USA Today
06-26-06
Study examines why students cheat
By William Dillon, The Ames Tribune
AMES, Iowa — Sue Ravenscroft's phone rang. The voice on the other end was
that of a colleague from another Midwestern college. The colleague, clearly
upset, recently had discovered that 47 of his 64 students had cheated on a takehome exam.
The professor had requested the test be done individually and without the help of
the Internet. Unbeknownst to him, another professor had posted an answer key
online. Unbeknownst to the students, the college was able to trace all the
students who accessed the Web page.
The professor had several reasons why the students may have done it, but
Ravenscroft's mind worked differently. The researcher in Ravenscroft, a
professor of accounting at Iowa State University, suggested this was a
chance to explore why the students did what they did. To her, it was a golden
opportunity.
Most studies on cheating are based on self-reporting: Do you cheat? How often
do you cheat? In this case, though, there was evidence the students had
cheated. That was a big step forward as far as Ravenscroft was concerned.
To help evaluate the students' behavior, Ravenscroft called on the help of ISU
business faculty members Jeffrey Kaufmann and Brad Shrader and former ISU
faculty member Tim West.
The research team provided each of the 47 students with a list of open-ended
questions modeled after the "Defining Issues Test," a popular test used to
measure ethical behavior.
The Tribune recently sat down with Ravenscroft, Kaufmann and Shrader to learn
more about the study.
Tribune: "What did you find?"
Shrader: "In the first study, where we looked at moral reasoning and cheating,
we didn't find a significant relationship between those who were cheating and
their level of moral reasoning. That is kind of big news academically. (The
Defining Issues Test) is very well known. It's been used in a lot of different
industries, different professions. It seemed reasonable to hypothesize that those
who were cheating would be more self-interested and a lower level of reasoning,
and we didn't really find that.
"The second finding, in a nutshell, said that individuals who are cheating are
saying on the surface that they know cheating is wrong and is bad, and even
though they engaged in cheating, they are finding a way to rationalize away from
that — 'What I did wasn't cheating. I was learning, or I was helping someone, or I
was simply taking advantage of technological opportunities.'
"They came up with various ways to distance themselves from what they did."
Tribune: "Do you mean making excuses for it?"
Shrader: "I think it is more like rationalizing."
Kaufmann: "But it is a particular type of rationalizing. The rationalizing we saw
here is that they were rationalizing that it wasn't really wrong. They figured out a
way to say, 'But it's not really wrong.' That is what we mean by "distancing." They
are distancing themselves from the responsibility for their actions even when they
know that the action itself is wrong."
Ravenscroft: "What I thought was interesting is that lots of students would say, 'I
did look at the solutions manual on the Web, but that wasn't cheating because I
was learning. If I had looked at the solutions on the Web before I tried the
problem, that would have been a bad thing.' They were being good little
spinmeisters."
Shrader: "There was another set of responses that was blaming the system, the
environment, the context or the professor."
Tribune: "Such as, the system made them do it because the answer key was
available to them?"
Kaufmann: "Right. It's the idea that if you put it out there, how could you expect
them not to do it?"
Tribune: "So, research is supposed to lead somewhere or have implications on
the real world. What do you see this study leading to?"
Shrader: "We do talk about some implications in the paper for managers. One
would be that organizations need to be pretty careful about messages that they
send. Clear communications on expectation of employees are important. Even
though there was an ethics code or policy in this setting, developing an active
code that is lived out and has managers that are examples of it is a good idea.
"It would make more sense to have a set of guidelines that are more in front of
individuals that they are constantly having to enact, not to see the code as a non-
living, non-breathing and non-viable document just sort of sitting there for some
arbitrary reason.
"We learned the amazing interpretations that you can get off of some pretty
simple, and what I think are some pretty clear, instructions. And so, a manager
needs to constantly communicate values and help people work through the
meanings of things."
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