In a survey conducted with seniors at Prairie Ridge on November 20, 2012, 98% of students admitted to participating in cheating on tests, quizzes, or homework sometime in their high school career.
When the survey question was adapted to include the line “cheating also includes copying homework or asking another student what was on a test,” students circled their answer immediately. In addition, many made remarks such as “that’s an easy answer” or “I do that all the time.”
Of 50 students surveyed, all but one indicated that they have cheated before. What causes this number to be so high? Is it a result of poor teaching or lazy students? When a group of Prairie Ridge seniors was asked why people cheat, they responded by saying, “Students cheat to get better grades, to please their parents with good grades, they forget to study, they do not have time to study, or they are downright lazy”.
Although teachers are reluctant to admit that their students cheat on assignments, tests, and research papers, cheating may be a highly inevitable fact of high school. However, is there anything that can be done to prevent this irresponsible and negative action? English teacher, Mrs. Gallagher, believes that “cheating is the easy way out because it is easy to have access to information on the internet. Nowadays, it’s much easier to cheat than not to cheat. However, it takes the better student to avoid cheating.” She sees less cheating on tests, but more plagiarism due to the availability of the internet today.
The percent of students that cheat at PR is repulsive.
In order to change this recurring pattern of cheating at Prairie Ridge, something needs to change. Teachers must become more aware of the cheating that occurs in their classrooms, and students should be held accountable for their actions. Last year in AB Calculus, Mrs. Gilbert created take-home quizzes that had different questions on them, and this eliminated the possibility for cheating and getting away with it. More teachers should do things like this in order to force students to be responsible and do their own work to produce their own grades.
Homework is meant to prepare students for quizzes and tests, which prepare students for life after high school. If students cheat on these assignments, they are not learning. High school is supposed to be a preparatory course for college, but if students continue to cheat, they are wasting their education.