Honesty in a cheater's world
By Paul Breschuk
Features Editor
March 17, 2010
 The latest UWindsor cheating scandal, which may cause 1,100 students to rewrite a Psychology midterm exam, falls in line with the generally held belief that academic dishonesty is on the rise.
Obviously, it is easy to release knee-jerk responses out of such provocative news stories. Do these reactions hold merit or do they merely equate to cries of "the sky is falling?"
Before we reach an answer, let us first reacquaint ourselves with the issue’s broader context, the murky setting of Windsor’s current cheating story.
In a 2006 presentation to Canadian Centre for Ethics and Corporate Policy, David Callahan painted a bleak picture by charting the moral decline of the modern Western world. Callahan, author of The Cheating Culture (Harcourt 2004), gave evidence to rising tax evasion in the U.S., which doubled in the past decade to $350 billion per year.
He added that in a time when theft or fraud by employees became the largest form of U.S. crime, there are unethical doctors becoming paid spokespeople for various pharmaceutical companies as well as steroid-ridden athletes posing as heroes.
Products of their environment, students unconsciously absorb these lessons through the media and, sometimes, from the subtle discretions of their parents. How many, then, apply this dark knowledge to their studies in the classroom?
Callahan has found that the urge to cut corners begins at an early age. “According to surveys, between two thirds and three quarters of U.S. high school and university students admit to some cheating,” said Callahan. “Earlier this year, the first major study of cheating among Canadian students was released and revealed that cheating is a serious problem in this nation as well.”
Other studies have found even more troubling figures. A recent project proposal from The School For Ethical Education described academic dishonesty as reaching “epidemic proportions,” with nine out of 10 high school students admitting to some form of cheating during each school year.
The growing trend of academic dishonesty, however, is not a new phenomenon. In the research of Fred Schab, annual surveys administered to high school students over a three year period starting in 1969 showed drastic changes in the students’ perceptions of cheating.
For example, 33.5 per cent of the students agreed that “sometimes it is necessary to be dishonest” in 1969. Three years later, that figure jumped 66.6 per cent. Similarly, the 33.8 per cent admitting to the use of cheat sheets on tests rose to 67.8 per cent.
What could account for this drastic rise in cheating? A clue that might lead to this answer is found in the way 1969’s society differs from that of 2010.
“Exacerbating the problem is our declining social norms, where cheating and other unethical behavior by adults has gotten to the point where it seems to now be somewhat normalized,” said Joseph W. Mazzola, Executive Director of the Character Education Partnership (CEP). “Almost every day we hear about corporate officials cooking the books, athletes doing whatever it takes to win, politicians crossing ethical boundaries, and the list goes on.”
Current students also face problems that did not trouble prior generations, such as corporate downsizing and outsourcing due to globalization.
In creating job uncertainty for soon-to-be-graduates, economic decline and job shortages also add to a heightened level of stress. Increasingly, students feel as though a job in their field is no longer guaranteed, a theory that is corroborated by the prevalence of university graduates stuck in career purgatory at various fast food establishments.
Such bleak post-graduate realities are what fuels the potential exam stealer and essay plagiarizer to eventually join what appears to be the cheating majority.
Moreover, there is no better motivation for a student to cheat than to merely look around the classroom, sensing the rampant cheating by his or her competition. After all, there are only so many spots available in the admissions list of an Ivy League school.
Whether correctly perceived or not, the idea that one must take certain shady measures to assure their competitiveness is widely understood and often acted upon. Indeed, one must keep up with the pack in the same way as a Tour de France cyclist climbing the steep slopes of Alpe d’Huez.
To further entertain the comparison, let us not forget cycling’s long history of cocaine, barbiturates, steroids, and blood doping.
One needs only to listen to five time Tour de France winner Jacques Anquetil, the Lance Armstrong of his day, quoted nearly 50 years ago with asking, “Do they expect us to ride on mineral water alone?” Such is the disturbing reality of many professional sports, producing an atmosphere in which cheating is not only encouraged, but required.
What, then, can stem the rising tide of academic dishonesty, and to a further extent, business and sports ethics?
Since it is apparent that cheaters in academia will continue the practice into their careers, logic dictates that the most successful advancements against cheating would be made with the indoctrination of up-and-coming students. Armed with a new moral code, these students would be better fortified against the temptation to cheat.
“I think it is next to impossible to flip a switch in the way we conduct ourselves in life,” said Mazzola. “Aristotle rightly said that ‘we become what we repeatedly do.’ I happen to agree and believe that if young people get into the habit of cheating throughout their school years, they are more apt to cross integrity lines as adults.”
Of benefit to the fight against academic dishonesty is also found in the media’s coverage of stiffly punished offenders.
Integrity educators believe that students get the message when they see white collar criminals and steroid using athletes disgraced in the glare of the media spotlight.
Also, a vital weapon in aiding the efforts of an integrity-centric education is found in Brian Moriarty’s philosophy of “grit.” Moriarty, Associate Director for Communications at the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics, explains grit as “the ability to try and fail a thousand times and still expect success. It is what Thomas Edison believed separated himself from other inventors.
Much of cheating rests on a lack of self-confidence, a lack of faith that one’s abilities will be enough. Somehow we need to convince students that it is much better to try and fall short than it is to cheat, for the trying has great value in and of itself.”
For the UWindsor students complicit in the recent cheating attempt, it is never too late to regain a sense of respect and pride in their work. Especially if some of these students evade punishment and its destruction of their reputations, they will have a unique opportunity to experience the losing side of a gamble without its drawbacks: a free lesson, perhaps.
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