causes of cheating in essay

Essays About Cheating: Top 5 Examples and 9 Writing Prompts

Essays about cheating show the value of honesty, see our top picks for examples and prompts you can use in writing.

In the US, 95% of high school students admitted to participating in some form of academic cheating . This includes exams and plagiarism. However, cheating doesn’t only occur in schools. It’s also prevalent in couples. Psychologists say that 50% of divorce cases in the country are because of infidelity . Other forms of cheating exist, such as cheating on a diet, a business deal, etc.

Because cheating is an intriguing subject, many want to read about it. However, to write essays about cheating appropriately, you must first pick a subtopic you’re comfortable discussing. Therefore, we have selected five simple but exemplary pieces you can read to get inspiration for writing your paper.

See below our round-up of top example essays about cheating.

1. Long Essay On Cheating In School By Prasanna

2. the reality of cheating in college essay by writer kip, 3. why cheating is wrong by bernadette mcbride, 4. what counts as cheating in a relationship by anonymous on gradesfixer, 5. emotional cheating by anonymous on papersowl, 1. types of cheating, 2. i was cheated on, 3. is cheating a mistake or choice, 4. tax evasion and cheating , 5. when i cheated, 6. cheating in american schools and universities, 7. review a famous book or film about cheating, 8. a famous cheating quote, 9. cause and effects of cheating.

“Cheating is a false representation of the child’s ability which he may not be able to give without cheating. It is unfair to everyone involved as it deprives the true one of the chance to come on the top.”

Prasanna begins the essay by defining cheating in schools and then incorporates how this unethical behavior occurs in reality. She further delves into the argument that cheating is not learning but an addiction that can result in students losing self-confidence, sanity, and integrity. 

Apart from showing the common causes and harmful effects of cheating on students, Prasanna also adds parents’ and teachers’ critical roles in helping students in their studies to keep them from cheating.

“It’s human nature to want to win, and some of us will go against the rules to do so. It can be harmless, but in many cases, it is annoying, or even hurtful.”

Kip defines cheating as human nature and focuses his essay on individuals who are hell-bent on wanting to win in online games. Unfortunately, these players’ desire to be on top is all-consuming, and they’re willing to go against the rules and disregard their integrity.

He talks about his experiences of being cheated in a game called AoE. He also incorporates the effects of these instances on newbies. These cheaters will humiliate, dishearten, and traumatize beginners who only want to have fun.

Check out these essays about cooperation .

“A cheater is more than likely lying to themselves more than to the people around them. A person can only go so far before their lies catch up to them, begin to accumulate, and start to penalize you.”

Mcbride dedicates her essay to answering why cheating is wrong, no matter the circumstance. She points out that there will always be a definite punishment for cheaters, whether they get caught. Mcbride believes that students who cheat, copy, and have someone else do their work are lazy and irresponsible. These students will never gain knowledge.

However, she also acknowledges that some cheaters are desperate, while some don’t realize the repercussions of their behaviors. At the end of the essay, she admits to cheating but says she’s no longer part of that vicious cycle, promising she has already realized her mistakes and doesn’t want to cheat again.

“Keep in mind that relationships are not based on logic, but are influenced by our emotions.”

The author explains how it’s challenging to define cheating in a relationship. It’s because every person has varying views on the topic. What others consider an affair may be acceptable to some. This includes the partners’ interaction with others while also analyzing the individual’s personality, such as flirting, sleeping in the same bed, and spending time with folks.

The essay further explains experts’ opinions on why men and women cheat and how partners heal and rebuild their trust. Finally, examples of different forms of cheating are discussed in the piece to give the readers more information on the subject. 

“…emotional cheating can be described as a desire to engage in another relationship without physically leaving his or her primary relationship.”

There’s an ongoing debate about whether emotional cheating should be labeled as such. The essay digs into the causes of emotional cheating to answer this issue. These reasons include lack of attention to each other, shortage of affectionate gestures, and misunderstandings or absence of proper communication. 

All of these may lead to the partner comparing their relationship to others. Soon, they fall out of love and fail to maintain boundaries, leading to insensitivity and selfishness. When a person in a relationship feels any of these, it can be a reason to look for someone else who can value them and their feelings.

9 Helpful Prompts in Writing Essays About Cheating

Here are some cheating subtopics you can focus your essay on:

Some types of cheating include deception, fabrication, bribery, impersonation, sabotage, and professional misconduct. Explain their definitions and have examples to make it easier for readers to understand.

You can use this prompt even if you don’t have any personal experience of being cheated on. You can instead relay events from a close friend or relative. First, narrate what happened and why. Then add what the person did to move on from the situation and how it affected them. Finally, incorporate lessons they’ve learned.

While this topic is still discussed by many, for you, is cheating a redeemable mistake? Or is it a choice with consequences? Express your opinion on this matter. Gather reliable evidence to support your claims, such as studies and research findings, to increase your essay’s credibility.

Tax evasion is a crime with severe penalties. Explain what it is and its punishments through a famous tax evasion case your readers can immediately recognize. For example, you can use Al Capone and his 11-year imprisonment and $215,000 back taxes . Talk through why he was charged with such and add your opinion. Ensure you have adequate and reliable sources to back up your claims.

Start with a  5 paragraph essay  to better organize your points.

Some say everyone will cheat at some point in their life. Talk about the time you cheated – it can be at a school exam, during work, or while on a diet. Put the perspective that made you think cheating was reasonable. Did you feel guilt? What did you do after, and did you cheat again? Answer these questions in your essay for an engaging and thrilling piece of writing.

Since academic cheating is notorious in America, use this topic for your essay. Find out which areas have high rates of academic cheating. What are their penalties? Why is cheating widespread? Include any measures the academe put in place.

Cheating is a frequent cause of conflict on small and big screens. Watch a film or read a story and write a review. Briefly summarize the plot, critique the characters, and add your realizations after finishing the piece. 

Goodreads has a list of books related to cheating. Currently, Thoughtless by S.C. Stephens has the highest rating.

Use this as an opportunity to write a unique essay by explaining the quote based on your understanding. It can be quotes from famous personalities or something that resonates with you and your experiences.

Since cheating’s cause and effect is a standard prompt, center your essay on an area unrelated to academics or relationships. For instance, write about cheating on your diet or cheating yourself of the opportunities life presents you.

Create a top-notch essay with excellent grammar. See our list of the best grammar checkers.

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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Exam Cheating, Its Causes and Effects

Introduction, definition of cheating, works cited.

The ability of a nation to compete effectively on the international front hinges on the quality of its education. With this in mind, it is okay to conclude that cheating in exams undermines the standard of education in a country and consequently hinders its ability to compete at the world stage. Indeed, students who cheat in exams become poor decision makers in their careers. Their productivity and level of integrity is adversely dented by their belief of having everything the easy way. Academic dishonesty is not new but with the increase in competition for jobs, most students have resorted to cheating in order to qualify for these jobs (Anderman and Johnston 75). The purpose of this paper is to research in detail the causes and effects of cheating in exams.

In the education fraternity, cheating entails: copying from someone, Plagiarizing of academic work and paying someone to do your homework. There are numerous reasons why students cheat in exams however; this action elicits harsh repercussions if one is caught. This may include: suspension, dismissal and/or cancellation of marks (Davis, Grover, Becker and McGregor 16).

One of the major reasons that make students cheat in exams is the over-emphasis that has been placed on passing exams. Apparently, more effort has been directed towards passing of exams than learning due to the high competition in the job market. Similarly, most interviewers focus more on certificates rather than the knowledge of the candidate. It is no wonder most learning institutions these days focus on teaching how to pass an exam and completely disregard impacting knowledge to students.

In some cases, students cheat because they are not confident of their ability or skills in academics. Whenever this feeling is present, students resort to cheating as a way of avoiding ridicule in case of failure. In essence, some of these students are very bright but the fear of failure and the lack of adequate preparations compel them to cheat. The paradox is that when cheating, most students swear that they will never do it again but this only serves as the beginning of a vicious cycle of cheating (Anderman and Johnston 76).

Societal pressure is another major cause for cheating in schools. Parents, teachers and relatives always, with good intentions, mount too much pressure on students to get good grades in order to join good schools and eventually get high paying jobs. All this pressure creates innate feelings that it is okay to cheat in exams if only to satisfy their parents and teachers egos.

There are times when students justify cheating because others do it. In most cases, if the head of the class is cheating then most of the other students will feel they have enough reason to also cheat. The system of education is such that it does not sufficiently reprimand those who cheat and tends to hail those who pass exams regardless of how they have done—the end justifies the means.

With the advent of the internet, it has become very easy to access information from a website using a phone or a computer. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo have made it very easy for students to buy custom-made papers for their class work. It is very easy for students from all over the world to have the same answer for an assignment as they all use a similar website. Indeed, plagiarism is the order of the day, all on has to do is to have the knowledge to search for the different reports and essays on the net (Davis, Grover, Becker and McGregor 18).

Nowadays, most tutors spend most of their class time giving lectures. In fact, it is considered old fashioned to give assignments during class time. Consequently, these assignments are piled up and given during certain durations of the semester. This poses a big challenge to students who have to strike a balance between attending to their homework and having fun. As a result, the workload becomes too much such that it is easier to pay for it to be done than actually do it—homework then becomes as demanding as a full-time job (Jordan 234).

From a tender age, children are taught that cheating is wrong; yet most of them divert from this course as they grow up. In fact, most of them become so addicted to the habit that they feel the need to perfect it. Most often, if a student cheats and never gets caught, he is likely to cheat all his life. Research has shown that students who cheat in high school are twice likely to cheat in college. The bigger problem is that this character is likely to affect one’s career in future consequently tarnishing his/her image.

Cheating in exams poses a great problem in one’s career. To get a good grade as a result of cheating is a misrepresentation of facts. Furthermore, it is difficult for a tutor to isolate students who genuinely need specialized coaching. It becomes a huge embarrassment when a cheating student is expected to give a perfect presentation and fails to demonstrate his ability as indicated by his/her grades. In addition, students who cheat in examination do not get a chance to grasp important concepts in class and are likely to face difficulties in the future when the same principles are applied in higher levels of learning.

The worst-case scenario in cheating in an exam is being caught. Once a student is caught, his reputation is dealt a huge blow. It is likely that such a student will be dismissed or suspended from school. This hinders his/her ability to land a good job or join graduate school. It can also lead to a complete damage of one’s reputation making it hard for others to trust you including those who cheat (Jordan 235).

Cheating in exams and assignments can be attributed to many reasons. To begin with, teaching today concentrates so much on the exams and passing rather than impacting knowledge. Lack of confidence in one’s ability and societal pressure is another reason why cheating is so wide spread. Cheating cannot solely be blamed on the students; lecturers have also played their part in this. Apparently, most lectures concentrate on teaching than giving assignments during class time. This leaves the students with loads of work to cover during their free time.

Technology has also played its part in cheating—many students turn to the internet in a bid to complete their assignments. On the other hand, it is important to note than choices have consequences and the repercussions of cheating in an exams are dire. First, it completely ruins one’s reputation thereby hindering chances of joining college or getting a good job. It also leads to suspensions and/or expulsion from school. Furthermore, the habit is so addictive that it is likely to replicate in all aspects of life—be it relationships, work, business deals etc. It is important to shun this habit as nothing good can come out of it.

Anderman, Erick and Jerome Johnston. “TV News in the Classroom: What are Adolescents Learning?” Journal of Adolescent Research , 13 (1998): 73-100. Print.

Davis, Stephen, Cathy Grover, Angela, Becker, and Loretta McGregor. “Academic Dishonesty: Prevalence, Determinants, Techniques, and Punishments”. Teaching of Psychology , 19 (1) (1996): 16–20. Print.

Jordan, Augustus E. “College Student Cheating: The Role of Motivation, Perceived Norms, Attitudes, and Knowledge of Institutional Policy. Ethics and Behavior , 11, (2001): 233–247. Print.

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Why Students Cheat—and What to Do About It

A teacher seeks answers from researchers and psychologists. 

“Why did you cheat in high school?” I posed the question to a dozen former students.

“I wanted good grades and I didn’t want to work,” said Sonya, who graduates from college in June. [The students’ names in this article have been changed to protect their privacy.]

My current students were less candid than Sonya. To excuse her plagiarized Cannery Row essay, Erin, a ninth-grader with straight As, complained vaguely and unconvincingly of overwhelming stress. When he was caught copying a review of the documentary Hypernormalism , Jeremy, a senior, stood by his “hard work” and said my accusation hurt his feelings.

Cases like the much-publicized ( and enduring ) 2012 cheating scandal at high-achieving Stuyvesant High School in New York City confirm that academic dishonesty is rampant and touches even the most prestigious of schools. The data confirms this as well. A 2012 Josephson Institute’s Center for Youth Ethics report revealed that more than half of high school students admitted to cheating on a test, while 74 percent reported copying their friends’ homework. And a survey of 70,000 high school students across the United States between 2002 and 2015 found that 58 percent had plagiarized papers, while 95 percent admitted to cheating in some capacity.

So why do students cheat—and how do we stop them?

According to researchers and psychologists, the real reasons vary just as much as my students’ explanations. But educators can still learn to identify motivations for student cheating and think critically about solutions to keep even the most audacious cheaters in their classrooms from doing it again.

Rationalizing It


First, know that students realize cheating is wrong—they simply see themselves as moral in spite of it.

“They cheat just enough to maintain a self-concept as honest people. They make their behavior an exception to a general rule,” said Dr. David Rettinger , professor at the University of Mary Washington and executive director of the Center for Honor, Leadership, and Service, a campus organization dedicated to integrity.

According to Rettinger and other researchers, students who cheat can still see themselves as principled people by rationalizing cheating for reasons they see as legitimate.

Some do it when they don’t see the value of work they’re assigned, such as drill-and-kill homework assignments, or when they perceive an overemphasis on teaching content linked to high-stakes tests.

“There was no critical thinking, and teachers seemed pressured to squish it into their curriculum,” said Javier, a former student and recent liberal arts college graduate. “They questioned you on material that was never covered in class, and if you failed the test, it was progressively harder to pass the next time around.”

But students also rationalize cheating on assignments they see as having value.

High-achieving students who feel pressured to attain perfection (and Ivy League acceptances) may turn to cheating as a way to find an edge on the competition or to keep a single bad test score from sabotaging months of hard work. At Stuyvesant, for example, students and teachers identified the cutthroat environment as a factor in the rampant dishonesty that plagued the school.

And research has found that students who receive praise for being smart—as opposed to praise for effort and progress—are more inclined to exaggerate their performance and to cheat on assignments , likely because they are carrying the burden of lofty expectations.

A Developmental Stage

When it comes to risk management, adolescent students are bullish. Research has found that teenagers are biologically predisposed to be more tolerant of unknown outcomes and less bothered by stated risks than their older peers.

“In high school, they’re risk takers developmentally, and can’t see the consequences of immediate actions,” Rettinger says. “Even delayed consequences are remote to them.”

While cheating may not be a thrill ride, students already inclined to rebel against curfews and dabble in illicit substances have a certain comfort level with being reckless. They’re willing to gamble when they think they can keep up the ruse—and more inclined to believe they can get away with it.

Cheating also appears to be almost contagious among young people—and may even serve as a kind of social adhesive, at least in environments where it is widely accepted.  A study of military academy students from 1959 to 2002 revealed that students in communities where cheating is tolerated easily cave in to peer pressure, finding it harder not to cheat out of fear of losing social status if they don’t.

Michael, a former student, explained that while he didn’t need to help classmates cheat, he felt “unable to say no.” Once he started, he couldn’t stop.

Technology Facilitates and Normalizes It

With smartphones and Alexa at their fingertips, today’s students have easy access to quick answers and content they can reproduce for exams and papers.  Studies show that technology has made cheating in school easier, more convenient, and harder to catch than ever before.

To Liz Ruff, an English teacher at Garfield High School in Los Angeles, students’ use of social media can erode their understanding of authenticity and intellectual property. Because students are used to reposting images, repurposing memes, and watching parody videos, they “see ownership as nebulous,” she said.

As a result, while they may want to avoid penalties for plagiarism, they may not see it as wrong or even know that they’re doing it.

This confirms what Donald McCabe, a Rutgers University Business School professor,  reported in his 2012 book ; he found that more than 60 percent of surveyed students who had cheated considered digital plagiarism to be “trivial”—effectively, students believed it was not actually cheating at all.

Strategies for Reducing Cheating

Even moral students need help acting morally, said  Dr. Jason M. Stephens , who researches academic motivation and moral development in adolescents at the University of Auckland’s School of Learning, Development, and Professional Practice. According to Stephens, teachers are uniquely positioned to infuse students with a sense of responsibility and help them overcome the rationalizations that enable them to think cheating is OK.

1. Turn down the pressure cooker. Students are less likely to cheat on work in which they feel invested. A multiple-choice assessment tempts would-be cheaters, while a unique, multiphase writing project measuring competencies can make cheating much harder and less enticing. Repetitive homework assignments are also a culprit, according to research , so teachers should look at creating take-home assignments that encourage students to think critically and expand on class discussions. Teachers could also give students one free pass on a homework assignment each quarter, for example, or let them drop their lowest score on an assignment.

2. Be thoughtful about your language.   Research indicates that using the language of fixed mindsets , like praising children for being smart as opposed to praising them for effort and progress , is both demotivating and increases cheating. When delivering feedback, researchers suggest using phrases focused on effort like, “You made really great progress on this paper” or “This is excellent work, but there are still a few areas where you can grow.”

3. Create student honor councils. Give students the opportunity to enforce honor codes or write their own classroom/school bylaws through honor councils so they can develop a full understanding of how cheating affects themselves and others. At Fredericksburg Academy, high school students elect two Honor Council members per grade. These students teach the Honor Code to fifth graders, who, in turn, explain it to younger elementary school students to help establish a student-driven culture of integrity. Students also write a pledge of authenticity on every assignment. And if there is an honor code transgression, the council gathers to discuss possible consequences. 

4. Use metacognition. Research shows that metacognition, a process sometimes described as “ thinking about thinking ,” can help students process their motivations, goals, and actions. With my ninth graders, I use a centuries-old resource to discuss moral quandaries: the play Macbeth . Before they meet the infamous Thane of Glamis, they role-play as medical school applicants, soccer players, and politicians, deciding if they’d cheat, injure, or lie to achieve goals. I push students to consider the steps they take to get the outcomes they desire. Why do we tend to act in the ways we do? What will we do to get what we want? And how will doing those things change who we are? Every tragedy is about us, I say, not just, as in Macbeth’s case, about a man who succumbs to “vaulting ambition.”

5. Bring honesty right into the curriculum. Teachers can weave a discussion of ethical behavior into curriculum. Ruff and many other teachers have been inspired to teach media literacy to help students understand digital plagiarism and navigate the widespread availability of secondary sources online, using guidance from organizations like Common Sense Media .

There are complicated psychological dynamics at play when students cheat, according to experts and researchers. While enforcing rules and consequences is important, knowing what’s really motivating students to cheat can help you foster integrity in the classroom instead of just penalizing the cheating.

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Literature Review: Academic Dishonesty – What Causes It, How to Prevent It

by Thomas Keith | Nov 16, 2018 | Instructional design

Note:  For further information on academic dishonesty and academic integrity, please see our series Combating Academic Dishonesty . Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Academic dishonesty, which encompasses behaviors such as cheating, plagiarism, and falsification of data or citations, is a widespread and troubling phenomenon in higher education.  (For the full spectrum of behaviors that qualify as academic dishonesty, see Berkeley City College’s What Is Academic Dishonesty? )  It may be as simple as looking over a classmate’s shoulder during a quiz or as elaborate as hiring a ghostwriter online for a course paper, but whatever the method employed, academic dishonesty harms the learning experience and gives cheaters an unfair advantage over those who abide by the rules.  This post examines some of the chief factors that lead to academic dishonesty among college students, as determined by empirical research in the field, and offers suggestions to faculty and instructors on ways to reduce the likelihood of dishonest conduct among their students.

What Causes Academic Dishonesty?

There is no single explanation for the occurrence of dishonest behavior in college.  Studies suggest that most students realize academic dishonesty is morally wrong, but various outside factors or pressures may serve as “neutralizers,” allowing students to suppress their feelings of guilt and justify their dishonest acts to themselves (Baird 1980; Haines et al. 1986; Hughes and McCabe 2006).  In certain cases, dishonest behavior may arise not from willful disregard for the rules of academic integrity, but from ignorance of what those rules are.  Some common reasons for students’ engaging in academic dishonesty are given below.

Poor time management

Particularly in their early years of college, many students have difficulties with managing their time successfully.  Faced with demands on their out-of-class time from athletics, extracurricular clubs, fraternities and sororities, etc., they may put off studying or working on assignments until it is too late for them to do a satisfactory job.  Cheating then appears attractive as a way to avoid failure (Haines et al. 1986).

Academic pressures

Sometimes a student must maintain a certain GPA in order to receive merit-based financial aid, to participate in athletics, or even to continue receiving financial support from his/her family. Even high-achieving students may turn to academic dishonesty as a way to achieve their target GPA.  Academic pressures can be worsened in courses that are graded on a curve: with the knowledge that only a fixed number of As can be awarded, students may turn to dishonest methods of surpassing their classmates (Whitley 1998; Carnegie Mellon University ).

In very large classes, students may feel anonymous; if the bulk of their interaction is with teaching assistants, they may regard the instructor as distant and unconcerned with their performance.  This can increase the temptation to cheat, as students rationalize their dishonest behavior by assuming that the instructor “doesn’t care” what they do.  Not surprisingly, this can often be a danger in online courses, since course sizes can be huge and students do not normally interact with their instructors face-to-face ( Carnegie Mellon University ).

Failure to understand academic conventions

The “rules” of academic writing often appear puzzling to students, particularly those who have not had extensive practice with academic writing in high school.  The Internet has arguably exacerbated this problem; the easy availability of information (accurate or otherwise) on websites has led many students to assume that all information sources are de facto public property and need not be cited, which leads to unintentional plagiarism.  Faculty and instructors should not take for granted that their students simply “know” when they must cite sources and how they should do so (Perry 2008).  In addition, the ready availability of websites on every topic imaginable has had a deleterious effect on students’ ability to assess sources critically.  Some students simply rely upon whichever site comes up at the top of a Google search, without considering the accuracy or potential biases of the information with which they are being presented.

Cultural factors

Related to the above, international students may face particular challenges in mastering the conventions of academic writing.  They do not necessarily share Western/American understandings of what constitutes “originality,” intellectual property rights, and so forth, and it often takes time and practice for them to internalize the “rules” fully, especially if English is not their first language.  In addition, students who come from cultures where collaborative work is common may not realize that certain assignments require them to work entirely on their own (Currie 1998; Pecorari 2003; Hughes and McCabe 2006; Abasi and Graves 2008).

The academic pressures common to all college students can be particularly acute for international students.  In some cultures (e.g. those of East Asia) excellent academic performance at the university level is vital for securing good jobs after graduation, and students may therefore believe that their futures depend upon receiving the highest possible grades.  When a student’s family is making sacrifices to send him/her overseas for college, s/he may be concerned about “letting the family down” by doing poorly in school, which can make academic dishonesty all the more tempting.

Low-Stakes Assignments

While some people may think of cheating as a risk only on high-stakes assignments (course papers, final exams, and the like), it can easily occur on low-stakes assignments as well.  In fact, the very lack of grade weight that such assignments bear can encourage dishonesty: students may conclude that since an assignment has little or no bearing on their course grade, it “doesn’t matter” whether or not they approach it honestly.  For this reason, it is vital to stress to students the importance of honest conduct on all assignments, whether big or small.  The University does not take grade weight into account when deciding whether academic dishonesty has occurred; plagiarism is plagiarism and cheating is cheating, even if the assignment in question is worth zero points.

Technology and Academic Dishonesty

The rapidly increasing sophistication of digital technology has opened up new avenues for students bent on academic dishonesty.  Beyond simply cutting-and-pasting from webpages, an entire Internet economy has sprung up that offers essays for students to purchase and pass off as their own.  Students may also use wireless technology such as Bluetooth to share answers during exams, take pictures of exams with their smartphones, and the like (McMurtry 2001; Jones, Reid, and Bartlett 2008; Curran, Middleton, and Doherty 2011).  Research suggests that the use of technology creates a “distancing” effect that makes students’ guilt about cheating less acute ( Vanderbilt University ).

How Can Faculty and Instructors Combat Academic Dishonesty?

There is no panacea to prevent all forms of dishonest behavior.  That said, at each step of the learning design process, there are steps that faculty and instructors can take to help reduce the likelihood of academic dishonesty, whether by making it more difficult or by giving students added incentive to do their work honestly.

Course Management and Syllabus Design

The sooner students are informed about the standards of conduct they should adhere to, the greater the likelihood that they will internalize those standards (Perry 2010).  This is why it is worthwhile for faculty to devote a portion of their syllabus to setting standards for academic integrity.  Consider setting the tone for your course by offering a clear definition of what constitutes academic dishonesty, the procedure you will follow if you suspect that dishonest behavior has occurred, and the penalties culprits may face.  Include a link to UChicago’s statement on Academic Honesty and Plagiarism .  If you have a Canvas course site, you can create an introductory module where students must read a page containing your academic integrity policies and “mark as done,” or take a quiz on your policies and score 100%, in order to receive credit for completing the module.

If your syllabus includes many collaborative assignments, it can also be useful to explain clearly for which assignments collaboration is permitted and which must be done individually.  You can also specify what you consider acceptable vs. unacceptable forms of collaboration (e.g. sharing ideas while brainstorming is allowed, but copying one another’s exact words is not).

Finally, consider including information in your syllabus about resources available to students who are having academic difficulties, such as office hours and tutoring.  Students who are facing difficulties with time management, executive function, and similar issues may benefit from the Student Counseling Service’s Academic Skills Assessment Program (ASAP) .   The University’s Writing Center  offers help with mastering academic writing and its conventions.  Encourage your students to avail themselves of these resources as soon as they encounter difficulties.  If they get help early on, they will be less likely to feel desperate later and resort to dishonest behavior to raise their grade (Whitley 1998).

In general, making your expectations clear at the outset of your course helps to build a strong relationship between you and your students.  Your students will feel more comfortable coming to you for help, and they will also understand the risks they would be running if they behaved dishonestly in your course, which can be a powerful deterrent.

Assignment Design

When crafting assignments such as essays and course papers, strive for two factors: originality and specificity.  The more original the topic you choose, and the more specific your instructions, the less likely it is that students will be able to find a pre-written paper on the Internet that fits all the requirements (McMurtry 2001).  Changing paper topics from year to year also avoids the danger that students may pass off papers from previous years as their own work.  You might consider using a rubric with a detailed breakdown of the factors you will be assessing in grading the assignment; Canvas offers built-in rubric functionality .

If an assignment makes up a large percentage of your students’ final grade (e.g. a course paper), you might consider using “scaffolding”.  Have the students work up to the final submission through smaller, lower-stakes sub-assignments, such as successive drafts or mini-papers.  This has the double benefit of making it harder for students to cheat (since you will have seen their writing process) and reducing their incentive to cheat (since their grade will not be solely dependent upon the final submission) ( Carnegie Mellon University ).

In the case of in-class exams, you may find it worthwhile to create multiple versions of an exam, each with a separate answer key.  Even as simple an expedient as placing the questions in a different order in different versions makes it harder for students to copy off one another’s work or share answer keys ( Carnegie Mellon University ).

Technological Tools to Prevent Academic Dishonesty

Even as students have discovered more sophisticated ways to cheat, educational professionals and software developers have created new technologies to thwart would-be cheaters.  Canvas, the University’s learning management system, includes several features intended to make cheating more difficult.

By default, the Files tab in Canvas is turned off when a new course is created.  This prevents students from accessing your course files and viewing files they should not, such as answer keys or upcoming exam questions.  If you choose to enable Files in your course, you should place all sensitive files in locked or unpublished folders to render them invisible to students.  For more details, see this post .

If you are using Canvas Quizzes in your course, you can choose from a number of options that increase the variation between individual students’ Quizzes and thus decrease the chances of cheating.  These including randomizing answers for multiple-choice questions; drawing randomly selected questions from question groups; and setting up variables in mathematical questions, so that different students will see different numerical values.  For more details, see this post .

Several different computer programs have been developed that claim to detect plagiarism in student papers, usually by comparing student submissions against the Internet, a database of past work, or both, and then identifying words and phrases that match. Viper follows a “freemium” model, while the best-known subscription-based plagiarism checker, Turnitin , is currently licensed only by the Law School at the University of Chicago.  These programs can be helpful, but bear in mind that no automatic plagiarism checker is 100% accurate; you will still need to review student work yourself to see whether an apparent match flagged by the software is genuine plagiarism or not (Jones, Reid, and Bartlett 2008).  Also be aware that Turnitin and some other plagiarism checkers assert ownership rights over student work submitted to them, which can raise issues of intellectual property rights.

In addition to detecting plagiarism after the fact, there are technological tools that can help prevent it from occurring in the first place.  Citation managers such as Endnote and Zotero are excellent ways to help students manage their research sources and cite them properly, especially when writing longer papers that draw on a wide range of source material.  The University of Chicago Library offers a detailed guide to citation managers , along with regular workshops on how to use them .

What to Do if You Suspect Academic Dishonesty

If you suspect that academic dishonesty may have occurred in one of your courses, the University has resources to which you can turn.  For undergraduates, it is best to begin by speaking to the student’s academic adviser .  You can find out which adviser is assigned to a student in your course by visiting Faculty Access and looking at the “Advisor” column in the course roster.  If you have questions about disciplinary procedures specific to the College, you can contact the Office of College Community Standards, headed by Assistant Dean of Students Stephen Scott .   For graduate students, the appropriate area Dean of Students can provide information about the correct disciplinary procedures to follow.

The fight against academic dishonesty is a difficult one, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.  But if faculty and instructors give careful thought to the causes of student misconduct and plan their instructional strategies accordingly, they can do much to curb dishonest behavior and ensure that integrity prevails in the classroom.

Bibliography

Journal articles.

• Abasi, Ali R., and Barbara Graves.  “Academic Literacy and Plagiarism: Conversations with International Graduate Students and Disciplinary Professors.”   Journal of English for Academic Purposes 7.4 (Oct. 2008), 221-233.  
• Baird, John S., Jr.  “Current Trends in College Cheating.”   Psychology in the Schools 17 (1980), 515-522.  
• Curran, Kevin, Gary Middleton, and Ciaran Doherty.  “Cheating in Exams with Technology.” International Journal of Cyber Ethics in Education 1.2 (Apr.-Jun. 2011), 54-62.  
• Currie, Pat.  “Staying Out of Trouble: Apparent Plagiarism and Academic Survival.”   Journal of Second Language Writing 7.1 (Jan. 1998), 1-18.  
• Haines, Valerie J., et al.  “College Cheating: Immaturity, Lack of Commitment, and the Neutralizing Attitude.”   Research in Higher Education 25.4 (Dec. 1986), 342-354.  
• Hughes, Julia M. Christensen, and Donald L. McCabe.  “Understanding Academic Misconduct.” Canadian Journal of Higher Education 36.1 (2006), 49-63.  
• Jones, Karl O., Juliet Reid, and Rebecca Bartlett. “Cyber Cheating in an Information Technology Age.” In R. Comas and J. Sureda (coords.). “Academic Cyberplagiarism” [online dossier]. Digithum: The Humanities in the Digital Era 10 (2008), n.p. UOC. [Accessed: 26/09/18] ISSN 1575-2275. 
• McMurtry, Kim.  “E-Cheating: Combating a 21st Century Challenge.”   Technological Horizons in Education Journal 29.4 (Nov. 2001), 36-40.
• Pecorari, Diane.  “Good and original: Plagiarism and patchwriting in academic second-language writing.”   Journal of Second Language Writing 12.4 (Dec. 2003), 317-345.
• Perry, Bob.  “Exploring Academic Misconduct: Some Insights into Student Behaviour.”   Active Learning in Higher Education 11.2 (2010), 97-108.  
• Whitley, Bernard E.  “Factors Associated with Cheating among College Students: A Review.”   Research in Higher Education 39.3 (Jun. 1998), 235-274.  

Web Resources

• Berkeley City College:  http://www.berkeleycitycollege.edu/wp/de/what-is-academic-dishonesty/
• Carnegie Mellon University: https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/solveproblem/strat-cheating/index.html
• University of Chicago: https://college.uchicago.edu/advising/academic-honesty |  https://studentmanual.uchicago.edu/Policies
• Colorado State University: https://tilt.colostate.edu/integrity/resourcesFaculty/whyDoStudents.cfm
• Harvard University (Zachary Goldman): https://www.gse.harvard.edu/uk/blog/youth-perspective
• Oakland University: https://www.oakland.edu/Assets/upload/docs/OUWC/Presentations%26Workshops/dont_fail_your_courses.pdf
• Vanderbilt University (Derek Bruff): https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/2011/02/why-do-students-cheat/

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Cheating in Examinations. Why Do Some Students Do It?

• What is cheating?
• Reasons why students cheat in exams
• Effects of cheating on students

Cheating can be defined as a dishonest act to gain an undue advantage. In educational parlance, cheating is usually associated with examinations.

It includes various forms of cheating like plagiarizing content, copying, or even impersonating another person to write an exam.

In The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong To Get Ahead , David Callahan, co-founder and research director of Manhattan-based public policy think-tank Demos, demonstrates cheating through different means.

Professional athletes’ use of performance-enhancing steroids, reporters’ disguise of fiction as journalism, physicians’ promotion of drugs of questionable efficacy in exchange for payments from pharmaceutical companies, students’ cheating on exams and submitting plagiarized work, and music fans’ piracy of CDs on the internet, as well as theft by employees and high-stakes corporate crime.

Why Do Students Cheat in Exams?

In schools and colleges, cheating is not unheard of. There have been numerous instances where students have been caught cheating in examinations. The important question to answer here is why do students cheat?

There are many reasons why students cheat in exams. We have enumerated a few of these reasons below.

1.Poor Time Management

One of the main reasons why students cheat in exams is because they are pressed for time. With lack of time, students resort to cheating because they are unable to finish studying portions.

To overcome this problem, students must get into the practice of making realistic timetables . A timetable can help you set time for each subject, giving more time to tougher subjects and a bit more relaxed time for easier subjects.

This stress is one of the main reasons for students to cheat in exams. Unable to bear the stress and tension, students may resort to unlawful means like cheating during examinations.

3. Fear of Failure

No one likes to fail. It is a known fact that failure is looked upon as a taboo in our society. Students who fail are ridiculed by society.

These students are often looked down upon with disdain. Therefore, to avoid being ostracized by the community, students often resort to cheating in exams.

4. Educational System Pressure

The educational system today does not exactly have a scientific approach. It is not cut out for individual minds.

The education system caters to the bulk of the student population, leaving out a section of students unable to cope with the system.

So, what happens to these students? Well, these students are pressured to keep pace with the syllabus even if they cannot do so.

What do these students do then? These students resort to cheating and other dishonest methods of keeping up with the syllabus.

5. Family Expectations

Another reason why students cheat in exams is because of the pressure put on them by parents and other members of the family. This is one of the main reasons why students cheat.

Let’s take a typical example of a parent, who has a very high educational qualification and runs a successful business or enterprise.

Such a parent will also expect their child to study well and secure higher degrees and educational qualifications.

However, what if the child is incapable of performing to the parent’s expectation? What if the child is an average student?

The child may also want to prove to his or her parents that they can be as successful as their parents. This can lead to cheating to perform to parents’ expectations.

6. Comparison with Friends

Another reason why students cheat in exams is that they want to perform as well as their classmates and friends.

Healthy competition is not a bad concept. However, if this competition turns more serious, then it can lead to cheating and unfair means to achieve higher scores.

7. Cut-Offs and Limited Seats in Prestigious Institutions

Many institutions have a minimum cut-off below which students will not get admission into the institute.

Therefore students resort to cheating in exams to achieve high scores and get into prestigious institutions or pass prestigious administrative examinations.

8. “Everybody Is Doing It” Attitude

Another reason why students cheat in exams is because of the “everybody is doing it” attitude. This attitude discourages diligent and truthful students from studying and working hard.

Such students may think if others are cheating and getting marks then why should they study hard and get the same marks. So, they give in, even though they can study and achieve great success.

Cheating in Exams Causes and Effects

These were just some of the answers to the question why do students cheat? To understand this better, we can try and decipher some of the causes and effects of cheating in exams and find possible solutions for the problem of students cheating in examinations.

As mentioned above, some of the reasons why students cheat in exams are also the causes of cheating.

In addition to the above reasons, we can also mention media as one of the main causes of cheating

amongst students. You may ask how the media can play a role in this? The answer is simple.

Over the years, the means of communication have increased tenfold. Students have access to more than one means of communication.

Today, apart from television and radio, students have social media, cellular mobile phones, and facetime to communicate. This communication , though a boon in many cases can also be a bane.

Many times, media houses showcase successful people from prestigious institutes. Unknowingly, media houses indirectly advertise that the only way to reach success is through a particular channel of education and no other way.

Thus, this undue showcase of successful careers can influence students the wrong way. Students come to think that the only way to succeed is by getting into a particular university for a particular course. Thus, paving the way for students to think about getting it through hook or by crook.

The media portrays these successful personalities with a lot of wealth, fame, and respect in society . This blindly encourages students to try and achieve that success even if it means by unfair methods.

Therefore, we can safely conclude that one of the causes of cheating is the socio-economic disparity between classes and sections of people.

In an urge to become rich and successful overnight, students may employ shortcut methods like cheating.

An article published by the Carnegie Mellon University states several reasons why students cheat in exams:

• Unfair tests and unprofessional teachers
• Obligation to help other students fair better in examinations
• Poor study skills
• Competition
• Exam anxiety
• Lack of knowledge on the consequences of cheating
• The perception of escaping punishment

The causes and effects of cheating in exams are straightforward. There are numerous ill effects of cheating.

They can have a deep impact on the career and life of students. We have enumerated some of the effects of cheating on students.

1. Admonishments

Students caught cheating in examinations are severely punished. These punishments can range from getting debarred in exams, expelled from school, or even suspended for the rest of the academic year.

Consequently, these severe punishments can have grave repercussions on the student’s wellbeing.

2. Lifelong Record

When a student cheats on an exam, the incident is put on record and becomes a bad black spot on the student’s life ahead. It can affect a student’s career and life.

3. Meaningless Careers

Getting a job through unfair means can only take you through the first step. Sustaining yourself in the job will purely rest on the knowledge you have acquired. Through cheating, you can pass examinations but you will not acquire knowledge.

4. Loss of Reputation

Your reputation defines your character . It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation but a minute to lose it all.

Your single moment of cheating can ruin your reputation for the rest of your life. So, remember, the reputation for a thousand years can depend on your conduct in a single moment.

These are the causes and effects of cheating in exams, it can be rightly said that cheating can lead to worse situations that can affect your entire life and career ahead.

So, remember, it is up to you to decide if you want to make it the right way. Cheating is a choice, not a mistake.

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A systematic review of research on cheating in online exams from 2010 to 2021

Fakhroddin noorbehbahani.

Faculty of Computer Engineering, University of Isfahan, Azadi square, 8174673441 Isfahan, Iran

Azadeh Mohammadi

Mohammad aminazadeh.

In recent years, online learning has received more attention than ever before. One of the most challenging aspects of online education is the students' assessment since academic integrity could be violated due to various cheating behaviors in online examinations. Although a considerable number of literature reviews exist about online learning, there is no such review study to provide comprehensive insight into cheating motivations, cheating types, cheating detection, and cheating prevention in the online setting. The current study is a review of 58 publications about online cheating, published from January 2010 to February 2021. We present the categorization of the research and show topic trends in the field of online exam cheating. The study can be a valuable reference for educators and researchers working in the field of online learning to obtain a comprehensive view of cheating mitigation, detection, and prevention.

Introduction

Today, distance education has been transformed into online settings, and the COVID-19 pandemic has raised online learning significantly across the world. The COVID-19 enforced the closing of traditional learning all over the world, resulting in 1.5 billion students and 63 million educators shifting from face-to-face learning to online learning. This situation has revealed the strengths and weaknesses of the digital transformation of education (Valverde-Berrocoso et al., 2020 ).

In (Martin et al., 2020 ), it has been shown that the online learning publications are continuously being increased from 2009 to 2018, and one of the leading research themes is course assessment. Course assessment is very challenging in online learning due to the lack of direct control over students and educators.

For an educational institution, assessment integrity is essential because it affects institutional reputation. It is necessary to employ traditional cheating detection besides prevention methods and new digital monitoring and validation techniques to support assessment integrity in online exams (Fluck, 2019 ).

The study (Watson & Sottile, 2010 ) has reported that students are remarkably more likely to get answers from others during online exams or quizzes compared to live (face-to-face) ones. Therefore, preserving the integrity of online exams is more challenging. There are some strategies to mitigate online exam cheating, such as getting offline (face-to-face) proctored exam, developing cheat-resistant questions (e.g., using subjective measures instead of objective measures), and lessening the exam score percentage contributing to the overall course grade.

Traditional cheating methods include, hiding notes in a pencil case, behind ruler, or clothes, writing on arms/hands, leaving the room, etc. (Curran et al., 2011 ). Technological advances and online learning have enhanced education, however, they also have facilitated cheating in courses (Turner & Uludag, 2013 ). For instance, an examinee could use a mobile phone to text someone to get the answer. Although this would be difficult in the exam hall, some examinees could text without looking at the mobile phone. Applying scientific calculators, Mp3 players calculator, and wireless equipment such as an earphone and a microphone are other tools that facilitate cheating in offline exams (Curran et al., 2011 ).

Although cheating motivations in online and offline exams are not significantly different (Turner & Uludag, 2013 ), detecting and mitigating online cheating could be more intricate. This is because, in addition to traditional cheating methods that also could be exploited in online exam cheating, there exist various technologies and tools that could be applied for cheating in online exams more easily. For example, using remote desktop and share screen, searching for solutions on Internet, using social networks, etc.

Cheating in an online setting is more convenient than a traditional offline exam. Accordingly, detecting and preventing online cheating is critical for online assessment. Therefore, this issue is one of the biggest challenges that MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) summative assessment faces.

Recent researches imply that a critical issue in online education is academic dishonesty and cheating. Today, paid services exist that impersonate students in online courses to ensure their identity. In recent years, proctoring technologies such as identity authentication, keystroke recognition, and webcam proctoring will be extended to secure online exams (Xiong & Suen, 2018 ). Apart from direct proctoring, there are some techniques such as controlling the browser, limiting exam time, randomizing questions and choices, etc. However, it seems cheating in online courses is pretty common (Dendir & Maxwell, 2020 ).

Although one of the most critical challenges in online learning is to mitigate and handle cheating, there is no comprehensive literature review and classification in this field. Hence, in this paper, we present a systematic mapping review of researches in online examination cheating. The research questions are as follows:

• RQ1: What are the publication trends in online cheating?
• RQ2: What are the main reasons for online cheating?
• RQ3: What are the cheating types in online exams?
• RQ4: How can online cheating be detected?
• RQ5: How can online exam cheating be prevented?

The paper is structured as follows. In Section 2 , the research method is described, including study selection criteria, databases and search strategy, and study selection. Section 3 presents review results and provides the answers to research questions. Sections 4 and 5 discuss the results and conclude the paper, respectively.

The current study is a literature review about cheating in online exams. A literature review identifies, selects, and synthesizes primary research studies in order to provide a picture of the topic under investigation. According to (Page et al., 2021 ), a record is the title or abstract (or both) of a report indexed in a database or website, and a report is a document (in paper or electronic format) supplying information about a particular study. It could be a journal article, preprint, conference abstract, study register entry, clinical study report, dissertation, unpublished manuscript, government report, or any other document providing relevant information. The current literature search has been performed based on the well-established PRISMA principles (Page et al., 2021 ).

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

The main criteria for the articles considered in the current review are as follows.

Inclusion criteria:

• Researches should be written in English.
• Records should be retrieved utilizing the designed search query.
• Studies should be published between January 2010 and February 2021.
• In cases where several papers reported the same study, only the most recent ones were included (i.e., theses and papers extracted from theses, extended version of papers published in journals).

Exclusion criteria:

• Papers merely related to methods applicable to traditional cheating types, detection, and prevention are eliminated.
• Studies not related to research questions are ignored.
• Articles only related to cyber-attacks to online exam systems are excluded.
• Low-quality researches are discarded (i.e., studies published by non-reputable publishers without peer review, too short review time, and so on, studies with poor theoretical background, experimental evaluation, or structure).

Databases and search strategy

We applied a wide range of databases as our primary source, including Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus. We also added the publications which had cited the extracted records. Records were searched using the following search terms for the title, keywords, and abstract sections.

(Cheat OR e-Cheating OR Fraud OR Dishonesty OR Anti-cheating OR Cheat-resistant OR Abnormal behavior OR Misconduct OR Integrity OR Plagiarism) AND

(Electronic OR Online OR Digital OR Virtual OR Cyber OR Academic) AND

(Exam OR e-Exam OR Course OR e-Course OR Assessment OR e-Assessment OR Test OR e-Test OR Environment OR e-Environment) AND

(Prevent OR Detect OR Mitigate OR Reduce OR Minimize OR Monitor OR Proctor OR Reason OR Motivation OR Type OR Deter OR Control).

Study selection

The search result included 289 records, 26 of which were duplicated, and so they were deleted. From 263 screened records, 54 records were excluded by examining either the title or the abstract. In the next step, 12 reports were eliminated because they were not retrieved because were not accessible. Furthermore, after full-text eligibility checking, 144 reports have been excluded according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria as mentioned earlier. ‌

This resulted in 53 reports that along with 5 other reports (obtained from citation searching and assessed for eligibility), were finally selected for literature review about online cheating. The flow of information through different phases of the review is presented in the PRISMA flow diagram depicted in Fig. ​ Fig.1 1 .

The PRISMA flow diagram

After selecting 58 studies, three domain experts were asked to assign a Credibility Score (CS) to each study. After evaluation of each study, experts agreed on a credibility score ranging from 0 to 5 based on the following criteria: publisher credibility, number of citations per year, theoretical and experimental quality, and organization and structure. CS statistics are as follows: mean = 3.81, SD =0.79, min = 2.5, max =5.

A summary of online cheating research papers and their study themes is presented in Table ​ Table1. 1 . (Appendix ​ (Appendix1 1 .)

Online cheating studies

Several findings emerged as a result of the research synthesis of the selected fifty-eight records on online cheating. The selected studies were categorized into four main topics, namely Cheating reasons, Cheating types, Cheating detection, and Cheating prevention, as shown in Fig. ​ Fig.2. 2 . All subsequent classifications reported in this paper have been provided by the authors. The studies under every four main topics are investigated by three experts, and a list of items is extracted for each category. Notably, some studies were corresponded to multiple main topics. Next, several brainstorming sessions have been conducted to classify each main topic further. To extract the classifications, the XMind tool has been employed, which is a professional and popular mind mapping software.

Online cheating research classification

In the following sub-sections, the detailed analysis of the review results is described according to the five research questions we defined to drive the research.

Publication trends

In Fig. ​ Fig.3, 3 , the number of publications per year is displayed (in this study, the final publication date is applied). In 2017, the greatest number of studies corresponding to the conducted review have been published. As shown in Fig. ​ Fig.4, 4 , the dominant publication type is journal papers with 53% of the total publications. In terms of the average citations of the selected studies regarding their classes, the maximum average citations belong to the journal papers with an average citation of 19.65 (see Fig. ​ Fig.5 5 ).

Number of publications per year

Distribution of publication per types

Average citation per publication type

There are 747 works cite the selected studies related to the review. As displayed in Fig. ​ Fig.6, 6 , the greatest and lowest shares of the total citations pertain to the journal articles and the theses, respectively. The number of publications per research theme is shown in Fig. ​ Fig.7. 7 . The cheating prevention and detection themes are the most prevalent research themes in online cheating. In the following four subsections, the studies under each of the four research themes are described and classified thoroughly.

Distribution of publications according to citations

Number of publications per research theme

Cheating reasons

The primary reason for cheating is that examinees feel the rewards outweigh the risks (Lancaster & Clarke, 2017 ). There exists a wide variety of reasons why candidates decide to commit cheating, still, they could be categorized into four general reasons, namely Teacher-related, Institutional, Internal, and Environmental reasons. The complete classification of the cheating reasons is displayed in Fig. ​ Fig.8, 8 , which is described in the following sections.

Teacher-related reasons

All the reasons related to the teacher or the course instructor are put into this category. Maeda ( 2019 ), has observed that the student’s relationship with the teacher has crucial influences on academic integrity. Teachers’ unethical behaviors, such as favoring those who have bribed over those who have not, or favoring the students who participated in private tutoring sessions, motivate the oppressed students to cheat. The author also found that teachers’ low interest in students’ depth of learning, which also results in a poor pedagogical style, could be an important reason that motivates students to participate in any kind of unethical behavior (Maeda, 2019 ).

Course difficulty could motivate the examinees to cheat. Some students blamed their teachers for complicated and complex course materials. In some specific cases, this reason could be a consequence of students’ lack of perseverance. They find cheating as a way to relieve these difficulties (Amigud & Lancaster, 2019 ).

As a result of distributed learning with online courses and examinations, Moten et al. ( 2013 ), have expressed that students feel isolated in an online environment. They often become frustrated when they do not get the help they immediately need, for instance, the night before an exam. This situation is closely dependent on the presence time of the teacher in online communication environments.

Some teachers restrain from punishing the cheaters appropriately due to ethical issues. This could be due to the sympathy of some teachers with cheaters. After listening to the cheater’s excuses and justifications, the teacher might give them a second chance. Sometimes, teachers are worried about the consequences of punishments and the corresponding pressures that cheaters experience, hence they don’t punish the cheater or the punishment is too mellow.

This increases the students’ courage to cheat during online exams due to decreased risk of being punished after being caught and implies that cheating penalties are insignificant over the long run (Topîrceanu, 2017 ).

Exam design is one of the most important contributing factors that motivates examinees to cheat in the exam. Weakly designed exams such as similar multiple-questions for every examinee or easy accessibility of solutions over the web, can make it easy to cheat. On the other hand, questions being too complex and irrelevant to course materials, forces students to commit cheating during online exams (Srikanth & Asmatulu, 2014 ).

Institutional reasons

In (Maeda, 2019 ), it is observed that the rules and policies of the institution are directly related to the number of unethical behaviors occurrences. It is found that institutions with stricter regulations and better commitment to strengthening academic integrity, face much less cheating behavior between their students. Institutional policies not only create an anti-cheating atmosphere, but also makes dishonest academic behaviors challenging to take place. Also, Backman ( 2019 ) emphasizes that if it becomes easy for students to cheat, they will cheat.

Impulsiveness is a crucial reason why students try to cheat during online examinations. They feel isolated and disconnected, so they may imagine they won’t get caught or the instructor does not care if they commit academic dishonesty. Unethical behaviors have a direct relationship with the student’s impulsiveness (Moten et al., 2013 ).

Moreover, in an isolated environment, due to the lack of face-to-face communications with teachers, students have much less respect for their teachers that leads to increasing misbehaviors. That is why teachers should personalize the online environment for students by calling their names or listening to their voices, so that online classes become more engaging and interactive for students (Moten et al., 2013 ).

Dobrovska ( 2017 ), expressed that the poor quality of the institution’s online learning system discourages students from learning the course materials, and makes it difficult for them to learn, hence, they are more motivated to cheat.

Academic aptitude is one of the most important and underrated reasons leading students to commit misbehaviors. It means educational institutions don’t discriminate between students and ignore their unique abilities, skills, and different levels of preparedness for a specific task. This makes unprepared students feel frustrated about that particular task or course, which leads them to seek help from more talented and prepared students in that specific context (Amigud & Lancaster, 2019 ).

Internal reasons

Another category of cheating reasons is internal motivators. The motivators over which the candidate has complete control, including intrinsic factors, personality and psychological characteristics, lie in this category. The internal reasons are divided into three subcategories as follows.

Student’s academic performance

One significant internal factor is the student’s academic performance. There are several reasons that could result in poor academic performance as follows: lack of learning and skills to find resources, students unwillingness to follow recommended practices, inability to seek appropriate help, procrastination, poor time management (Dobrovska, 2017 ), and lack of confidence in their ability to learn course materials (Norris, 2019 ).

Low intrinsic interest in the course materials

Low intrinsic interest in the course is another reason mentioned in (Dobrovska, 2017 ), which could be caused by a lack of sufficient interest in course materials and subjects or the mindset that these materials and knowledge are unnecessary and unimportant for future life (Norris, 2019 ).

Personal characteristics

There is a strong relationship between students’ moral attitudes toward cheating and their level of participation in academic misbehaviors (Maeda, 2019 ). Therefore, conscientious belief is considered as an internal reason stopping students from unethical behaviors. However, it has been shown that religious beliefs do not necessarily lower cheating behaviors (Srikanth & Asmatulu, 2014 ).

Other reasons included in studies are student’s laziness for sufficient home preparation before the exam (Dobrovska, 2017 ), competition with others and the desire to get ahead (Amigud & Lancaster, 2019 ), desire to help other peers (Moten et al., 2013 ) and the student’s thrill of taking risk (Hylton et al., 2016 ).

Environmental reasons

The reasons mentioned in this section highly depend on the atmosphere and type of environment a student is in, either during the online exam or beforehand in social media or communication with people. We put these reasons in four major categories: Peers’ behavior, Parents’ attitudes, Personal issues and, Social factors.

Peers’ behavior

Peers could influence individuals in a manner that their cheating motivations are increased. In an academic environment, however, it is primarily because of the competing objectives, such as the desire to get ahead in scores. This depends on the amount of competition in the academic environment (Amigud & Lancaster, 2019 ).

Experimental research among Cambodian students, has figured out that being among a group of cheaters, psychologically drives the students to repeat their peers’ actions and commit cheating. In addition, there is high pressure on those who do not collaborate with peers, or reject participating in their group work. It is found that they are blamed for being odd and unkind (Maeda, 2019 ).

According to (Srikanth & Asmatulu, 2014 ), being in an environment where peers’ cheating remains undetected, gives this kind of feeling to non-cheaters that they are setting back in scores and are unfairly disadvantaged compared to those cheaters.

Parents’ attitude

Parents’ acceptance of cheating behaviors, massively affects the student’s mindset toward these behaviors. As expressed in (Maeda, 2019 ), parents’ behaviors toward their child’s cheating, vary from complete unacceptance to active involvement and support. Another reason related to parents’ attitudes is putting their children under pressure to achieve good or higher than average grades (Backman, 2019 ).

Personal issues

Personal issues could be mental and physical health problems (Amigud & Lancaster, 2019 ), problems within the family (e.g., parents arguing, separation and divorce, etc.), and fear of failure in exams and its further consequences like financial and time setbacks (Hylton et al., 2016 ).

Societal factors

Poor economic conditions and the development level of a country are examples of societal factors affecting students’ motivation to cheat and achieve academic success (Maeda, 2019 ).

Countries with various cultures, social expectancies, and people’s attitudes have different behaviors regarding academic performance. In some countries, academic performance and grades are known to be crucial for success in life, whereas, in other countries, academic performance is relatively low valued. This range of different expectations from students leads to various social beliefs and behaviors toward cheating (Maeda, 2019 ). In research presented in (Holden et al., 2020 ), it is shown that a primary reason could be the existence of a cheating culture. Some students may cheat because they desire to portray a better image of themselves to their society (Norris, 2019 ). Another societal factor influencing cheating behaviors is the technology evolution that strengthens cheating motivation (Maeda, 2019 ). This is because technology brings about increased access to cheating resources. The evolution of technology, specifically search engines and social media, makes it easier for students to cheat.

Cheating types and facilitators

To mitigate cheating behaviors effectively and efficiently, cheating methodologies, types, and facilitators should be known. Cheating is performed either individually or by the cooperation of others (called group cheating). Figure ​ Figure9 9 displays the complete classification of cheating types.

Cheating types

Individual cheating

Individual cheating is carried out without any assistance from any person. This type of cheating could be categorized as using forbidden materials and other types are described as follows.

Using forbidden materials

Individual cheating can occur by using forbidden materials during the exam, such as looking at a textbook or a cheat sheet (Fontaine et al., 2020 ), (Holden et al., 2020 ), searching the web, using offline electronic resources such as images, voices, etc. (Korman, 2010 ), (Holden et al., 2020 ), or even using objects in the exam room to hide notes.

Other types

Other types of individual cheating include accessing the questions and solutions before the exam, which Korman ( 2010 ) refers to as “unauthorized intelligence”. Another dishonest behavior is social engineering, which is grade negotiation with the teacher through fake facts and exploiting personal sympathy.

Group cheating

Cheating methods through cooperation with others could be categorized as Impersonation, and Collaboration types.

Impersonation

Impersonation means employing someone to take the exam for the examinee, either the whole exam or some parts of it (Korman, 2010 ), (Holden et al., 2020 ). It can occur in forms of voice conversion, face presentation attack and face impersonation, fake identity matching to a stored biometric, and attack on the keystroke dynamics (Chirumamilla & Sindre, 2019 ). These are attacks on the biometric system to bypass the authentication mechanisms. The other impersonation techniques include remote desktop control by a third party (Kasliwal, 2015 ), (Gruenigen et al., 2018 ), sharing the screen with a third party (Gruenigen et al., 2018 ), (Bawarith, 2017 ), and credential sharing, which is impersonation via shared username and password of an academic account or LMS (Learning Management System) (Dobrovska, 2017 ).

Collaboration

Collaboration is defined as getting any kind of help from others to answer the exam questions. It could be in the form of sign language communications that come in numerous forms, such as foot-tapping, pencil or any object dropping during the proctored exam, abnormal coughing, or suspicious actions (Srikanth & Asmatulu, 2014 ).

Listening to a third party’s whispers behind the camera (Chirumamilla & Sindre, 2019 ), any type of communication which is unauthorized such as sending or receiving messages, or voice and video calls (Korman, 2010 ), are also considered as collaborative cheating.

Other cheating methods in this category are remote desktop control (Kasliwal, 2015 ) and sharing the screen with others to collaborate with others about questions (Gruenigen et al., 2018 ), applying small hidden micro cameras to capture images and record videos for sharing with other peers (Bawarith, 2017 ), and finally, organizational cheating which is a result of institution’s personnel corruption (Korman, 2010 ).

The last one, as Korman ( 2010 ) showed, can take place when personnel help candidates to cheat. Changing the exam grade or exam answers after the exam (exam integrity corruption), giving the solutions to the candidate during the exam, or just bribing the proctor not to report the cheating or not to punish after being caught (Kigwana & Venter, 2016 ) are instances of organized cheating.

Contract work is a type of collaboration that means doing work with the help of someone else under the obligations of a contract. Contract workers may provide some or all of the exam answers. In this case, sometimes impersonating the student through the whole academic course is reported (Chirumamilla & Sindre, 2019 ).

Cheating facilitators

Methods discussed here act as cheating facilitators to support the process of cheating. In other words, these facilitators can be applied to perform any kind of cheating. A study presented in (Peytcheva-Forsyth et al., 2018 ), indicates that technology in general, is the leading facilitator of cheating practices. Cheating facilitators are classified as shown in Fig. ​ Fig.10 10 .

Three different methodologies are used by students to facilitate cheating, either individually or in a group, described as follows.

Interrupting to get more time

Sometimes examinees try to buy more time to work more on the exam answers. For instance, the examinee may report an error about the exam system or exam proctoring software to convince the teacher to restart the exam session. This enables the candidate to get more time for cheating and finding the solutions during this interval when the session is closed (Motenet al., 2013 ). Another interruption method is to submit corrupted answer files by the candidate. In this case, the teacher reports that the files were corrupted and asks the candidate to resubmit the answer files. Most of the time, during the first submission and the second one, there exists at least one day, which implies the candidate gets at least one more day to answer the exam questions (Moten et al., 2013 ).

Other more classical methods to interrupt are toilet requests during the exam (Chirumamilla & Sindre, 2019 ), communication break and delay in answering oral exam right after a question is asked (Chirumamilla & Sindre, 2019 ), circumventing the exam process at a specific time with different excuses, and postponing taking the exam (Fontaine et al., 2020 ), (Korman, 2010 ). By deferring taking the exam, students can buy more time to become more prepared, either by studying more, or getting access to the exam questions and solutions.

Employing multiple devices

In proctored exams, either by a camera or software, students try to use multiple devices and answer the questions with the primary one while cheating via the secondary device. Several types of devices could be employed as the second device, such as computers and laptops (Moten et al., 2013 ), smartwatches (Wong et al., 2017 ), smart glasses such as Google glasses (Srikanth & Asmatulu, 2014 ), smartphones and tablets (Korman, 2010 ), programmable and graphical calculators to store notes and formulas (Kigwana & Venter, 2016 ), and tiny earpieces for remote voice support during the exam (Bawarith, 2017 ).

Other facilitators

Redirecting the webcam to hide something from its field of view (Sabbah, 2017 ), (Srikanth & Asmatulu, 2014 ), or disabling the webcam or microphone completely (Srikanth & Asmatulu, 2014 ) are other tricks used to facilitate cheating.

By using virtual machines on a computer, the user can run a virtual operating system on the primary one. This technique would hide the activities done on the second operating system from the software or the human proctoring the primary operating system. (Kasliwal, 2015 ).

Corrupting the exam system’s integrity to change the exam results after being held (e.g., changing the scores or answers after the examination) is another notable case (Korman, 2010 ). Lastly, in (Parks et al., 2018 ), the authors have investigated that social media and channels operating on them could act as cheating facilitation environments.

Cheating detection

Cheating detection methods can be categorized into during the exam and after the exam detection methods. Further classification of the cheating detection methods is presented in Fig. ​ Fig.11 11 .

Cheating detection during the exam

To ensure academic integrity in online examinations, it is essential to detect cheating during the exam. Cheating detection can be partitioned into two main categories, namely, continuous authentication and online proctoring. Continuous authentication methods verify the identity of test-takers, and online proctoring monitors the examinees to detect any misbehavior during the exam. In the following, we will mention different techniques in each category.

Continuous authentication

One of the main types of cheating is impersonating. Therefore, it is essential to authenticate students before exam registration and prevent unauthorized candidates from taking the examination. In addition, it is necessary to validate the identity of the test-taker during the exam continuously. The continuous authentication systems are mainly based on biometric or behaviometric modalities and can be categorized into unimodal and multimodal schemes.

Unimodal authentication is the automatic recognition and identification of candidates using a unique characteristic. This characteristic could be either static (physiological) such as the face, fingerprint, hand geometry, and iris, or could be dynamic (behavioral) such as voice, handwriting, keystroke, and mouse dynamics (Chirumamilla & Sindre, 2019 ).

As a unimodal authentication system, Arnautovski ( 2019 ) designed a face recognition system, which captures the image of the test-taker at random time intervals. The facial recognition module continuously verifies the examinee’s identity by comparing captured images to the image from the exam registration process. In (Aisyah et al., 2018 ), an Android-based online exam application is implemented that takes photos of the examinee with random intervals and a web-based application lets the admin or supervisor of examination validate pictures of participants. In addition, Idemudia et al. ( 2016 ) proposed a system that tracks and detects faces continuously to verify the candidates. If the authentication failure remains for more than a few seconds, the system will stop the examination.

In (Sabbah, 2017 ), a scheme called ISEEU is proposed, in which each examinee’s session is streamed using a webcam. A proctor monitors the video screens and can generate alerts when any suspicious action is detected. He et al. ( 2018 ) proposed an anti-ghostwriter system using face recognition methods. The ghostwriter merges the student’s photo and their photo to make a fake one, or they change their appearance to mislead the examiners. The experimental results in (He et al., 2018 ), indicate that the proposed framework can detect ghostwriters with an acceptable level of accuracy.

Since some candidates may refuse to use a camera due to privacy concerns, Bilen et al. (2020) suggested that instructors offer their students two options. An examinee can agree to use a camera during the exam. In this situation, the record will be used as evidence if they are accused of cheating. However, if the examinee doesn’t accept using a camera, the instructor can claim cheating without providing evidence to the student.

In (Bawarith, 2017 ), the system authenticates the examinees continuously through an eye tracker. The data obtained from the eye tracker are translated into a set of pixel coordinates so that the presence or absence of eyes in different screen areas can be investigated.

Multimodal biometric authentication systems utilize different biometric or behaviometric traits simultaneously, which makes impersonating more difficult. In this regard, Bawarith et al. ( 2017 ) proposed a system that utilizes fingerprint and eye-tracking for authentication. The eye tribe tracker is used to continuously ensure that test-takers are the ones they are claiming to be. Whenever the system detects the examinee is no longer present in front of the screen, the system is locked, and the test-taker must be authenticated again via fingerprint.

In (Sabbah, 2017 ), a multimodal scheme called SABBAH is proposed, which adds continuous fingerprint and keystroke dynamics to the ISEEU scheme (Sabbah, 2017 ). In contrast to ISEEU, SABBAH uses an automatic system to detect fingerprint, keystroke, or video violations. Traore et al. ( 2017 ) proposed a system that continuously authenticates examinees using three complementary biometric technologies, i.e., face, keystroke, and mouse dynamics. In this system, test-takers are continuously authenticated in the background during the exam, and alarms are created and sent to the instructor through the proctoring panel.

Online proctoring

Online proctoring is essential to promote academic integrity. Alessio et al. ( 2017 ) reported significant grade disparities in proctored versus un-proctored online exams. Online proctoring can be categorized into human and automated proctoring. In human proctoring, a human proctor monitors the students remotely to detect suspicious behavior. In contrast, in automated proctoring, the cheating behaviors are flagged or detected automatically by the proctoring system.

Recently, several technologies have been developed to facilitate proctoring online exams remotely. For example, Kryterion™ Live Video Monitoring and ProctorU allow users to be monitored by a human proctor via a webcam during examination (Hylton et al., 2016 ). In (Reisenwitz, 2020 ), substantial support for online proctoring is provided. The results show a significant difference between the scores of exams that were not proctored and those proctored using ProctorU software.

Some systems can capture screenshots of the candidates’ PCs at random times during the examination (Migut et al., 2018 ). Consequently, if examinees use any forbidden resource on their computer, it will be shown to the proctor. Alessio ( 2018 ) applied video proctoring via a webcam at Miami University. The results demonstrate that students are less likely to cheat when monitored with a webcam during online testing.

In another study, kiosk-based remote online proctored examinations are compared with tests administered under a traditional proctoring environment. In kiosk-based proctoring, the test is taken on special computer kiosks located at accessible places such as libraries. The kiosks are equipped with enhanced webcams and are supervised online by a live remote proctor. The results indicated that examinees’ scores obtained under online kiosk-based proctoring are comparable to examinations taken in test centers with onsite proctors (Weiner & Hurtz, 2017 ).

A different approach for cheating detection is a class mole that means the instructor enrolls in students’ groups under another name as a mole to detect and combat collusion. In this way, they can discover dishonest students when they discuss cheating amongst themselves (Moten et al., 2013 ).

Human proctoring is costly and labor-intensive. Therefore, different automated proctoring systems are proposed to monitor the students during the examination and detect unauthorized behavior. In the following, we discuss several automated methods.

Chuang et al. proposed a semi-automatic proctoring system that employs two factors, namely, time delay in answering the questions and head-pose variation, to detect suspicious behavior. Afterward, a human proctor could use more evidence to decide whether a student has cheated (Chuang et al., 2017 ).

Garg et al. ( 2020 ) proposed a system to detect the candidate’s face using Haar Cascade Classifier and deep learning. If the examinee’s face moves out of the examination frame or multiple faces are detected in the frame, the test will automatically be terminated, and the administrator will receive a notification. In (Fayyoumi & Zarrad, 2014 ), a two-second candidate video is taken during the examination period. The images in the video are analyzed to verify whether the examinee is looking somewhere other than their screen. If the test-taker doesn’t focus on their screen, it may indicate cheating behaviors such as looking at an adjacent PC or reading from an external source.

In (Hu et al., 2018 ), the proposed system uses a webcam to monitor candidates' head posture and mouth state to detect abnormal behavior. Through the rule-based reasoning method, the system can detect suspicious behavior such as turning heads and speaking during the online examination.

Prathish et al. ( 2016 ), developed a multimodal system for online proctoring. The system captures audios and videos of the candidates as well as their active windows. If yaw angle variations, audio presence, or window changes are detected in any time frame, it can be considered an indicator of cheating. Consequently, the captured video, audio, and system usage are fed into a rule-based inference system to detect the possibilities of misbehaviors. ProctorTrack is another automated online exam proctoring product that employs facial and audio recognition, body movements, and computer activity monitoring to detect any suspicious action during examination (Norris, 2019 ).

Atoum et al., ( 2017 ) developed a system that can detect a wide variety of cheating behaviors during an online exam using a webcam, wearcam, and microphone. Using wearcam makes it possible to monitor what the student observes. It helps to detect any phone or text in the testing room that is prohibited. In addition, by using the wearcam, the system can detect another form of cheating that is reading from books, notes, etc. Furthermore, the system can estimate the head gaze of the test-taker by combining the information from the webcam and wearcam. Another form of cheating is getting verbal assistance from another person in the same room, or remotely via a phone call. The system can detect this kind of cheating using the microphone and speech detection. Considering the mentioned aspects, the proposed multimedia system can perform automatic online exam proctoring.

Saba et al. ( 2021 ), developed an automatic exam activity recognition system, which monitors the body movements of the students through surveillance cameras and classifies activities into six categories using a deep learning approach. The action categories are normal performing, looking back, watching towards the front, passing gestures to other fellows, watching towards left or right, and other suspicious actions. Movement recognition based on video images is highly dependent on the quality of images. Therefore, Fan et al. ( 2016 ), employed a Microsoft Kinect device to capture the examinee’s gesture. The duration and frequency of the detected action events are then used to distinguish the misbehavior from the normal behavior.

The system presented in (Mengash, 2019 ) includes a thermal detector attached with a surveillance camera and an eye movement tracker. When examinees intend to cheat, their body will emit a specific range of heat, and the emitted heat will trigger the camera to focus and detect the candidate’s face. Then the eye tracker detects eye movements, and the system detects the cheating intentions of the test-taker. There are other biometric-based methods for cheating detection. For example, keystroke and linguistic dynamics can detect stress, which indicates suspicious behavior (Korman, 2010 ).

Diedenhofen and Musch ( 2017 ), developed a JavaScript application called PageFocus, which can be added to the test page and run in the background. Whenever the examinee switches to a page other than the test page, a defocusing event is registered. The script captures when and how frequently defocusing and refocusing events occur on the test page. Another method is to permit students to get to just a couple of sites that are whitelist. If the examinee tries to open a site that is not allowed (one from blacklist), the instructor will be informed through an Android application or Internet (Kasliwal, 2015 ).

Tiong and Lee ( 2021 ), proposed an e-cheating intelligent agent composed of two modules, namely the internet protocol (IP) detector and the behavior detector. The first module could monitor the examinees’ IP addresses and enable the system to alert if a student changes their device or location. The second module detects abnormal behavior based on the speed of answering questions. Another method for cheating detection is comparing the IP addresses of the examinees to check whether two participants are in the same place (Bawarith, 2017 ).

Cheating detection after the exam

Even though different methods are employed to prevent students from cheating, some will still cheat during the examination. Consequently, a bunch of techniques is proposed to detect cheating students after the exam. This way, the reliability of online assessments will be improved. In the following, we will discuss different methods of cheating detection after the exam.

Video monitoring

The University of Amsterdam has developed a system that records the student’s video screen and the environment during the exam. Later a human proctor views the recording and flags and reports any suspicious behavior (Norris, 2019 ). Proctoring software proposed in (Alessio et al., 2017 ), records everything students do during the examination. After the exam, the recordings can be reviewed by the professor, teaching assistants, or employees of the proctoring vendor to identify cheating behaviors.

Human proctoring is a tedious and time-consuming process. To reduce the time and cost of proctoring, an automatic system can be employed to detect and flag suspicious events using machine learning methods. In this regard, Cote et al. ( 2016 ) proposed a system for the automatic creation of video summaries of online exams. The proposed method employs head pose estimations to model a normal and abnormal examinee’s behavior. Afterward, a video summary is created from sequences of detected abnormal behavior. The video summaries can assist remote proctors in detecting cheating after the exam.

Jalali and Noorbehbahani ( 2017 ), implemented an automatic method for cheating detection using a webcam. During the exam, images are recorded every 30 seconds by a webcam for each candidate. After the exam, the recorded images are compared with reference images of that student. If the difference exceeds a threshold, the image will be labeled as a cheating state.

Li et al. ( 2015 ), proposed a Massive Open Online Proctoring framework that consists of three components. First, the Automatic Cheating Detector (ACD) module uses webcam video to monitor students, and automatically flag suspected cheating behavior. Then, ambiguous cases are sent to the Peer Cheating Detector (PCD) module, which asks students to review videos of their peers. Finally, the list of suspicious cheating behaviors is forwarded to the Final Review Committee (FRC) to make the final decision.

Other methods

There are various ways of cheating, and therefore, different methods are used to detect cheating after the exam. For example, one of the cheating behaviors is to collude and work on tests together. However, most learning management systems allow the instructor to view IP addresses. Therefore, if different students submit their assessments by the same IP address in a short time frame, it could be detected and considered as a sign of collusion (Moten et al., 2013 ).

In addition, statistical methods can be used to analyze student responses to assessments and detect common errors and the similarities of answers (Korman, 2010 ). Mott ( 2010 ) stated that the distribution of identical incorrect responses between examinee pairs is a Polya distribution. The degree of cheating for each examination will follow the skewness or third central moment of the distribution.

Predictive analytics systems implicitly collect data while the students interact with the virtual learning environment. The collected data, which include student’s location, access patterns, learning progress, device characteristics, and performance, is used to predict trends and patterns of student behavior. Consequently, any unusual pattern may indicate suspicious behavior (Norris, 2019 ). Answering an examination takes a reasonable amount of time. Therefore, another indicator of dishonest behavior is an extremely short interval between the access time and the completion of the assessments, which can be detected by log time analysis (Moten et al., 2013 ).

In (Bawarith et al., 2017 ), an E-exam management system is proposed that classifies participants as cheating or non-cheating based on two parameters, namely the total time and the number of times the examinee is out of the screen. The focus of the test-taker is recorded using an eye tracker during the exam.

Kasliwal (Kasliwal, 2015 ), designed an online examination tool that captures the network traffic during the exam using a kismet server. The captured package can then be analyzed to determine the frequency of URLs accessed by students. If one of the URLs is getting accessed more frequently or very rarely, it could be considered suspicious.

To detect plagiarism in papers or essay-type questions, platforms such as DupliChecker.com 1 or Turnitin.com 2 can be used. These websites compute a similarity index and show all potential plagiarisms. Based on the similarity index, the instructor decides about further actions (Moten et al., 2013 ).

A weakness of similarity detection software is that it computes the resemblance of a submitted assessment with others' works and cannot detect an original text written by others for the student in question. Stylometry discovers this issue by checking the consistency of the delivered contents with other texts written by the same student. If the style of a text does not match with the previous works of that student, it may indicate complicity (Chirumamilla & Sindre, 2019 ). Opgen-Rhein et al. ( 2018 ) presented an application that employs machine learning methods to learn the programming styles of students. This work is based on the assumption that the programming style of each student is unique, and therefore, the model can be used to verify the author of assignments.

Another way of cheating detection is using a cheating trap, which means creating websites that could be found when the students search for answers. The solutions in trap websites are incorrect, and consequently, dishonest students could be detected (Korman, 2010 ). However, this method contradicts professional ethics.

In addition, the teacher can search the internet by hand periodically and try to find all possible web pages that provide solutions matching the exam questions. This approach could be applied to create a pool of potential solutions from the internet that will be used for plagiarism detection purposes after the exam (Norris, 2019 ).

Cheating prevention

After discussing and analyzing the examinees’ motivations for cheating and the reasons which directly or indirectly drive them to commit unethical actions during online examinations, a great deal of concern is gathered around how to decrease cheating in online exams and lower the probability of these actions taking place.

We categorized cheating prevention into two major types, namely, before-exam prevention and during-exam prevention. Figure ​ Figure12 12 displays the classification of the cheating prevention methods.

Before-exam prevention

To prevent examinees from cheating, there exist several methods that should be implemented before the exam is held. Each will be discussed in detail as follows.

Exam design

In any situation that prevention is concerned, a proven and low-cost approach is a “cheat-resistant” design -A design that inherently prevents some specific cheating types from happening. This is why exam design is so critical. A cheat-resistant exam design, by its nature, prevents a range of possible forms of cheatings from occurring.

One way of achieving a good design is developing personalized exams for each candidate separately. There are several ways to do so, such as parameterization (Manoharan, 2019 ), which is a set of fixed questions with variable assumption values, using data banks with a large pool of questions to select questions randomly (Manoharan, 2019 ), (Norris, 2019 ) or implementing an AI-based method to produce unique exams (Chua & Lumapas, 2019 ).

Li et al. ( 2020 ) has put effort into designing a method for randomizing the question orders for each candidate. Their general idea is to show the questions one by one, and besides that, each student gets a different question at a time. This research mathematically proves that examinees cannot get much cheating gain.

In (Manoharan, 2019 ), the author has investigated an approach to personalizing multiple-choice examinations using the macro. Macro is a computer program fragment that stores data. It has a set of particular inputs for generating random exams based on a question bank. This method could bring freedom and flexibility to the exam design, but it needs basic programming skills.

Another aspect of exam design concentrates specifically on question design. Some of the most valuable methods are listed below.

• Using novel questions: This type of question design is so unique in design and phrasing that it becomes very challenging to be plagiarized even with searching the web (Nguyen et al., 2020 ).
• Using knowledge-based questions instead of information-based questions: These questions challenge the level of knowledge. The answers are not on the web or in reference books, and they need critical thinking and reasoning (Nguyen et al., 2020 ).
• Using essay questions rather than multiple-choice questions: During an online exam, multiple-choice questions are highly susceptible to cheating. Hence, long essay questions are preferred (Varble, 2014 ).
• Using questions with specific assumptions and facts: Although giving extra and not useful facts may mislead any candidate, even those taking the exam honestly, it will reduce the possibility of web-based plagiarism considerably by making it less straightforward to search online (Nguyen et al., 2020 ).
• Having an open-book exam: Open-book exam questions should test students’ understanding, critical reasoning, and analytical skills. Since the answers to these questions are not found in any sources directly, open-book exams may reduce the cheating opportunity (Varble, 2014 ), (Backman, 2019 ).

Finally, other methods not placed into the above categories are mentioned below.

Showing questions one by one without the option of going backward is effective in cheating prevention. If it is employed besides strict time limitations and random question series, collaborative cheating will become quite challenging (Chirumamilla & Sindre, 2019 ), (Backman, 2019 ). By setting strict time limitations, the students do not have enough time to handle cheating, therefore, exam cheating efforts are reduced (Backman, 2019 ).

Cluskey et al. ( 2011 ), emphasize low-cost approaches for addressing online exam cheating. They introduce online exam control procedures (OECP) to achieve this target. Taking the exam only at a defined time and avoiding postponing it for any reason, or changing at least one-third of the questions in the next exam, are some instances of these procedures.

Authentication

Authentication is mainly for impersonation prevention before examinations. It could be done classically by checking the school ID badges or government-issued ID by the webcam (Moten et al., 2013 ) or by a more modern approach like biometrics through fingerprint, palm vein scan (Korman, 2010 ), eye vein scan (Kigwana & Venter, 2016 ), voice, and keystroke biometrics (Norris, 2019 ).

An interesting method to prevent cheating has been presented in (Moten et al., 2013 ). Students should call the instructor at a predetermined time to get the password. After the students’ voices are recognized by the instructor, they are authenticated and receive a random password for exam entrance. The password is valid until the end of the exam time limit, thus this method makes cheating more difficult (Moten et al., 2013 ).

The last method of authentication is the one discussed in (Norris, 2019 ) which uses challenge questions. These are the questions only the student will know, for instance, student ID or personal information. In (Ullah, 2016 ), an approach is proposed that creates and consolidates a student’s profile during the learning process. This information is collected in the form of questions and answers. The questions are pre-defined or extracted from a student’s learning activities. A subset of questions is used for authentication, and the students should answer these questions correctly to get access to the online examination. This approach ensures that the person taking the exam is the same one who has completed the course.

Clustering means partitioning students into several groups based on a predefined similarity measure. In (Topîrceanu, 2017 ), random and strategic clustering methods are proposed to break friendships during the exam, as cheating prevention techniques. The advantages of random clustering are time and cost efficiencies; however, it is imprecise, and some clusters may include unbroken friendships.

Breaking friendships through clustering relies on two hypotheses (Topîrceanu, 2017 ):

• Students tend to communicate and cheat with the people they know and feel close to.
• An individuals’ relationship with others on social networks is closely related to their real-life relationships with people.

Regarding the second hypothesis, social network analysis could find students’ close friends and people they know. After clustering students, a unique set of exam questions are prepared for each cluster. Consequently, the collaboration of friends to cheat during the online exam becomes challenging.

Lowering cheating motivation

Approaches expressed in this section are based on mental and psychological aspects driving students toward academic misbehaviors, and the work being done to reduce these behaviors through controlling mental drivers.

There are several tactics to develop students’ moral beliefs encouraging them to avoid unethical behaviors. For instance, implementing honor systems helps build a healthy and ethical environment (Korman, 2010 ). Another tactic is clarifying academic integrity and morality ideals through establishing educational integrity programs (Korman, 2010 ).

As Korman ( 2010 ) further investigated, changing the students' perception about the goal of studying, could decrease cheating. This could be done by reminding them why learning matters and how it affects their future success. In (Varble, 2014 ), it is stated that emphasizing the actual value of education will lead to the same result.

Varble ( 2014 ), indicates that by improving students’ skills such as time management skills, their academic performance will be highly enhanced; accordingly, their academic misbehaviors will be declined. The risks of being caught and the significance of punishments, are inversely related to students’ motivation for cheating.

Varble ( 2014 ) also mentions that applying formative assessment rather than summative assessment effectively reduces examinees’ desire for cheating due to improving their learning outcomes. Formative assessments aim to enhance the candidates’ learning performance rather than testing them. On the other hand, summative assessments mostly care about measuring candidates’ knowledge and are used to check if they are eligible to pass the course or not.

As an additional description about getting a formative assessment to work, Nguyen et al., ( 2020 ) mention that increasing the exam frequency forces students to study course materials repeatedly, resulting in longer retention of information and knowledge in students’ minds. This brings about alleviating candidates’ motivation for cheating (Nguyen et al., 2020 ). Varble ( 2014 ), also suggests that reducing the value of each test lowers the reward gained by the cheaters over each test; consequently, the motivation for cheating is declined.

A cost-efficient and effective method to lower cheating motivation is to declare the cheating policy for examinees before the exam starts (Moten et al., 2013 ). Warning students of the consequences of being caught makes them nervous and can significantly decrease cheating. It is necessary to have a confirmation button, so that no excuses can be made by cheaters after the exam. It is such effective that in two experiments, it decreased the number of cheatings by 50% (Corrigan-Gibbs et al., 2015 ). It is worth mentioning that in the online environment, having an honor system is much less effective than warning about the consequences of cheating if being caught (Fontaine et al., 2020 ).

During-exam prevention

Most cheating prevention methods were discussed in the before-exam section; still, there exist some during-exam prevention tactics, which are presented in this sub-section.

Think-aloud request

A rarely mentioned method called Think-aloud request was discussed in (Chirumamilla & Sindre, 2019 ). In this method, a request is sent to the student to think aloud about a specific subject (or current question) at random times during the exam. The student has to respond to the request orally, and the voice is recorded for further investigation and cheating detection (e.g., slow response and voice impersonation detection). This mechanism forces students to continuously be ready for responding, which reduces the chance of student cheating. The authors have also mentioned that this system and its questions could be implemented by an AI agent.

Cheat-resistant systems

Using cheat-resistant systems will inherently prevent some kinds of cheatings, although they are costly to be implemented (Korman, 2010 ). Using a browser tab locker (Chua & Lumapas, 2019 ) is one of them that prevents unauthorized movements and also identifies them by sniffing their network packets. Another method is using wireless jammers (Chirumamilla & Sindre, 2019 ) to disrupt any radio signals (Internet) in an area which usually is the examination hall, during semi-online exams.

In (Chirumamilla & Sindre, 2019 ), some valuable suggestions are given for oral exams. One is conducting the oral exam as a flow of short questions and answers, instead of a long initial question and an extended answer afterward. This is because a flowing dialogue significantly reduces the chance of the examinee following someone else’s cues of the solution. They have also suggested that asking the examinee to respond quickly, will facilitate achieving this goal. Besides that, if candidates delay, they may be known suspicious. If a candidate was detected suspicious by the instructor, it is good to interrupt the current question with a new question. This will neutralize the effort made by a third party to help the candidate answer the question.

Another suggestion presented in (Chirumamilla & Sindre, 2019 ), is to prepare a big pool of questions for oral exams to prevent questions repetition. As a result, the candidates cannot adjust themselves to the questions asked from previous candidates.

Bribery is a kind of organizational cheating. In (Kigwana & Venter, 2016 ) it is indicated that by assigning a random human proctor for the exam right before it started, bribery and beforehand contractions between examinee and proctor would be impossible.

There is no doubt that online education has changed significantly in recent years. One of the main challenges in online education is the validity of the assessment. Specifically, during the COVID19 pandemic, the integrity of online examinations has become a significant concern. Cheating detection and prevention are hot topics in online assessments. In addition, it is needed to conduct more research on cheating motivation and cheating types. In this research, we review and classify online exam cheating comprehensively.

In this review, only publications written in English were investigated. This could result in review bias, however, it is too difficult and infeasible to review studies in all languages. Many systematic mapping researches consider only publications in English, such as (Nikou & Economides, 2018 ) (Martin et al., 2020 ) (Noorbehbahani et al., 2019 ) (Wei et al., 2021 ).

Figure ​ Figure3 3 indicates that the publications trend is decreasing, contrary to the hypothesis that online learning is rising, especially with the emergence of the COVID-19. Notably, in this study, online cheating researches have been reviewed. So, Fig. ​ Fig.3 3 specifically corresponds to online cheating publications not online learning studies in general. However, more investigations of online cheating studies from February 2021 onwards are required to further analyzing the trends.

Several reviewed studies have made no distinction between cheating detection and prevention (Bawarith, 2017 ; Bawarith et al., 2017 ; Korman, 2010 ; Tiong & Lee, 2021 ). They employed detection methods to identify dishonest behaviors. Then preventive actions such as making an alarm to the student, or closing the browser tab are performed to deter student cheating. Regarding this definition of prevention, several studies have applied these terms interchangeably, confusing the reader. In this study, we define cheating prevention as strategies and methods that try to prevent the occurrence of cheating in online exams. Considering the latter definition, we attempted to provide a better review and clearer classification to the readers.

One limitation in this domain is the lack of statistics on the popularity of the types, methods, and tools. In (Sabbah, 2017 ), the most common cheating behaviors and their average risks have been discussed; however, the results are limited to 10 cheating types. Hence, more investigation is required to determine the prevalence of each cheating type and cheating motivation.

An important cheating reason that is overlooked by researchers is learning styles. Students and educators have different preferred learning styles (auditory, visual, kinesthetic and read/write). If teachers and educational institutes don’t consider this issue, the course will not be apprehensible for some students, and consequently, they will be motivated to cheat.

Another issue that should be addressed is to evaluate the feasibility of cheating detection and prevention methods. If the equipment for securing online exams is expensive, the students cannot afford it. Therefore, this factor should be considered when developing detection and prevention methods. Cluskey et al. ( 2011 ), believe that some solutions (e.g., proctors) that detect cheating during online exams are too costly, and their costs outweigh their benefits in some cases. Therefore, cost-effective systems and methods should be implemented.

Privacy and convenience are also vital for examinees. If employed security mechanism for online exams violates privacy and disturbs student convenience, the evaluation will not be practical due to induced stress. Accordingly, these aspects should be considered in cheating detection and prevention systems.

In this study, cheating in online exams is reviewed and classified comprehensively. It provides the reader with valuable and practical insights to address online exam cheating. To mitigate students cheating, first, it is necessary to know cheating motivations and cheating types and technologies. Furthermore, cheating detection and prevention methods are needed to combat forbidden actions. Detection methods without applying prevention methods could not be effective. As cheating detection and prevention methods are evolved, new cheating types and technologies emerge as well. Consequently, no system can mitigate all kinds of cheating in online exams, and more advanced methods should be employed. It seems the most efficient strategy for cheating handling is to lower cheating motivation.

It should be mentioned that we have not covered studies related to technical attacks and intrusions to online exam systems and teacher devices. This topic could be considered for conducting another review study.

The impact of COVID-19 on online learning and cheating in online exams could be analyzed in future work.

Another future work is to explore how ignoring students’ learning styles in teaching and assessment could affect cheating motivation.

Privacy issues, user convenience, and enforced costs of cheating detection and prevention technologies need to be examined in other studies.

In this study, publications from 2010 to 2021 have been reviewed. More investigations are required to review accepted but unpublished studies and publications in 2022.

Table ​ Table1Table 1

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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2 http://www.turnitin.com

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• Essay Examples

The Cause of Cheating (cause and effect essay)

Many essays have been written about the consequences of cheating, whether at the post-secondary level or at other academic stages. People who cheat on tests, essays, or assignments find themselves facing repercussions such as failure, suspension, expulsion, and lack of credibility. And if someone succeeds at cheating once, they are likely to repeat the task – perhaps next in a work environment. But not as many pieces of writing examine the causes of cheating. In other words, what leads children and adults to deceive in the first place? Are there definable factors that lead to cheating in the first place? I would say yes. Factors such as: stress, procrastination, and lack of study skills leads to cheating in academic settings.

One of the main factors that cause people to cheat is the pressure and stress revolving around exams and grades. In many cases, so much relies on one exam: status, awards, scholarships, advancement. Who would take the risk of bombing a test or project when so much of the future depends on the result? Students need to be able to see the path beyond success or failure and strategies to deal with anxiety and pressure in the interim. They can be taught how to do deep breathing exercises to minimize test anxiety and they can write in a journal to help put their thoughts to paper. Both of these strategies can aid students in working through difficult times, instead of avoiding them.

Sometimes students feel the need to cheat on final evaluations due to lack of preparation. They have procrastinated, by putting off studying, and now have no other avenue to pursue other than the route of deceit. Students need to be taught, at an early age, that studying is important and cannot be put off until the last minute. Studying in small increments is more effective than an all-night cram-a-thon. Plus, it helps alleviate stress by taking work and sectioning it into manageable doses. Parents can model this by not waiting until the end deadline to get their taxes done or stressing at the store because they need to buy something just then when they should have picked it up a week ago.

Lastly, students lack some skills that go into test preparation. Perhaps a reading of Stephen Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens, should become mandatory reading for those still in school. The author offers advice on ‘putting first things first’ which, in essence, teaches about organization and prioritizing – a skill that many students lack. They might want to study, but aren’t sure how to go about it or find time for it in their busy schedule.

There are more factors that can be explored in terms of the causes of cheating in academic settings. No one reason can cause a student to cheat. But by analyzing certain key factors, change can be implemented. Students can be education about working through their problems, and not avoiding them. There are better options out there than cheating.

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Why Students Cheat: Causes of Cheating

Common Reasons Students Cheat

Technological development, pressure to succeed, disinterest in the assignment, high schools aren’t teaching research, social comparison, when cheating is acceptable.

• High-stake assessments . Many students believe that it’s okay to cheat during life-changing assignments, for example, when an exam determines whether they will proceed to the next academic level, receive a scholarship, etc.
• Boring and irrelevant subjects . Being more career-focused, students are likely to cheat without any remorse if the subject has no value in their future life. Moreover, they find it acceptable to behave dishonestly if teachers have failed to awaken interest in their subject.

How to Prevent Students From Cheating

• Encouraging a collaborative community . A cheating climate at school or college should be substituted with a climate of collaboration. Teachers should not only be considered the ones who evaluate performance, but also the ones who are ready to share their knowledge and answer questions to provide students with a better understanding of their subject.
• Developing academic culture . In their attempts to reduce academic dishonesty, educational institutions should provide their students with both horizontal and vertical support. Whereas the latter implies developing an honor code, comprising models and standards of ethical behavior, horizontal support can be explained as an environment where students show a good example to each other, thus underlining the unethical nature of cheating. One possible way to bring this idea to life is to establish honor councils, where students can take responsibility for spreading integrity within their institution.
• Using thoughtful language . There is a significant difference between praising a student for great results and their efforts. The former focuses on performance and may stimulate students to cheat while they are trying to meet teachers’ high expectations. The latter, in contrast, serves as a stimulus for further progress. Thus, it’s recommended to use phrases based on the formula “praise for achievement/effort + note what could be done better”.
• Reduce student overload . As mentioned before, students are more likely to cheat when they don’t have enough time to get into the details of a subject. Therefore, teachers should analyze their program to spot repetitive homework assignments, excessive tests, etc.

What Can Administrators and Faculty Do to Help?

What are the reasons why students cheat, why do students cheat cause and effect, in what ways do students cheat.

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Causes and Effects of Infidelity Essay

Introduction, causes of infidelity, effects of infidelity, how to avoid infidelity in marriages, works cited.

Infidelity is perhaps the greatest challenge facing families in the contemporary society. Virtually all divorces are due to, in one way or another, cheating spouses in a marriage. Infidelity and divorce are very old yet their levels seem to increase with time.

One wonders why man has been, apparently, unable to learn from the past and eradicate infidelity in marriages which would, in turn reduce the rates of divorce. This paper deeply analyses the problem of infidelity by looking into the possible causes of the vice, its effects on families and the possible measures that can be taken to curb it.

For people whose marriages are on the rocks due to infidelity, an understanding of the reasons why people cheat in marriages can be very instrumental in helping them salvage their marriages. One of the main causes of infidelity in marriages is the inability of one person in a marriage to meet the needs, expectations and desires of his/her spouse (Pawlik 1).

This makes the spouse to seek satisfaction elsewhere. Some other couples get into or remain in a marriage that is not based on love. This is also a major reason why people become unfaithful in marriage since relationships and marriages are founded on love. Another leading cause of infidelity is the habit of spending insufficient time with one’s spouse (Sanford 1).

This may be due to commitments at work, other social commitments or even addiction to drugs. Infidelity can also occur in cases where partners in marriage have unrealistic expectations regarding marriage. In such a case, the couple may get bored in the course of their marriage since marriage has its flaws and anyone with unrealistic expectations will indubitably get disappointed at his/her spouse.

Infidelity is one of the main causes of serious upsets to family bliss and thus its effects to the family are innumerable. The effects are also so immense that they can, possibly, ruin the family completely. When one partner in a marriage learns of his/her partner’s unfaithfulness, this may completely crush her emotions that he/she cannot continue relating normally with his/her spouse.

There are even cases where people go to the extent of killing their spouses after learning of their infidelity. In most cases however, the affected partner quits performing his/her matrimonial duties (Archer 1). This may eventually lead to a divorce. Whether the divorce occurs immediately after infidelity or after some time, it affects the couple’s children greatly.

Children may be forced to live with one parent and have minimal contact with their other parent. This means that the children will not be raised with the loving care of both their parents and thus they will be lacking a very important part of their family. An obvious effect on infidelity in marriage is the fact that the habit may prove to be very unhealthy.

A married couple in which one partner is unfaithful will have a very high chance of contracting venereal diseases such as gonorrhea, HIV and the like. Some of these diseases like HIV/AIDS are terminal and they may even be passed to children. Whether or not the diseases are passed to children, they affect the family adversely since parents will have a hard time coping with them, both emotionally and financially.

It is very hard to rebuild a marriage if it is not based on trust. Thus being faithful in a marriage and ensuring that your partner is also faithful are very important things that every married person should embrace. One way to ensure that the chances of infidelity in a marriage are minimized is ensuring that individuals get married to people they truly love (Long 1).

Otherwise there will be a lot of cases of infidelity due to a loveless marriage. Couples should also ensure that they adequately spend time together and communicate effectively to avoid misunderstandings which could lead to infidelity. Each of the spouses in a marriage should also avoid keeping close and secret friends of the opposite sex since this could fuel infidelity.

Infidelity has been and it remains to be one of the greatest problems facing marriages. It is estimated that 40% of people’s wives and 60% of people’s husbands have an extramarital affair at some point in their marriage life. Research also suggests that 15%and 25% of these extramarital affairs involve sexual intercourse. No matter the motivation for infidelity, people in marriage should ensure that they stick to their spouses and avoid temptations for infidelity as much as they can since infidelity has a lot of bad effects on families.

They should also be keen to notice when their partners are cheating and take appropriate measures to ensure that the habit does not continue since the faithfulness of their partners has a direct relationship with their happiness and health. In a nutshell, infidelity is a very huge vice that should never be tolerated and which should be avoided with all efforts by married people.

Archer, Alex. “The Impact of Infidelity on the Family”. 2008. Web.

Long, Heather. “ The New Infidelity ”. 2003. Web.

Pawlik, Laurie. “Causes of Marital Infidelity From a Psychologist”. 2008. Web.

Sanford, David. “Maintaining Marital Fidelity”. 2004. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2023, October 29). Causes and Effects of Infidelity. https://ivypanda.com/essays/causes-and-effects-of-infidelity/

"Causes and Effects of Infidelity." IvyPanda , 29 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/causes-and-effects-of-infidelity/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Causes and Effects of Infidelity'. 29 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Causes and Effects of Infidelity." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/causes-and-effects-of-infidelity/.

1. IvyPanda . "Causes and Effects of Infidelity." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/causes-and-effects-of-infidelity/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Causes and Effects of Infidelity." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/causes-and-effects-of-infidelity/.

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Cheating — Causes and Solutions to Student Cheating

Causes and Solutions to Student Cheating

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Admitted students talk role of ChatGPT in essays amid changing admissions policies

Princeton admitted students to the Class of 2028 on Dec. 14 as part of its Single Choice Early Action round.

Louisa gheorghita / the daily princetonian.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is receiving a growing focus at Princeton, serving as the subject of the Class of 2028 Pre-Read and spurring the creation of the Princeton Language and Intelligence Initiative (PLI) in September 2023. ChatGPT’s growing popularity has recently sparked conversation about its place in the classroom and whether it can be accurately detected .

Questions about the role of AI in essay writing and the weight essays should hold in the admissions process remain, during an admissions cycle already upturned by the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action. These concerns have already resulted in Duke University’s decision to abandon the practice of scoring applicant essays.

The newly admitted Class of 2028 is the first Princeton class to have access to this controversial technology during the admissions process. The Daily Princetonian spoke to admits on their perspective on the usage of generative AI during the college application process, and a professor with expertise in the field.

All three incoming members of the Class of 2028 interviewed by the ‘Prince’ said that they had not used any form of AI in their essays, though one student experimented with AI during the essay-writing process.

They expressed that they felt the personal focus of the essay made it an ill-fit for AI assistance. 

“I don’t really know what it would help with because you’re supposed to write about yourself, and it doesn’t know anything about you,” Jacob Emerson ’28 said.

Jamie Creasi ’28 expressed a similar sentiment. “There’s no way for it to communicate the challenges I’ve experienced, or what kind of life I have,” she said.

Hemant Sharma ’28 described his experience with attempting to use AI. He found that his essay “lost its emotional touch” so he ended up reverting to his old essay. “[ChatGPT] just made everything worse,” he said.

The University shares this position. In a written statement to the ‘Prince,’ University Spokesperson Jennifer Morrill wrote, “An essay generated by an AI platform is unlikely to be as rich and nuanced as a student’s own words.”

The ‘Prince’ spoke with Associate Professor of Computer Science Arvind Narayanan about ChatGPT's writing abilities. Professor Narayanan said that while AI may be capable of writing a passable essay, it likely would not be any easier than writing an essay without AI assistance. 

Professor Narayanan said, “If the use of AI assistance causes [the college admissions essay] to matter even less, I see it as an entirely positive development,” finding the essay to be “an exercise in performative authenticity.” 

The new admits differed in opinion about regulating generative AI use in the college admissions process. Creasi likened the usage of ChatGPT to a calculator which helps conduct simple calculations in order to allow a focus on more complex tasks. 

“At first, people saw calculators as a way of cheating because you don’t have to do a lot of the equations that you once did or use your mind in the same sort of way. But since then, we’ve adapted to calculators … we can do higher level math or physics,” he said.

Conversely, Sharma felt that detection of AI usage in a college essay should be allowed, stating, “I think there should be at least a minor punishment because it’s easier if we curb it now so that it doesn’t hurt anyone later in the future.” 

However, even if schools agreed to take action against students suspected of unauthorized AI use, Professor Narayanan believes AI-identification technology is not at the “level of accuracy that would make it justifiable to penalize applicants for using AI assistance.”

Although the University did not respond with explicit rules about the use of generative AI in the college application process, Morrill wrote that all applicants “sign a statement acknowledging all information in the application (including the essays) is their own work.”

Claire Meng is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’

Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.

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What is the difference between a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse?

It almost time! Millions of Americans across the country Monday are preparing to witness the once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse as it passes over portions of Mexico, the United States and Canada.

It's a sight to behold and people have now long been eagerly awaiting what will be their only chance until 2044 to witness totality, whereby the moon will completely block the sun's disc, ushering in uncharacteristic darkness.

That being said, many are curious on what makes the solar eclipse special and how is it different from a lunar eclipse.

The total solar eclipse is today: Get the latest forecast and everything you need to know

What is an eclipse?

An eclipse occurs when any celestial object like a moon or a planet passes between two other bodies, obscuring the view of objects like the sun, according to NASA .

What is a solar eclipse?

A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon comes in between the Earth and the sun, blocking its light from reaching our planet, leading to a period of darkness lasting several minutes. The resulting "totality," whereby observers can see the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere, known as the corona, presents a spectacular sight for viewers and confuses animals – causing nocturnal creatures to stir and bird and insects to fall silent.

Partial eclipses, when some part of the sun remains visible, are the most common, making total eclipses a rare sight.

What is a lunar eclipse?

A total lunar eclipse occurs when the moon and the sun are on exact opposite sides of Earth. When this happens, Earth blocks the sunlight that normally reaches the moon. Instead of that sunlight hitting the moon’s surface, Earth's shadow falls on it.

Lunar eclipses are often also referred to the "blood moon" because when the Earth's shadow covers the moon, it often produces a red color. The coloration happens because a bit of reddish sunlight still reaches the moon's surface, even though it's in Earth's shadow.

Difference between lunar eclipse and solar eclipse

The major difference between the two eclipses is in the positioning of the sun, the moon and the Earth and the longevity of the phenomenon, according to NASA.

A lunar eclipse can last for a few hours, while a solar eclipse lasts only a few minutes. Solar eclipses also rarely occur, while lunar eclipses are comparatively more frequent. While at least two partial lunar eclipses happen every year, total lunar eclipses are still rare, says NASA.

Another major difference between the two is that for lunar eclipses, no special glasses or gizmos are needed to view the spectacle and one can directly stare at the moon. However, for solar eclipses, it is pertinent to wear proper viewing glasses and take the necessary safety precautions because the powerful rays of the sun can burn and damage your retinas.

Contributing: Eric Lagatta, Doyle Rice, USA TODAY