Question:
Seventy-five percent of high school students admit to:

1. Skipping breakfast
2. Cheating on schoolwork
3. Driving without wearing a seatbelt
4. Getting less than 5 hours of sleep per night

The answer: b) Cheating on schoolwork

Cheating is on the rise in schools across the country. A national survey of 4,500 high school students found that 75 percent of them engage in serious cheating.¹ More than half have plagiarized work they found on the Internet.² Surprisingly, many students seem to think that cheating is no big deal. Some 50 percent of students responding to the survey said they don’t think copying questions and answers from a test is even cheating.³

Why do students cheat?
Answers to this tough question are as diverse as kids themselves. For some kids, the pressure to do well in school and get into college means that they may cheat to get higher grades. Other kids may be caring for younger siblings after school or working a part-time job, which leaves them with limited time to get homework done. If this is the case in your family, reach out to your child’s teacher or guidance counselor. When the school is aware of a family’s unique situation, they often can help come up with creative ways to help the student manage his school and family commitments.

Donald McCabe, the first president of the Center for Academic Integrity, says that the most common response from students to the question, “Why do students cheat?” was that the adult world sets such poor examples.⁴

For example, one high school junior was desperate to get a parking permit so that she could drive to school every day, instead of riding the bus. Competition for the permits was fierce, so the girl’s mother wrote a note to the school principal, explaining that her daughter had a part-time job after school and that she needed to drive there. The note worked and the student got her parking pass. But it was a lie. The student had no part-time job.

How can schools keep students from cheating?
Research shows that honor codes are one way to deter kids from cheating.⁵ An honor code is a pledge that a student makes to be honest in his academic work. Honor codes often are based on five values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. Put into practice, these values teach students to act with integrity in their schoolwork.

How does an honor code work?
Some schools ask students to sign a pledge at the start of the school year. Other schools ask students to write the pledge on each test and major assignment as a reminder of the honor code. No matter how an honor code is implemented, it’s designed to ensure that students do their own work.

What kinds of things does an honor code address?
Most honor codes address cheating, plagiarizing (copying someone else’s work and presenting it as your own), and giving or receiving help with schoolwork. Honor codes prohibit things like sharing homework, getting exam questions from an earlier test taker, and writing exam answers on part of your body or the bottom of your shoe.

Honor codes also address hi-tech forms of cheating like buying an essay from online sources or programming a cell phone with test notes. Some honor codes even cover situations like intentionally staying home from school to avoid a test.

Honor codes also may ask students to report people who break the code, putting students in the difficult role of policing their peers.

What is the role of parents?
Parents are their kids’ first teachers and should try to model honesty and integrity. “I think kids today are looking to adults and society for a moral compass,” McCabe says, “and when they see the [dishonest] behavior occurring there, they don’t understand why they should be held to a higher standard.”⁶

When your child was younger, cheating was simpler and easier to talk about. If your little one cheated at a game of hide-and-seek, the stakes weren’t terribly high. A quick talk with you probably would correct your child’s behavior.

At the high school or college level, the costs of academic cheating can be life-altering. Students who break the honor code can face suspension, expulsion, and a permanent mark on their school record.

Talk with your teen about cheating in school. Make sure that she knows your feelings on the issue and your family’s rules about academic honesty. With your help, your teen really can honor the honor code.

Sources

^1–6 Center for Academic Integrity, 6/2005. Levels of Cheating and Plagiarism Remain High. Honor Codes and Modified Codes Are Shown To Be Effective in Reducing Academic Misconduct, last referenced 11/5/2007.

Quote

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.- Thomas Jefferson

Source

Foley, John P., ed., 1900 (Reprinted 1967). The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia: A Comprehensive Collection of the Views of Thomas Jefferson,, last referenced 11/5/2007.