Restoring A Culture of Honor

by Margaret Monahan Hogan

Internet and lower standards prompt increase in cheating

Noting that student cheating is no longer an aberration, but rather the norm, Professor Margaret Monahan Hogan, Ph.D., called upon members of the teaching profession to promote integrity and to police and punish violators.

Armed with alarming statistics about school cheating over the past decade, Hogan pointed her finger at a variety of culprits, ranging from a disinterested faculty to the current culture. Hogan, the keynote speaker at the mid-March, Spring Education Meeting of the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy in Salt Lake City, Utah, first noted that cheating is hardly new. "Cheating, she said, “has been a part of our culture since the beginning of mankind – plagiarism, copying and cheating (through) inappropriate behavior." Quoting, among others, Mark Twain, Hogan added, "Twain said, ‘What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before.’ "

"They castrate the books of other men in order that with the fat of their works they may lard their own lean volumes." – Jovius

Though her talk was sprinkled with humor and amusing anecdotes, it was the eye-opening statistics that generated the most interest. Using information collected by Donald McCabe, Ph.D., professor of management at Rutgers University, Hogan noted that, of 4,500 high school students surveyed:

• 74 percent reported one or more incidents of serious test cheating
• 72 percent reported one or more incidents of serious cheating on written work
• 97 percent reported one questionable activity involving homework or copying tests
• 15 per cent submitted a paper written largely from a website
• 90 per cent of those who use the Internet to plagiarize also plagiarize from written sources

The data indicated cheating was widespread and easy to rationalize, that the Internet posed difficult new questions for teachers, that teachers ignore cheating and that students cheat for a variety of reasons. Among them:

• "Everybody’s doing it"
• "You have to be stupid not to cheat"
• "The teachers don’t care"
• "I have to get into a prestigious college"
• "Cheating is the American Way"
• "The pressure from my parents is unbearable"

The survey came from questions posed at 14 public and 11 private schools across the high school years. It gave strong indication of why cheating is so prevalent beyond high school. "Once students perceive cheating is part of the culture," Hogan said, " they’re going to cheat. When penalties are not appropriately severe, it’s damaging. When there is no honor code, it’s damaging. When there is little chance of getting caught, it’s damaging. Interestingly, the cheating curve is U-shaped; the most cheating seems to occur among students at the low and high-end of the grading scale.

Once the cheating culture is established in high schools, it carries over to college. McCabe’s college research involved more than 15,000 students drawn from large and small colleges and universities, some with honor codes and some without. The results – gleaned from surveys over the past 12 years – confirm the widespread practice of cheating. Between 30 and 45 percent of students admitted to test cheating; 82 percent were aware of serious cheating. Written "cut and paste" cheating was acknowledged by 43 per cent of the students. Internet "cut and paste" was tried by 41 per cent of the surveyed students.

As discouraging as those statistics may be, Hogan was even more disconcerted by student perceptions of serious cheating behaviors. "Only 12 percent thought collaboration was a serious cheating matter and only 27 percent believed that Internet ‘cut and paste’ was serious cheating." (On the other hand, 85 percent believed copying on exam or using crib notes was cheating). So casual was the student objection to cheating that few considered reporting on others who cheat. Actual reporting of cheaters, in fact, is less than 15 per cent. Hogan noted that because students aren’t likely to report each other, even at military schools, it is up to the faculty to take its role more seriously. That doesn’t appear to be the case, however. "About 32 per cent of faculty do nothing," Hogan said. "I suspect that number may be higher."

Cheating, Hogan added, is hardly much ado about nothing. "Cheating attacks the integrity of the educational process, and it attacks the integrity of the diplomas students get. So, too, the lack of integrity is sending a series of waves through the academe (academia)." While "Humpty Dumpty has had a great fall," Hogan believes he is not beyond "putting back together again.” "We know the academe has lost its role as an authority place for students. It needs a great deal of attention. In addition to the cultural shift (about cheating), there has been a shift of energies to dealing with drugs, alcohol and date rape."

Hogan believes there must be a change in the academe before cheating will subside. "The academe must know more about the moral development of young people…we have to know where they are on the moral development trajectory. Most are rather underdeveloped morally." Saying many students are smart but not wise, she suggested, "the level of moral development provides the lens through which they make their decisions. We have to apply what we know to where they are. We have to create a moral surround, an environment that supports and develops integrity. I suggest we use the ‘3Ps’ of Dr. William Kibler of Texas A&M University - promote, police and punish.

"We must teach why it is important to be people of integrity. Whom does cheating harm? The first person who is harmed is the person who cheats. You develop a character for yourself. If you cheat, you’re creating yourself to be a cheater. You hurt your colleagues. If you help create physical therapists that are cheaters, you hurt your patients. The strength of society depends on the strength of each one of us."

One solution, Hogan noted, may be to ask students what cheating goes on in the institution, and then involve the students, faculty and administration, in promoting integrity. That includes, she said, the faculty being a model of integrity for students. "Test them fairly, but don’t make the bar too high or too low. Make the expectations clear, and they will trust you." Policing integrity must be done where the faculty has control, and the punishment must be very hard. Hogan concluded that, "You have to have a way to share the breadth and depth of violations of integrity in your profession. You have to have a gold standard. You can claim it and make it so."

‘Tears in the moral fabric of the ethical surround'

• Scandals in which some members of the clergy, some teachers and some coaches sexually abused vulnerable people – another tear in the morale fabric of the ethical surround
• Those who stole financial security from their investors
• Physicians who defrauded Medicare and Medicaid
• Pharmacists who diluted medications for seriously ill people
• Noted authors accused of plagiarism and were not severely punished

"I want to acknowledge my own appreciation to your profession," she said at the State Boards of Physical Therapy session. "I literally would not be standing here today without the help of the physical therapy profession. In a younger life, I was trying to balance doctoral studies with having five children all under (the age of 10). After a little while, I became really weak, with terrible, terrible headaches. I tried to pass it off and instead began passing out. The problem was with my cervical vertebrae, and the doctor gave me things (physical therapy) I needed to do the rest of my life. I truly appreciate that."

Reprinted with permission from the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy federation forum Summer 2003 Volume 18, Number 2.