One common problem emerged most frequently and was the most talked about topic: cheating. The first article we were provided on this topic explains how cheating is said to be on the rise in North America among business schools. The article goes on to explain that a global business and management professor, Donald McCabe, from a school in New Brunswick, New Jersey, called Rutgers University, is conducting a study on cheating. The first study he conducted lasted from 2002 to 2004 and involved 32 U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities. It found that 56% of business majors cheated compared to 47% of non-business students. He then goes on to explain the factors that explain why this is happening. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The second article written by Donald McCabe explains that a 2006 study conducted with two other people showed that MBAs cheat more often than any other graduate students in the United States and Canada. In one of his studies, approximately 74% of undergraduate business students admitted to relying on the Internet, taking notes, and/or peeking at other people's tests during an exam. From one of McCabe's research, the mindset of MBAs seems to be that they need to get the highest GPA possible regardless of whether they cheat or not. It's like a life or death situation to get these GPAs. His study led him to believe two things, one is that business students who cheat appear to be prone to ethical problems if they find it easy to defend these questionable behaviors and second is that business schools have a responsibility to teach ethics . Another The article was written by four professors and assistant professors in the Management department at Grand Valley State University. They conducted a cheating study on 268 business students. Overall, they found that business students do not necessarily cheat more or less, however, their attitudes about what is or is not cheating are more lax than non-business students. Their study also found that serious cheaters, regardless of major and trade schools, tend to be younger in age and have lower GPAs than other students. Other studies have found similar results, also finding other individual factors that have a relationship with cheating behaviors such as marital status, various personality traits, and financial/job support. Raef A. Lawson's article concerns a study he conducted on the question of whether a The tendency of business students to cheat in the “real world” is related to cheating in the classroom. Many students believe they are more ethical than business people, however, cheating has been reported to be widespread among college students. The study indicates that students become angry when cheating occurs in their class, but nevertheless a large portion of students engage in this behavior. The study also shows that students understand what constitutes ethical behavior in business and what they need to thrive in the business environment. Students believe that business people have unethical behavior, and even if it is unethical, it seems like it is the only way to advance their careers. This has caused concern among students as it goes against their personal ethics. The article by two Cal State Fullerton professors goes on to explain ethical theories in interpreting and responding to student plagiarism. Their study is to determine which theory of ethical reason students will usein response to why they plagiarized when they were in school. With the Internet now available to everyone and improved teaching, plagiarism has increased in both writing an essay and doing homework. This study helps demonstrate that unethical behavior in school can lead to unethical behavior in business. This concludes that the school should give priority to correcting this unethical behavior of students before they enter the real world of business. Abilene Christian University has an extensive academic integrity policy and believes that academic integrity should be demonstrated by all students “regardless of environment, context, and location” (ACU). The ACU considers “plagiarism, collusion, cheating, falsification, facilitation of academic dishonesty, failure to contribute to collaborative projects, and sabotage” of others to be academic dishonesty (ACU). Abilene Christian University wants students and faculty to “honor others and ourselves because we are created in the image of God. Therefore, we want to work together to use the work, ideas and words of others – as well as our own work, our ideas and our words – ethically and honestly” (ACU). In the eyes of Abilene Christian University, it is a sin to lie and cheat and them being a Christian university, they take it personally in a way since it goes against the teaching of God and Jesus. By having this policy, they are trying to help us to succeed by forcing ourselves to do our work and making ourselves shine as the person God made us to be. Abilene Christian University is trying to prepare us for the real adult world and by cheating we are not learning what is acquired to understand the adult world that can/will harm us in the future. They try to be tough on politics to teach us what is and isn't acceptable, but once again they are preparing us for the future. In the real world, companies are not as nice as Abilene Christian University as the ACU will only give you a slap on the wrist if you cheat, but it can be worse depending on what the person did. Companies will fire you on the spot if you get caught cheating in the real world and getting fired is never good as it can make you have trouble finding future work. Is the ACU policy effective? To be completely honest, I think it's nowhere near as effective as I'd like it to be. At ACU, most students didn't even look much less read the academic integrity policy and even if they did, students don't care. Even with the policy in place, many of our students, including business students, cheat. Before I read the policy for the first time, I always thought that cheating included plagiarism, watching/copying someone else on an exam or quiz, and having someone do your work or copy from someone else. I had never thought of other types of cheating listed in politics, and I find it amusing that there is a large list of creative cheating methods. With all these creative ways of cheating, it becomes difficult for teachers to catch cheating students and even if someone reports someone, teachers cannot do anything unless the teacher catches them himself. This is especially true because in three of my classes there is a student who always sits next to me and cheats on exams. I told one of my teachers and he told me that unless he catches her himself, he can't do anything but watch her during finals. Overall, this is why I believe ACU's academic integrity policy is not effective. In the articles provided to us and through personal understanding, there are many reasons why business students cheat. One of thereasons is illustrated in Article 1 when Dr. McCabe states: “What matters is the end result. That's not how you get there." This quote helps show the belief that many businesses use, and students take this theory to heart when they're in class. We all go to school in hopes of getting the job we want, however, businesses schools are “hotbeds of growing competition, fueling the need to be first at all costs.” It almost seems like only the strongest/smartest people will survive in business schools, which induce students to cheat when they are not at the top McCabe's research shows that “the mindset of most MBAs – the bottom line – is to get the highest GPA possible, regardless of means, after all, the students with the highest grades get the best chances at six-figure jobs in pharmaceuticals, high technology and, yes, finance” which is another reason why students are prone to cheating “Cheating seems to indicate that MBA students are simply imitating behaviors they believe are necessary to succeed in the corporate world” (McCabe), which demonstrates the social understanding/idea that people have when it comes to businesses. On top of all that, to me our generations are getting lazier and don't really want to do any work required for the degree they want. I have seen and heard many stories of people who enter college and decide to do nothing but then complain when they don't get a good grade. There's also the fact that what some people believe is cheating, others don't consider cheating. One such example is when people collaborate during a project/essay when we should be doing so as individuals. Some schools will no doubt consider cheating particularly ACU since it is in its integrity policy, but for most students, myself included, we do not consider it cheating since it is mostly about ideas. I enjoy meeting others and seeing what they have come up with for essays, however we still end up writing our own essays and may differ from what others think. In fact, it seems like we all cheat, even students who don't study economics. To be completely honest, it would be difficult to come up with a cheat-proof assessment method and even if we came up with one, students will at some point find a way to cheat. . However, I have some ideas about what teachers can do to prevent cheating. One of these solutions could be using the blocking browser if you are doing multiple choice questions. The only difference is having a large pool of questions that each student can choose from so that it is even more difficult to cheat. Another would be to only have free-response questions since it is harder to watch another person's exam, especially if they have to read something. And while the exam is in progress, I would give each student a blank folder to simply use to cover their answers. A casual solution might be to take oral exams. It would be a little more time consuming, but it would be really difficult to cheat if you dragged one student out of the room at a time, made them take the oral exam, and then left the room without talking to the others. I would also suggest having another teacher watch the lesson to prevent them from using the phone so the answers don't get out, but this could be avoided if you use different questions on different students and/or classes. Another solution might be to ask students to hand over their phones so you can receive an exam and a folder to use to hide their answers. I asked a teacher to do it and it made it easier.