Cheating - A Response

Cheating and plagiarism are very human behaviors. That is to say, most of us have participated in one or the other during the course of our academic careers. That they are so prevalent on college campuses (McCabe, Treviño, and Butterfield, 2001) is simply a testament to this fact. Observation of this will inevitably lead some to conclude that fostering a safe environment for peer-to-peer collaboration and attribution(Weldy, 2008) can effectively combat our tendencies to cheat and plagiarize. While something about this notion is indeed attractive, one must be wary of its potential shortcomings.

The findings of McCabe, Treviño, and Butterfield suggest that the university is largely responsible for the ethical community it fosters, cheating being dependent more on contextual factors than individual ones (McCabe, Treviño, and Butterfield, 2001, pg. 222). A strict university academic integrity policy might discourage collaboration (and consequently peer-to-peer plagiarism), the rules being so strict and pervasively enforced that students are hesitant to test its limits. It seems to me that such a policy carries with it undesirable consequences – surely we should want to encourage at least some collaboration amongst peers.

Yet, if the hypothetical restrictions are lessened, we find students in an almost as undesirable situation. Instead of being too afraid to test the policy, students are now precariously balancing on the tightrope between not collaborating enough, thereby putting themselves at a disadvantage, and committing plagiarism. This is generally considered to be the more favorable option, though, especially in a society that adopts the phrase “innocent until proven guilty."

The dilemma that faces us when we consider the university as solely responsible for enforcing academic integrity leads us to conclude that the individual student must also have a role in enforcing the policy – for him/herself and for others students. College students are, after all, young adults. An integral part of their college experience should be learning how to assume the responsibilities they will later have as adults.