Why Do Students Cheat Essay Example

Cheating is frowned upon in any area, whether it be in academics, occupation, or even in relationships. Often, we get caught up in the easy way of doing things, and cheating academically is just another way that we take the easy way out, but often there are reasons behind why students cheat. Was the work too difficult? Was it not well enough explained? All of these factors can lead into why a student would cheat, and oftentimes the teacher has a role to play as to why a student would resort to cheating. Cheating is a big deal in the long run, and is harmful to the people who cheat. There are many ways that we can reduce cheating and promote healthy habits and reduce dependence upon cheating in Kerr.

Students don’t realize how large of a stain cheating can be, academically. This can be attributed to the fact that the frontal lobe of the brain is developing and constantly changing at the same age where academic performance is one of the most important parts of their lives. While your frontal lobe is still developing, your brain overestimates the rewards of a decision, while not accurately taking in the risks. Students at this age are expected to get good grades above all else, and in a school environment like Kerr’s, it makes complete sense that students would cheat for good grades in the short run, but lose academic integrity in the long run, because they have no reason to care for academic integrity. Here comes viewpoint into play, where we can now see how students and teachers view cheating differently. For students, you have something that helps them get caught up with work and maintain good grades, which helps them meet up to expectations at home of their academic performance. But from the eyes of a teacher, you have students who are cheating on your work and costing you time in finding out who all is involved with the cheating, and also time with redoing your PAKs so that the students can no longer cheat. To the student, their cheating is justified, as they need to meet parental expectations on top of dealing with being near or at the time of college applications. Yet to a teacher, they only see the tip of the iceberg, and take the cheating as a face-value breaking of academic integrity, and character integrity. 

So does that make it right? No, it still doesn’t justify cheating, but it shows that students cheat for a larger reason than to just cheat. Cheating is still harmful to an academic environment as competitive as Kerr’s, as you now have students who didn’t have to work nearly as hard as they normally would have, climbing the ranks and having a rising GPA. But cheating has a larger harm than just academics, it leads to stress over the possibility of being caught, and on top of that you now have little to no knowledge of the subject you cheated on, which will only bite you in the back later on. Cheating does not cost Kerr money on either side, but it is a waste of time on both ends. Students are wasting their time by not learning the subject, and will have to later revisit that subject to gain proper understanding of it, especially when finals come into play. Teachers will have to spend time looking for those involved in the cheating, and address the situation properly. Both sides suffer in the long run. Not to mention, in higher education such as college, it begins to cost more than just time. Stanford had to pay thousands in legal fees in 2019 due to being sued by students who were not admitted to the university because of unqualified students taking their spots. 

What can we do to reduce cheating at our own school? Well, first there needs to be a serious conversation between teachers and students. Often, teachers assign ludacris amounts of work to students, and this work is often unengaging and lacks any sort of ingenuity, similar to working straight out of a textbook (and in some cases actually working out of a textbook.), which makes students not want to do the work at all, and then eventually just get the answers from a classmate or friend. Teachers and students need to find a middle ground between the amount of work that they are given/give out, and the type of work they are given/give out. Once that middle ground is found, that both students and teachers can come to an agreement on, then cheating will reduce itself. Students have no reason to cheat if they are working on something that genuinely gets them excited, or when they have a manageable amount of work. Teachers need to keep in mind that often, students are just cheating to keep up their grades so that they can meet parental expectations and the stress that comes with being in Kerr High School. Students need time for extracurriculars, time to be themselves, and time to develop interests that don’t revolve around academics or other people. High school is a time of personal growth, and I too often see Kerr students who get caught up in this black hole of having too much work, and then being forced to turn to cheating, completely sacrificing their academic integrity to do so, and repeating the process all over again the next month. Students also have to keep in mind the amount of time and effort that teachers put into making these lessons and PAKs, and then grading them. Cheating undermines all of that, as well as the student’s integrity. Integrity is important in the long run, as no college or job will want to hire someone with zero characteristic integrity, and characteristic integrity begins with academic integrity, and as someone who speaks from experience, cheating is an endless loop that begins but never ends. 

So, overall, cheating is in no way a good thing, but cheating is also a result of issues from both sides of the scale, not just the student. It is harmful to the student as well as the school, and wastes the time and effort of teachers and students, especially in Kerr. To truly reduce cheating there needs to be a conversation of how we can improve from both sides, and both sides need to be open to change. Our academic integrity is important, as it will help develop characteristic integrity as we grow older. If cheating is truly going to end in Kerr, we need to accept that nobody is in the right here, and accepting that is the first step towards change, and towards changing the culture of the school as a whole.