Academic Cheating
Academic Cheating
Cheating among students is on the rise. The Who's Who Among American High School Students 29th Annual Survey of High Achievers, taken in 1999, found that 78% of the top students confessed that they themselves had cheated. That was the highest percentage in the survey's 29 year history. These students also indicated that "84% of high school students judged cheating to be "common" among their peers" (Clowes, 2004). The survey also revealed that "95% of the students who cheated said they did not get caught" (Clowes, 2004). Nowadays cheating on exams has become more than writing answers on hands or taping a cheat sheet to the brim of a baseball cap. Cheating has evolved just as the world's technology has. Cheating can take the form of looking off another student's paper, downloading files or formulas onto graphing calculators, using technologies such as the computer, internet, iPod, cell phone or simply plagiarism. In fact, anything that allows a person to have educational bias in favor of him or her self can be construed as cheating. At one time or another, almost every person has cheated either knowingly or accidentally.
In the academic environment, students have used technology as a productive way to study, read, and communicate, but have also implemented it in unethical ways such as cheating. The advancement in technology has heightened the potential for cheating as the student has a multitude of resources right at his or her fingertips. Technology which has become a staple in the academic environment is now being used by students to assist in the "art" of cheating. On campuses and academic hallways and even in some lecture halls across the country, a casual observer would be hard pressed not to find a student without an iPod in one hand and a PDA or cell phone in the other. This same student would undoubtedly have his or her eyes glued to a laptop or notebook computer screen engaging in research online, reviewing...
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