The authors examine student cheating based on implicit and explicit definitions of cheating. Prior to being provided a definition of cheating, students reported whether they had cheated. Students were then provided a definition of cheating and asked to rereport their cheating behaviors. Results indicate that students do not understand what…

When Gerald W. Bracey heard that John Fremer, a long-time friend and Educational Testing Service psychometrician, had retired and now worked for Caveon.com, a firm dedicated to detecting cheating, Bracey was amused. Snooping for cheats seemed like a trivial pursuit compared to the lofty testing enterprises he had undertaken at ETS. No more. Bracey…

Student plagiarism is an important topic of discussion in the teaching profession. Part of the profession mission should be to help classroom teachers improve the quality of their research assignment (whether they want to or not).

The similar problems faced by the physics and chemistry teachers are described. The issue of cheating on tests in the classroom can be addressed by the teachers by comparing methods for monitoring the classroom behavior.

The debate about what constitutes plagiarism and how it should be dealt with in the academy continues to gain momentum. The response from many higher education institutions is to channel ever-increasing amounts of resources into plagiarism detection technologies, rather than trying to ascertain why plagiarism might be occurring in the first place.…

Because junior tennis players have to enforce the rules of the game against each other, cheating to give a player an unfair advantage is common. While this deviant behavior is found to be commonplace in the sport, there is little research to investigate its cause or influences. Results indicated that junior players felt that personal and parental…

Curriculum alignment, which links instructional content to state-designed tests, is destigmatizing "teaching to the test." Ignoring this linkage can have painful consequences. Substandard school performance can cause Texas principals to lose their jobs and Maryland schools to forfeit substantial monetary rewards. Indianapolis schools try…

The "high stakes" environment surrounding student performance on standardized achievement tests has pressured educators to improve test scores--in both appropriate and inappropriate ways. Convened to examine such testing practices, a National Council on Measurement in Education developed guidelines for managing ethical, instructional,…

When you read or hear an unethical suggestion, such as "Steal this article and sell it to another magazine," we're guessing that your internal compass indicates "wrong direction." In other words, your internal voice says, "No, that would be wrong!" Your internal compass tells you when something is right and something is wrong. In our example, your…

There is a long line of studies on academic cheating. This literature has established a litany of different individual and contextual factors that seem to inspire student conformity of the official rules of test taking. This study draws on this literature by using fourteen independent variables to explain the cheating habits of students in a…

Issues surrounding student cheating and plagiarism are ubiquitous in higher education. Research has consistently found gaps between policies and practices on our campuses, a struggle for those student affairs professionals charged with institutionalizing the value of academic integrity. While the motivations and roles of students have been…

Comparison of two indices of answer copying, one using only wrong responses and the other using right and wrong responses for six tests taken by from 910 to 1,154 college students suggests that indices of copying may perform differentially well according to the size of scores of examinee pairs evaluated. (SLD)

Although educator cheating (mostly to "help" students) is more commonplace, it should not be tolerated. The best course is building assessment systems with integrity. Several cheating types, such as the self-aggrandizing teacher and pocket-lining administrator, are explained. A sidebar lists eight systemic problems with testing. (MLH)

Over the past two decades, technology use has increased in the classroom. What started out as a single computer in a classroom has evolved into a laptop or handheld for every student, with a wireless connection to the Internet and other network resources. Cell phones, PDAs, and other electronic tools have opened up new horizons for utilizing…

Cheating and plagiarism were studied at a midwestern public university's College of Education, by interviewing three male and three female students who were in Master's programs in health education, rehabilitation counseling, and community counseling. None of the six students had had a formal orientation program covering expectations about…