COLLEGE CHEATING - A SIX YEAR FOLLOW-UP

According to various researchers, between 25% up to and in excess of 90% of all college students engage in some form of cheating.Traditionally, cheating includes inappropriate collaborations on a homework assignment, a cheat sheet hidden up a student's sleeve or more recently on the back of a water bottle label, as well as those wondering eyes during an exam.While these types of events still occur, recent technology advances have provided even more avenues for unacceptable academic behavior.Devices such as iPods, PDAs, cellular phones, and even some calculators can "instant message" within the classroom.They also store volumes of text and can connect to the internet.In addition, textbook authors and publishers now routinely provide end of chapter answers and exam question pools for instructors which have been illicitly obtained by students.In some cases, a naive educator will make it even easier for students to cheat by posting these items on an open website for the entire world to see.Given the extraordinary efforts that students will go to cheat and remain undetected, educators can become very frustrated.This paper describes the actions one Engineering Professor has been taking in his classes to minimize the amount of cheating.The results of a 2011 engineering student survey by the author on cheating are reviewed and compared with the same survey completed 6 years earlier.Students were asked if they knew someone who cheated, if they themselves cheated, and the reasons why.Previous works by other educators along with preventative measures as well as few actual cases are also described.