“I think some of the reasons kids cheat is they are looking at someone’s work to compare answers to see or confirm if they were right, which is stupid because you don’t even know if they studied,” an anonymous Rider teacher said.”When I was in school consequences were a lot harsher than now.”
Statistics show that cheating among high school students has risen dramatically during the past 50 years according to cheatingfact.com.
“If anyone got caught cheating when I was in high school it was a automatic zero and being sent to the principal. No questions asked,” another anonymous Rider teacher said.
At Rider, when a teacher finds a student cheating on a test the consequences vary, but teachers say they are required to give the cheating student a retest for academic purposes.
“If a teacher catches a student cheating on a test they still have to give them a retest, which gives them no academic incentive not to cheat,” Pre-Ap World History teacher Chris Hartman said. “All they lose is their pride, but I think it should be a zero.”
47 percent of cheating students said that providing test questions to a fellow student who had yet to take a test was academically dishonest, and yet nearly seven out of 10 admitted to doing so according to sciencedaily.com.
“I don’t expect my students to be brilliant, but to try,” Hartman said.
More than half the Rider students surveyed said that they don’t think cheating is a big deal. Cheating increases due to pressure for high grades according to Online Education Database.
“The reason I cheat is because I feel a lot of pressure from my parents,” a Rider student said. “It’s hard trying to keep up with all your work, especially if you’re in Pre-Ap.”
In a random sample of Rider students age 15 to 17, 36 percent admitted to having cheated themselves. But seven in 10 also say they have friends who cheat, and only one-third of students have ever had a serious talk with their parents about cheating.
“Sometimes it’s laziness, but a student’s life may not be easy. Maybe they have bad home situations, maybe they are living in a single parent home with younger siblings and had to take care of them all night and didn’t have time to study,” Hartman said. “If a kid bombs a test I am not going to jump on them for it because us teachers don’t always know the situation.”
Students who found advanced classes in middle school easy can have an extremely difficult time adjusting to the higher expectations and heavier workloads in high school, and that puts them at a higher risk for cheating according to teachers. Many students, especially those in honors and AP classes, definitely feel pressure — external, internal or both — to achieve high grades, and that, in turn, may increase their tendency to cheat in order to reach that goal says Why-Students-Cheat.html.
“In the long run it hurts society,” Hartman said. “Do you want a doctor that cheated their way through medical school? Or a lawyer who cheated their way through law school?”
One teacher said the students in their class said that cheating isn’t a big deal. But one student who was caught disagrees.
“I got caught cheating. It wasn’t worth disappointing my teacher and my parents,” a Rider student said. “If you take the time to study and really get to know the material for the test and put aside time to study, it is so much better. I don’t want the person at the top of my class to have gotten there by cheating.”
80 percent of the country’s best students cheated to get to the top of their class according to Online Education Database.
“When it all comes down to it, I would respect a student who made a 65 on my exam and did it honestly more than someone who makes an 98 by cheating,” Hartman said.