Why do students cheat?
Research studies point to a number of key factors that motivate students to cheat. Students are more likely to cheat or plagiarize when they:
- Believe that others are getting away with cheating
- Believe that the stakes are too high to fail
- Find no intrinsic motivation for learning
- See grading criteria as arbitrary or don’t understand how they are being assessed
- Don’t understand that what they are doing is cheating (e.g., they are unfamiliar with citation practices).
How to create a culture of academic integrity
While no strategy is guaranteed to eliminate cheating completely, there are a number of ways to encourage academic integrity.
Here are some basic steps you can take as you design your course, craft your syllabus, or think about the first day of class:
- Clearly define what constitutes cheating. Students may not know that certain practices and forms of collaboration qualify as cheating. Be sure to articulate your expectations regarding student use of AI to complete assignments.
- Explain the importance of academic integrity to the class, to your discipline, and to students’ learning. Help students understand the short- and long-term consequences that come with cheating, plagiarizing, or using generative AI as a shortcut.
- Explain the relevance of your course content. Relevant teaching reduces cheating by helping students understand why the learning experience matters, both for their current academic journey and for their future lives and careers.
- Replace high-stakes exams/assignments with a series of lower-stakes assessments. Provide students opportunities to practice, learn from mistakes, and try again.
- Assess process more than product. Design smaller, lower-stakes assignments that scaffold to a more complex task. This provides students opportunities to get feedback, reflect on their learning, and develop metacognitive skills.
- Share your grading criteria in advance (e.g., through a rubric) to help students understand your expectations and approach to grading.
- Revise assignments to ask students to apply something specific they are learning in your class to their own experiences.
- Add reflective components to your assignments. Prompt students to explain or justify their responses to exam questions. A quick scan of these reflections can indicate whether a student is thinking for themselves.
- Allow students to work together. Eliminate the lure of copying, but have students collaborate to develop answers.
Questions about academic misconduct?
Instructors who suspect a student has engaged in academic misconduct can find support and guidance by connecting with their campus student conduct office.