"That's Not Cheating, Is It?": An Analysis of Student Definitions of Cheating
Abstract
The authors surveyed students in Principles of Economics courses at two universities to obtain their perceptions of what constitutes cheating. The differences in student perceptions they observed across these two institutions provided insight into the degree to which a well-publicized definition of cheating provided through an honor code influenced student behavior. Students were asked to report the number of times they cheated both before and after a formal definition of cheating was provided to them. While, in general, students' self-reports of cheating increased upon their receiving the definition, the main contribution of this research is to identify those student cohorts who tend to under-report their actual cheating before a formal definition of cheating is provided. These under-reporters tended to be students with lower grades, who placed less pressure on themselves to earn good grades and who generally believed that cheating was acceptable. Given that the students in this sample generally considered themselves honest and that most of them stated that cheating was never acceptable, or acceptable only in rare circumstances, these results suggest that the prevalence of cheating was due, in large part, to differences in how it is defined. Notably, one of the primary differences in student definitions of cheating concerned appropriate behavior on a take-home exam.
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