Cheating: An Ethical Concern for Nursing Educators

Alabama Nurse, Mar-May 2006 by Schmidt, Sally D

Nurses in all practice settings encounter legal and ethical issues throughout professional practice. One difficult ethical issue facing today's nursing educator is cheating. This article will explore the various issues associated with cheating. Why do students cheat? How can educators avoid acts of cheating? What can educators do to assist a cheating student? Why is it important that nursing students not cheat?

Cheating is defined by academic programs is a form of dishonest conduct. Most nursing schools have academic honesty statements and policies that define expected student behavior. Behaviors that constitute misconduct are determined by institutional or departmental policy and are distributed to the student through syllabi, student handbooks, institutional handbooks, and/or web pages.

Cheating occurs in written form by committing plagiarism. This form of cheating is as simple as leaving out footnotes for another's work to buying and submitting work as the student's own. The use of technology and availability of the internet have become a source for students to utilize when plagiarizing published works.

Cheating on tests in the classroom or on web-based internet tests is also a dishonest act that is not acceptable to academic progression and professional practice. Technical devices such as calculators, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), and cell phones have been used by technically savvy students to store, send, and retrieve information for test taking. On one website students can purchase a writing pen that stores information and can be accessed for cheating. Veracity issues can also occur in the clinical setting and include failure to report client information, deceptive charting of information and reporting of clinical attendance when not present at the clinical setting.

Why do students cheat?

David Callahan (2004) reports that many surveys conducted regarding academic dishonesty indicate that cheating is on the rise. Other research shows a 30% -35% increase in reported acts of cheating in the last decade (McCabe, 2005). In a WebMD August 4, 2004 interview written by Griffin, Callahan claims that the nation is "obsessed with getting rich and terrified of losing out. We've been encouraged to think in Darwinian terms: We're all in a desperate struggle against each other to make it to the top. Failure is disastrous" (p. 2). Experts concur that cheating begins at a young age and becomes a pattern and way of achieving success that continues from the academic environment to the work environment.

Another reason students cheat is the thinking that everybody cheats. Students rationalize that if everyone cheats at some time then why shouldn't I cheat? Callahan states in his interview written by Griffin (2004) "if you're in an environment where cheating is the norm, a lot of people will just go along" (p. 2). McCabe's 2005 results found that 44 percent of 10,000 college faculty participating in assessment surveys reported that while being aware of cheating in a course over the last three years, the faculty did not report the incident. Even if incidences are reported, students may not be disciplined for the misconduct. This response adds to the thinking that cheating is acceptable.

In a study conducted by Brown (2002), 253 nursing students were surveyed regarding cheating. The participants for the study included fourth semester associate degree nursing students, freshmen, sophomore, junior and senior generic baccalaureate nursing students. The results identified that 53 percent of the senior nursing students in the program thought of cheating but only 27 percent would cheat if they thought they could get away with it. Twenty percent actually reported cheating. Thirty-nine percent of freshmen in the study reported the highest incidence of cheating. Sixty-one percent to 94 percent of students in the study reported seeing other students cheat.

The study also included three open ended questions regarding how students cheat, how to prevent cheating, and consequences for cheating (Brown, 2002). Brown reports the following themes emerged from the open ended questions: students cheat by using cheat sheets, looking at other students' papers, orally giving answers, obtaining past exams, using textbooks, writing on body parts, and taking make-up exams. Study participants identified several ideas for preventing cheating including teacher awareness, more proctors, no personal items at desks, new exams, not allowing students to leave the testing room, and information regarding the punishment or consequences of cheating. Brown's study participants identified "a grade of zero, expulsion from the university, and dismissal from the nursing program" as the most reported ways to handle cheating (p. 7).

How can educators avoid acts of cheating?

According to Brown (2002), faculty implemented various measures suggested by the students to decrease cheating in the classroom. However, Brown suggests that no definitive data exists to evaluate if the measures taken have been effective and that continual vigilance is required to curb cheating. Many schools of nursing have policies in place for test taking. Posting the policies for students to read and adhere to are important first steps in prevention. Reviewing these policies should be done on a regular basis. Keeping ahead of the technical gadgets that students use to cheat requires educators to be aware and confront these additional means of cheating. Faculty should be mentored on the policies and steps to take if a student has committed academic misconduct.