Cheating in High School: A Response to Student Questions

Source: Carl Pickhardt, Ph.D.

I sometimes get asked about practical psychology by adolescents. Here are some questions from a student interested in my opinions about cheating in high school and a version of the responses I gave.

In general, the purpose of cheating is to get or get away with what one is not honestly entitled to. Examples of cheating in high school can include when a student copies someone else’s work, sneaks answers into a test, passes signals with a classmate, plagiarizes content written elsewhere, or falsifies historical information about themselves.

1. How do you think cheating in high school can affect a student’s life?

I believe the effects of cheating are educationally, socially, and psychologically expensive. Consider a few common costs the cheater must pay.

• You have taken advantage of those who play by the rules. “I’m getting away with what others are not.”
• You have pretended to have knowledge that you do not have and so created a false impression of yourself. “I’m not as capable as I appear.”
• You bypassed study and so may not truly learn what you need to know. “Cheating to get ahead has put me behind.”
• You have misled important others into believing what is not true. “I’m leading a double life with those who trust me.”
• You have broken school rules, causing worry about what will happen if you are found out. “I hope I don’t get caught.”
• You have cheated on true ability and honest effort, lessening self-confidence. “Cheating is the only way I can do well enough.”
• You have lied to others and hence treated yourself as a liar by acting dishonestly. “I’m not the person everyone thinks I am.”
• You have unfairly competed with peers and thus with friends. “Credit they worked for I stole instead.”
• You have relied on cheating and so may be tempted to cheat again. “If I sneaked by on this, maybe I can sneak by on that.”
• You have cheated yourself out of the effort that strengthens self-discipline. “Getting out of work, now I don’t work as hard.”
• You have created an unrealistic impression for people to judge you by. “Others now expect more of me than I can deliver.”

What a mess!

2. Do you think cheating can become a long-term habit?

Any behavior can become habit-forming through repetition if it is practiced long enough. The power of habituation is that it is familiar and efficient. It allows a person to repeat actions automatically, without much oversight of thought.

If cheating becomes a habit, then the person can come to act like cheating is the ordinary way to perform adequately. And now, the long-term cheater has created a scary world to live in. They must play constant cover-up to hide what they have been doing and how much they really don’t know.

As cheating increasingly feels like the best way to go, it becomes harder to stop. Now the person becomes dependent on it to get by and get ahead. “I need cheating to achieve.”

So, repeated cheating can be entrapping to get into and tough to give up. However, when you recover the capacity for honest performance, which may not be as high for a while, relief from stressful pretense, from social concealment, and self-respect can all be reclaimed.

3. Where do you think the stress for students to cheat comes from? Do you think parents can play a role in contributing to a student’s decision to cheat?

I suppose, in response to pressures to achieve from very demanding parents, a young person could be tempted to cheat to measure up to their high expectations, although I have not personally encountered this. For sure, I haven’t seen any parents who declare to their teenager: “Achieve at all costs; we don’t care how!”

This said, I have witnessed:

• Tired students who consider a little cheating to give themselves a break.
• Rebellious students who want to beat the system by outsmarting it.
• Desperate students who believe cheating is the only way to pass.
• High-striving students who seek a competitive edge.

In general, I believe cheating is more common among academically ambitious students who care a lot about achievement than lower-motivated students who may not. After all, why cheat if accomplishment doesn’t matter much?

4.What kinds of advantages do you think cheating can offer for students in the short term? Do you think cheating is worthwhile in the long term?

Short-term, cheating provides an easy way to get around demands for study. Of course, cheating still requires effort; however, the work it takes may feel worth the work it avoids: “Cribbing information took some time, but at least I didn’t have to prep for the test.”

Long-term, I don’t think the tradeoffs are usually worthwhile. What is gained is less than the costs you pay.

5. All of our classes are online at the moment, which means that it has become more difficult for teachers to catch cheating. How do you think this change could influence students and their decisions?

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It’s a given: If motivated, tech-savvy students will figure out how to manipulate virtual instruction. I cannot imagine all the resourceful ways. The Internet is an outlaw world for those players who love to game it. And this creates another temptation to cheat: to exploit openings in the online system, to outwit it to one’s advantage.

So, it is probably worthwhile for teachers and students to discuss and specify the “classroom” procedures and honor code they want in place when remote learning is the rule.

As for teachers “catching” a student cheating, most have enough work to do without policing deceptive students, confronting offenders, reporting misconduct to administration, and encountering unhappy parents when an infraction has been charged. It can feel easier to ignore possible cheating and look the other way.

6. Is there anything you would like to say to students who turn to cheating?

Cheating happens. Research surveys about cheating in high school found online suggest that 50 percent or more of students self-report having done it at one time or another. So, cheating in high school is apparently often tried.

On balance, I personally don’t think the gains are worth the costs because when you cheat, you cheat yourself out of an education, you cheat on others who are working hard, and worst of all, you end up treating yourself as a fraud. How sad is that?