Anam Soomro

CIVE 4311
9/1/2015
Discouraging Cheating
Students often cheat using the excuse desperate times call for desperate measures. Often times
desperate measures fall to being dishonest measures. The most common and widespread of such dishonest
measures would be copying solutions for assignments. Copying off classroom peers, solution manuals or
old peers is something done light heartedly, meaning no harm by some but it shows bad character and
gives unfair advantage. This not only goes for homework problems but also lab reports. Copying is a hard
issue to control as controlling the sharing of materials is impossible. Not only that, but there exists just a
thin line between learning with such resources and using them to copy that only the student chooses to
draw. Though controlling copying on assignments seems impossible, cheating can be discouraged aside
from the risk of getting caught. By having tests and quizzes in classes that are designed to require proper
understanding of concepts would encourage students to do their homework to understand rather than as
busy work. Professors that assign busy work that seem to show little or no value other than a homework
or lab report grade are seeming to not give enough reason to some students to actually attempt their work.
By assigning assignments particularly relevant to the material and what is being tested gives more
incentive to students to do their assignments. Also one last way to prevent students from desperately
copying is by making sure they are not overloaded. When problems seem to be undoable some students
see it better to copy that to risk losing points submitting their own attempt or turn in something blank. A
professors job is not only to teach students but to challenge them. As some students thrive under the
challenge, unfortunately some succumb to copying. A middle ground that challenges students enough to
expand their ways of thinking but not overwhelmingly would encourage students to do their homework.
Some professors do not change their exam questions much from old exams or exact homework problems.
By having exam questions that arent exactly like previous problems but rather something different that
test those concepts would make students realize genuine attempts at assignments to learn are for their
better interest. Many times when professors do not change their exams much, a good exam grade is
achieved by just remembering the steps and patterns of previously seen old exams. By having new
designed tests and relevant assignments both specifically geared to mastering concepts of the coursework
students could be more encouraged to do their homework for learning, not the grade.