The issue of cheating in college has been around for as long as higher education has existed. Cheating can take many forms, from copying another student’s work to hiring someone to write a paper for you. While there are no surefire ways to prevent cheating, there are steps that professors can take to deter it.
Before diving into solutions, let’s first know why students cheat.
Why Do Students Cheat?
There can be many reasons why a student might cheat.
1. A student might feel unprepared for the class and fear getting a bad grade.
A low grade can jeopardize a student’s chances of getting into their desired grad school or landing their dream job. Most often, the student who cheats is not the wrong person but someone who is desperate and sees cheating as their only way out.
2. A student might have personal issues going on in their life that are causing them to feel overwhelmed and stressed.
They might be working two jobs to support themselves or their family, so they don’t have enough time to devote to studying. Cheating can seem easy to get the grade they need without putting in the extra effort.
3. A student might be lazy and not want to put in the effort to do the work themselves.
Some students see cheating as a way to get ahead without doing the hard work required to succeed. Others are just procrastinators and wait until the last minute to do their job, making cheating seem like the only option. For help in any writing project, Globe Reviews can be a go-to solution.
4. A student might have copied a friend’s work and not gotten caught, so they feel it is okay to do it again.
Lastly, some students might have grown up in an environment where the practice was acceptable, so they don’t think anything of it.
While there can be many reasons a student might cheat, the bottom line is that it is wrong and needs to be stopped. But how?
What Can Professors Do To Prevent Cheating?
One way to discourage cheating is to make it more challenging to do. For example, professors can require students to submit their work electronically so that it can be compared against other sources. This can make it more difficult for students to copy and paste from the internet or another student’s paper. Another way to make cheating more difficult is to use plagiarism detection software, which can flag instances of copied material.
Another way to discourage it is to make it more costly. For example, professors can give lower grades for work that is found to be plagiarized. This will make students think twice before cheating, as they will not want to risk getting a lower grade. Additionally, professors can report students who cheat to their academic dean or the police. This can result in expulsion from school or criminal charges, which is a high cost.
No single solution will solve the problem in college, but by making it more difficult and costly, professors can deter many students from cheating.
CourseHealth, Just In Time To Prevent Cheating
Another helpful thing is subscribing to a Copyright Content Monitoring System (CCMS). CourseHealth, for example, offers this service to professors. With CourseHealth, professors can upload syllabi and lecture materials, which are then scanned for plagiarism. If any copied material is found, the professor is alerted so that they can take action. This can help to catch cheating before it happens and prevent it from occurring in the future.
The issue of cheating in college is not going away anytime soon, but there are steps that professors can take to deter it. By making cheating more difficult and costly, professors can discourage many students from engaging in this behavior. Additionally, plagiarism detection software and subscribing to a CCMS can help catch cheating before it happens. With these measures in place, professors can help reduce the amount of cheating in college.
Do you have experience with cheating in college? What do you think professors can do to prevent it? Let us know in the comments below!
