Three Conditions that Encourage CheatingCheating has increasingly become a common practice among college and high schools students today.
Some reasons have been suggested to result in an increase in cheating among students. One of the reasons includes the pressure to succeed in examinations where students do all they can to ensure that they pass their exams: even when it means cheating. The need to keep up with their peers is the second reason why students cheat in exams. Students feel that in case they failed in their exams, their peers would stay away from them and lose friendship. The third reason why students cheat in exams is due to the increased stress on high-stakes evaluations by the nation which force students to be dishonest in order to meet the national standards (Murdock & Anderman, 2006).
Pressure to pass exams, maintenance of peers and high-stake national evaluations are factors related to students’ perception of ability. There are other three conditions related to attribution or cognitive theory that encourage cheating. Students’ goal on what they anticipate in exams is the first condition that makes them to become dishonest. These goals can be extrinsically or intrinsically focused, ego or performance. The second reason, according to cognitive theory that leads to cheating is the students’ expectations for fulfilling the goals.
Students are more likely to cheat when they have poor expectations of their capacities to fulfill their goals using their personal efforts. The last condition that may encourage students to cheat is depended on the students’ evaluations of the costs that accompany the achieving of their goals. When students weigh the potential costs of cheating and find them to be minimal, they are then likely to cheat and pass exams and fulfill their goals (Murdock & Anderman, 2006). In conclusion, cheating is encouraged by conditions related to the perception of students on their ability to pass examinations.
The three conditions that are related to students’ perception of their ability are pressure to pass exams, maintenance of their peers and the high-stake national evaluations that pressure students to become dishonest. Conditions related to cognitive or attribution theories that lead to students’ cheating in exams are students’ goals, expectations and assessment of the costs of accomplishing the goals. Reference: Murdock, T .
B & Anderman, E. M (2006). Motivational perspective on students cheating: toward and integrated model of academic dishonesty. Educational Psychologist. 41(3). 129-145.