In a survey of over 16,000 college students, a leading researcher found that 30 percent of students self-reported serious cheating and 32 percent of faculty reported doing nothing about it. Dr. Donald McCabe, a leading scholar on college cheating including who does it, why, and how to prevent it spoke at the Wednesday symposium on academic ethics at Mississippi State University to a packed crowd in McComas Hall Theater.
McCabe, a professor of organization management at Rutgers University and the founding president of the Center for Academic Integrity
at Duke University spoke to students, faculty and staff on Wednesday afternoon. The program titled “Who Cheats? Who Doesn’t? Who Cares? was open
to the public and highlighted MSU’s growing problem of cheating and explored academic honesty issues.
“We feel that the symposium is an opportunity to heighten awareness of academic integrity,” Dean of Students Mike White said. “I think the algebra scandal made everyone aware of this opportunity.”
McCabe started his program by first praising MSU for the reaction to the recent cheating scandal.
“I really admire MSU’s reaction to the cheating problem,” he said. “The head-on approach was very well planned.”
Drawing on more than a decade of widely published research, including surveys of more than 16,000 college students at more than 60 public and private institutions, McCabe also met with several faculty, student and administrative groups to examine the climate for academic integrity at MSU.
McCabe has also worked with a lot of high schools around the nation. His research found that cheating starts in the junior years, but develops more fully into high school.
“Cheating starts out early, but it starts to grow over time,” McCabe said.
He found from another project’s research of 25 different high schools and over 4,500 students that cheating is widespread. He also found that more than 30 percent of students have been repetitive in serious cheating situations (tests/exams).
McCabe stresses his work at the college level. Earlier in his research he suggested that cheating is more frequent at larger, less selective schools, than smaller, more selective schools.
His research also found that more men cheat than women. This is because more cheating occurs in the business and engineering schools dominated by men. The research also suggested that more fraternity and sorority members tend to cheat over other college students. Another interesting part of his research showed that cheating is more common among the younger population of an institution. Freshmen and sophomores are forced to take classes that the university requires; therefore, they feel a need for cheating.
Besides individual factors, McCabe also researched institutional factors for cheating. McCabe said cheating is a common problem at most universities. Most universities have no honor code, making the chance of cheaters being caught slim. McCabe said that cheaters who are caught often experience penalties that are not severe.
McCabe studied the faculty as well in his research. He found that 32 percent of faculty surveyed did nothing when cheating occurred during their classes.
“This 32 percent should not be this high,” McCabe said. “The faculty should take on cheating instead of letting nothing happen, and that is wrong in my book.”
“It is very important to talk to your students about what’s going on,” McCabe said to the faculty members about eliminating cheating in the classroom.
He also touched on some simple principles the faculty could take on to improve academic integrity.
One such principle was fostering an environment of trust in the classroom. This simply means to gain the student’s trust. Encourage student responsibility, reduce opportunities to engage in academic dishonesty and challenge academic dishonesty when it occurs.
“The students here at MSU have a minor role in the academic honesty program along with the faculty,” he said. “And that is why there is a problem here.
“Most faculty members will not do anything because the process takes too long to occur or they don’t want to face the student in court with their parents,” he said.
At Mississippi State, students who break the academic honesty clause go before the Academic Honesty Committee (AHC) and present their case. The AHC has three student members one of which is a graduate student.
According to McCabe, students should have more of role in their academic
honesty. He suggests that the students should be asked the nature and extent of campus cheating. Allow students to play a major role in the resolution of contested cases.
“Students should be given a major role in the resolution of cases,” he said. “We need to give interested students a voice.” McCabe talked briefly about enforcing more strict sanctions on those who cheat. He suggests that a ‘XF’ system be put in place. In this system, if a student is caught cheating then he or she will receive a ‘XF’ on their transcript. The ‘X’ symbolizes dishonesty and the ‘F’ means failure of the class. McCabe states that the ‘X’ can be removed through different procedures.
“The ‘X’ can be removed if the student attends seminars or trainings targeted at not cheating and the warnings of cheating, however, the student still fails the course,” McCabe said.
Mississippi State follows two steps in academic dishonesty. The first offense results in an ‘F’ given by instructor. However, the AHC can give a maximum penalty of expulsion from the university. Any subsequent offense(s)
are referred to the AHC.
McCabe touched on how institutions should create a ‘model honor code.’ He said that in this code that several things should be taken into account. One thing that he stressed is that institutions should start out early to get
rid of cheating. By this having freshmen sign of code of honesty before they enter school.
McCabe said by starting out early that freshman orientation should bring up the institution’s honor code and explaining the code in detail.
McCabe said there is no real time for when cheating can start up again and it will not take long to start up again.
“If you don’t stay on top of the problem, it won’t take long to start again,” he said. “The concept of any form of code is a recognition of the need to maintain an ongoing dialogue in the campus community about the importance of academic integrity. They are not a one time fix.”
MSU confronted the cheating issue firsthand last semester when it was learned that dozens of students had access to a pilfered copy of a freshman algebra exam. The results of that test were thrown out and campus disciplinary and off-campus judicial proceedings were initiated against students who could be linked directly to the incident.
“I believe our goal should be to reduce cheating at a level that does not disadvantage those students who really would prefer to do their work honestly,” McCabe said. “Fortunately, especially when we talk about he more serious forms of cheating, this comprises a majority of students on many campuses.