Schools do more to combat high-tech cheating

Cheating in school is nothing new.

Crib notes, cheat sheets and copying from others still are common methods to get around doing homework or studying for tests.

But in recent years, cheating also has gone high-tech. Students are using the Internet, cell phones, portable media players, graphing calculators and all manner of high-tech gadgetry to cheat.

There are Web sites where students can buy term papers, while others offer tips for cheating.

"I have heard about students downloading their notes onto their iPods as lyric files and using them to cheat," says Ethan, a Charleston County high school student who did not want his last name used.

Cheating has become at least a crisis if not an epidemic, many experts say. To wit, in February, six students from a top academic school in Los Angeles were expelled for stealing midterm exams, and another 12 were suspended.

That same month, at a Chapel Hill, N.C., high school, a student was caught e-mailing pictures of exam answers from a camera phone. While investigating the incident, officials discovered that years earlier students had stolen a master key, which was passed down and used annually to gain access to the school to steal exams.

Last year, there were scandals at a Hanover, N.H., high school, where 10 students were criminally charged after breaking into the school to steal exams; at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, where 34 students were accused of collaborating on a take-home test; and at Indiana University's School of Dentistry, where nearly half the class of 100 second-year students broke into password-protected computer files to access an exam.

In recent years, University of Maryland students were caught receiving text-message answers during an exam; a Texas teen was criminally charged for selling test answers after affixing a keystroke-decoding device to a teacher's computer; and seven students in one class at Kansas State were accused of plagiarizing papers off the Web.

In 2006, the Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, a national survey conducted every two years by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, revealed that more than 60 percent of high school students had cheated on a test in the past year and a third had plagiarized from the Web.

Rutgers University business professor Don McCabe, who has been conducting surveys on cheating with high school and college students for 18 years, found most recently that 64 percent admitted to at least one incident of serious test cheating and another 58 percent admitted to plagiarizing. A whopping 95 percent admitted to having committed a questionable activity at least once. "A lot of times, students don't see it as cheating when they ask what's on a test or copy someone's homework or let someone copy their homework," says family counselor Sherry Young of Summerville. "They see it as helping out a friend."

Many students also see nothing wrong with collaborating on homework, often via instant messaging while they are on the computer, or with cutting and pasting information from Web sites, often without attribution, to put together a paper.

"This is a generation that has grown up with computers," Young says. "They use computers like we used encyclopedias, but with a computer, all you have to do is point and click to copy something."

But at the same time that students are getting more sophisticated with cheating, so are schools. For instance, many use services such as turnitin.com, which can identify plagiarism, and does, in about a third of the papers submitted. And many schools ban cell phones, iPods and the like in classrooms during school hours.

"We are always trying to keep pace with technology," says private school teacher Jane Benson of Charleston. "As soon as we figure out they are doing this, they start doing that."

Why do kids cheat at all?

Although cheating can happen in preschool and elementary school, those incidents are more isolated, and children often don't think of it as cheating. It's often a one-time thing.

It becomes more prevalent as school pressure begins to mount during the middle school years, according to the Josephson Institute's findings.

It once was thought that kids cheated because they were too lazy to do the work themselves. While that still may apply in some cases, many say there are other factors. The reasons students gave in McCabe's research are to pass, to get good grades; don't understand the material; pressures to succeed; and time pressures (jobs, athletics, etc.).

"Even good students can be tempted from time to time," Young says. "The top students are often very busy with extracurriculars and jobs and other activities, and can find themselves in a time crunch."

One local high school student expresses the sentiments of many when he says, "I have cheated because I know my parents expect my grades to be good and I didn't want to let them down. It's important for me to get into a good college."

In fact, the Josephson survey shows that 7 percent of high school students and nearly 5 percent of middle school students believe their parents would rather they cheat than get bad grades.

Whatever the reason, "It shows a lack of morals," Young says. "Cheating used to be something people were ashamed of doing, and if they were caught, they were horrified.

"Now, students are much more brazen about it. A lot of that has to do with the way society has changed. Things that were unacceptable 20 years ago are now part of the news every day. Kids hear about athletes cheating, teachers cheating, politicians cheating, and they think it's OK for them to do it, too. As parents, it's our job to lead by example and to teach them that this is not OK."

Parental guidance

What parents can do:

-- Try to reduce grade pressure ("You'd better bring home an A") or any need your child must feel to "measure up"; stress that you value him for who he is, not for his chemistry grade.

-- Check out your child's homework organization and time-management system. A child wouldn't cheat if he knew the answers, so any help you can provide (possibly including getting a tutor) can make a big difference.

-- All throughout childhood and into the teen years, do what you can to model honesty and integrity. If Uncle Joe brags about cheating on his tax return, discuss that with your children. When a cashier gives you too much change, make a point of giving it back. If your kids see you as someone who's consistently honest, they're not going to go down the wrong path.

-- Source: Familyeducation.com

Caught cheating

What to do when your child is caught cheating:

-- Be relieved that your child has been caught now before the cheating gets out of hand.

-- Don't try to protect your child from failure. Make him accountable for his actions.

-- See this as an opportunity for your child to learn and grow.

-- Stay focused on what your child needs now. This does not determine if he is going to college.

-- Set clear limits. Let your child know that you love him, but that he has made a mistake.

-- Recognize you may be encouraging your child to cheat if you focus exclusively on his grades. Remember, kids go to school to learn. You may want to shift emphasis away from results and on to the learning process.

-- Kidsgrowth.com

Brenda Rindge can be reached at 937-5713 or brindge@postandcourier.com.