“Cheating is Gonna Get Me Through School”: Circumventing High School Social Studies Tasks

Abstract

A survey on how students perceived cheating was given to 385 high school students in twelve eleventh grade American history classrooms in four suburban high schools in four different geographical locations in the United States. The objectives for this study include analyzing what social studies tasks students cheated on, students’ reasons for cheating, students’ view of the morality ofcheating, the value of the social studies tasks on which students cheat, what the history teachers did to cause cheating to occur in their classrooms, and students’ views on ways the history teachers could curb cheating in the classroom. The results indicated that most of the students cheated in various degrees in the American history classes. Although many students viewed cheating as immoral, they cheated because of peer, parental, grade, and school pressures. Many students believed cheating in American history was acceptable because much of the information and academic tasks were considered irrelevant to student life and, for the most part, were nothing more than busy work. Teachers promoted cheating by poor management skills, particularly during classroom testing, and poor curriculum and instructional skills. Students believe their teachers could curb cheating by using better management skills and by providing better curriculum and improved instructional skills.