The Big Cat

Academic Cheating Academic Integrity: Why Students Cheat Surveys say that 25 to 70 percent of all college students cheat according to William Shropshire's article "Of Being & Getting: Academic Honesty." The motivations behind why students cheat are the root of the problem of the dishonesty. Shropshire finds that the main reason students choose to cheat is they weigh out the benefits and see that it would help them to get ahead. Cheating has a low-risk factor and many students feel that cheating on one test will not matter and will give them the boost they need to get ahead. Students spend their entire lives trying to get into a good college. Once they get in, they spend their time trying to get into a good graduate school or get the bes

Academic knowledge is the basis on which future prosperity, and financial security has been determined. As a consequence, students feel inclined to perform above average in school. Now, as students perform less and less, they sink to obtain good grades by cheating. This method to acquire the desired grades will only harm the student, instead of the imagined result. Prompted by a child's inability to perform basic tasks throughout his education , academic cheating spawns numerous negative consequences.

Resulting from the numerous pressures of high school, academic cheating places a large amount of stress on the minds of American teens. To begin with, low self-esteem and a lack of morals prompt a student to cheat to maintain an acceptable grade. When students pick on a less academically inclined student, the unfortunate student will loose confidence in himself and resort to cheating, cheating that will begin a downward spiral of negative effects. Furthermore, if failing grades persist and plague the student, one will cheat to halt the continuation of unacceptable grades. Secondly, loving parental pressure will generate the need to cheat in school. For example, a child, who is a good student, will cheat, to prove to their parents that they are smart, and that they can achieve their goals throughout their schooling. Additionally, parents want their children to follow in their footsteps in the aspect of the education that they received; therefore, more pressure will be enforced on the children. Lastly, failure to study, due to a lack of motivation, contributes to academic cheating. A student, cheating to make up for their lack of knowledge, will do so because one did not study for a test. In addition, a forgetful student will cheat in order to avoid doing work, which had been previously assigned. Also, when class work is assigned that requires knowledge from a previous lesson, a cheater will again resort to cheating in a futile attempt to raise his grade.

The effects of cheating, the majority being negative, hasten an individuals overall progress