How to Prevent Students from Cheating

Catching and Preventing Cheaters in Your Classroom

Dec 10, 2008

Teaching children to live upright lives is no longer the sole job of the parent. Teachers now have the responsibility to teach their students to not cheat.

A recent study shows that 95 percent of high school students have cheated. Given this astronomically high number of students who have cheated, it is very important to learn ways to prevent cheating and teach students how to have integrity.

Why Do Students Cheat?

Schools have begun to teach that achievement is more important than integrity. This may be an unfortunate by product of the No Child Left Behind Act, as teachers are scrambling to help their students pass the required tests. Even so, closing the achievement gap should not have teachers leaving honesty at the door.

Other reasons for cheating include student laziness, fear of failure, the pressures of school and the idea that cheating is an acceptable method of succeeding in school. Students may simply have a lack of honesty in their lives, while there are some teachers who simply turn a blind eye to dishonesty. Some cheating may be inadvertent, such as plagiarizing information off of the internet. Students need to be taught how to properly use the resources available online.

How to Deal with a Cheater in Your Classroom

If you find out that a student cheated, the first thing to do is find out why. Maybe the child needs help with study skills or a tutor in a specific subject. Did peer pressure convince the child to cheat? Is the child simply lazy and unmotivated to learn? Maybe the student did not understand that what he did was cheating. Once you figure out the reason behind the cheating, you will be able to not only deal with the student appropriately, but prevent cheating in the future.

How to Prevent Cheating in Your Classroom

Be sure that your students know that you will be more disappointed in them for cheating than for failing a test. Partner with parents to teach honesty and integrity. Require a list of resources that students use to write a paper, and watch for vocabulary words that seem too advanced. When conferencing with parents, advise them to ask their students to tell them what some of the questions were on tests that the student takes at school as a way to keep an eye out for cheating.

In a day and time when there are literally thousands of videos on U-Tube teaching students how to cheat, you must be savvy to the ways students try to cheat to help prevent it from happening in your class. Model honesty in your classroom, encourage parents to become more involved in their child's academics, and require all electronics to be left at home or at the door of the classroom to prevent electronic cheating.

Cheating, although rampant in schools today, does not have to happen in your class. With a watchful eye and a proactive honesty policy, you can teach students to not cheat. Never place academic achievement above the value of integrity, and whenever necessary, discuss the effects of peer pressure and academic pressure on student achievement.

The copyright of the article How to Prevent Students from Cheating in New Teacher Support is owned by Jennifer Wagaman. Permission to republish How to Prevent Students from Cheating in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Dec 10, 2008 8:01 AM

Guest :

You know, I don't recall ever cheating in school, really, unless I gave my best friend an answer--and I don't recall doing that. But then again, I was reared by a teacher, and my uncle and grandmotehr were teachers. Cheating has never appealed to me. Either I knew it or I didn't, and I accepted the outcome. Your point, however, is well taken. I teach college and it's rampant. They take photos to notes on their camera phones and everything in between.