from vignettes that students view cheating as more justifiable when the instructor uses poor pedagogy and the classroom environment is performance oriented and less personalized. Eisenberg (2004) finds from vignettes that the student in the vignette was viewed as less justified in copying during the exam "when supervision during [the] test was high." Haines et al. (1986) find in a survey that seeing others cheat "added a small, but statistically significant margin of additional discrimination" to their model. O'Rourke et al. (2010) find from vignettes that "seeing others cheat increases cheating behavior by causing students to judge the behavior less morally reprehensible [more attractive], not by making rationalization easier." Eisenberg's paper was the only study found that provided evidence on the effect of a cheating deterrent on an attitude held by students. The goal in the present paper is to add to this evidence by examining the effect of faculty use of cheating deterrents on students' attitude that cheating is acceptable. The relation between Eisenberg's study and the present study will be discussed later. Anderman et al. (1998) find in a survey that 50% of students "occasionally endorse cheating as acceptable." Jensen et al. (2002) find from vignettes that "acceptance of academic cheating was positively correlated with cheating." There are at least three senses in which cheating could be viewed as acceptable: socially acceptable, morally acceptable, and an acceptable risk. Grimes (2004) finds that 49% of students state that "cheating is socially acceptable," 85% "consider cheating to be ethically/morally wrong," and 92% "have a fear of punishment if caught cheating." It is expected that the exam procedures used by an instructor would affect each of these aspects of acceptability. Furthermore, there may be interactions among these aspects. To narrow the focus of the present study, the social acceptability of cheating will be examined. Diekhoff et al. (1996) find in a survey that students "are most deterred from cheating by fear of embarrassment should they be caught." Eisenberg (2004), commenting on results from his vignettes, suggests that "a possible explanation for the effect of supervision on students' attitudes is that students perform a risk-benefit analysis regarding copying on exams, and sometimes treat the question 'is it right to cheat?' as 'is it worthwhile?'" To decrease the effect of risk on the social acceptability of cheating, the present paper examines the case where students do not get caught. …