Why Students Shouldn’t Cheat

            Student cheating is on the rise at all levels of study. Recent research by the International Center for Academic Integrity (ICAI) (2020) reports that 95% of students in high school in the US admitted to participating in some form of cheating, with 64% acknowledging cheating on a test and 58% admitting to plagiarism. The study also reports that 29.3% of students on college campuses have, in a way, cheated on an examination, 32% being undergraduate students(ICAI, 2020). These figures surpass McCabe’s (1990) original findings that reported significantly lower cheating cases at similar study levels (McCabe et al., 2012). Advances in technology and distance learning have partly been part of the problem and the solution. If cheating has become this common, then why shouldn’t students cheat? Students should not cheat because they risk missing several learning opportunities and lack proper preparation for the workplace while demotivating their non-cheating peers.             Cheating is a threat to learning. Students who cheat often cannot master course concepts and learning objectives (Bertram Gallant, 2017). Assessment in education aims to determine what learners have gained from specific instructions. Behaviors such as cheating and plagiarism, which interfere with this measurement, diminish the assessment results' accuracy (Anderman & Murdock, 2011). The consequence is that educators cannot interpret the grades correctly and determine whether the student understood the course material or if they can complete course-related tasks. Ultimately, cheating makes it difficult for a teacher to tell if a student is ready for the next phase in a learning sequence.  The implications of academic dishonesty can extend to professional workplaces. Studies have established a strong link between the frequency of cheating in school and the recurrence of dishonesty in a real work environment (Ballantine et al., 2014; Carpenter et al., 2004; Orosz et al., 2018). Students dependent on cheating to advance in their academic careers often end up without the essential competencies and skills to accomplish specific tasks at their workplaces. Moreover, to some degree, cheating in school can be considered potential workplace dishonesty (Mulisa & Ebessa, 2021). It is evident that cheating not only affects the preparation of a student for work but also how they will be viewed by others in their future workpla...