Cheating on Exams
CHAPTER ONE Background and Rationale of the Study
1.1 Background
Cheating on exams has become a popular phenomenon all over the world regardless of the levels of development. For instance, Baerthlein (2008), from Germany, described that over the past decade, cheating has become more and more common as an act of academic dishonesty. Referring to the latest statistics she expressed her concern on the alarming rate as more than two thirds of high school students admitted cheating on an exam last year. The same trend was documented in Belarusia, Venezuela, Thailand and Colombia. Cheating is not done only by academically poor students. According to Baerthlein (2008) even more appalling often the best students cheat to get to the top of their class and they don't think it is wrong. "Students say cheating is not a big deal; everybody is doing it", she said. Of course it is a big deal! Cheating is basically wrong and must be punished. If students easily get away with it, they might be encouraged to do it again. They won't realize that this, in the broadest sense, is an attack on our society, which is based on values like honesty and fairness. The present epidemic of cheating indicates a loss of those values and cannot be tolerated. It is a serious problem of schools almost at all levels.
Likewise, it is also the common practice observed in Addis Ababa university commerce collage. We practically observe that the trend of cheating on exams seems rising from time to time. There was almost no time where invigilators didn’t get into conflict with students during exams. A series invigilator taking watchful action may minimize the degree of the climax. However, cheating seems inevitable even under such a condition.
The academic dishonesty of cheating is not unanimously being condemned, like that of conducting corruption, within in the students and the society as well. Cheating is carried out through voluntary agreements of actors in taking risks of
1.1 Background
Cheating on exams has become a popular phenomenon all over the world regardless of the levels of development. For instance, Baerthlein (2008), from Germany, described that over the past decade, cheating has become more and more common as an act of academic dishonesty. Referring to the latest statistics she expressed her concern on the alarming rate as more than two thirds of high school students admitted cheating on an exam last year. The same trend was documented in Belarusia, Venezuela, Thailand and Colombia. Cheating is not done only by academically poor students. According to Baerthlein (2008) even more appalling often the best students cheat to get to the top of their class and they don't think it is wrong. "Students say cheating is not a big deal; everybody is doing it", she said. Of course it is a big deal! Cheating is basically wrong and must be punished. If students easily get away with it, they might be encouraged to do it again. They won't realize that this, in the broadest sense, is an attack on our society, which is based on values like honesty and fairness. The present epidemic of cheating indicates a loss of those values and cannot be tolerated. It is a serious problem of schools almost at all levels.
Likewise, it is also the common practice observed in Addis Ababa university commerce collage. We practically observe that the trend of cheating on exams seems rising from time to time. There was almost no time where invigilators didn’t get into conflict with students during exams. A series invigilator taking watchful action may minimize the degree of the climax. However, cheating seems inevitable even under such a condition.
The academic dishonesty of cheating is not unanimously being condemned, like that of conducting corruption, within in the students and the society as well. Cheating is carried out through voluntary agreements of actors in taking risks of
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