Student Cheating Policy Analysis

Studies show that regardless of whether college students have a high or low GPA that 75% are still going to cheat at some point in their college career (qtd Lang). Nationwide there have been two scientific studies on the amount of kids that cheat. The study tells us that cheating has not changed in the last 30 years (qtd Lang). There is clearly a problem with the academic policies and ideals that universities have. In this paper I am going to analyze the policy that Grand View University currently uses and propose two solutions that I think would be more effective at decreasing cheating.
The Grand View University academic honesty policy clearly states that there are four separate and distinct types of cheating that can occur. The most prominent as reported by Grand View in the 2015-2016 school year was (1) Plagiarism:” the use of another’s ideas, words, and or results used as your own ideas.” (CITE) The other types spelled out on the Grand View syllabi and on the handbook are: (2) Falsification:” The invention or falsification of sources, …show more content…
I propose that students be given a one credit class every semester. In this class students would be taught about what cheating is. Plagiarism is the most common way of cheating at Grand View University. If the staff were to give the students one research paper each semester to understand a different principal of cheating I believe cheating would go down. Research shows that one of the main reasons students plagiarize is because they do not know what is considered plagiarizing, and what is not (Soppe 53). Therefore, in this class the professors could educate first year students on how to properly cite sources and use proper college level writing techniques. This would help to decrease the levels of plagiarism. We know from Ariely’s research that people who have constant reminders about the honor code and cheating are not going to cheat (Ariely