Student Ethics In High School Students

Student Ethics

When it comes to the topic of student ethics, most of us will readily agree that it has gotten steadily worse in the digital age. Cell phones and computers have made cheating that much easier for high school students. Cheating has become an epidemic of the modern age.

There are many reasons and ways that students cheat on their homework or tests. The decision can be intentional and planned days ahead of time or they can be as last minute as looking at the test next to them. It is not always the students fault however, some may not have been taught the proper ways to cite and quote phrases from other research papers. In an article called ‘Why do Students Cheat? Listen to the Deans Words’, it states that “This is not because

Good grades and a high GPA mean getting into a good college”(Cobb,8). Parents put pressure on students to get the best grades instead of telling them to do the best they can.

Every year schools try to enforce more policies to keep the students from using their phones in schools, but nothing has seemed to calm the ever growing problem in and out of the classroom. A huge problem facing teachers is the camera phone. Pictures of tests and worksheets float around the cell phones of many students, as said in a survey put together by John Orbinger and Kent Coffey, ’21 percent of students who bring cellphones to school have video/photo capabilities on their phones (Carroll, 2004).’ Not only are cellphones are the main cause of cheating, but is also a huge source of distraction in the learning environment. This point is also stated in the previously mentioned survey ‘Cell Phones in American High Schools: A National Survey’, “cell phone use could be a significant distraction during instructional time”(Orbringer and Coffey, 5). Teachers who do not have strict cell phone policies in the classroom have to fight for the attention of their

When they copy material from other students or steal it from something that has been written by someone else they are not helping themselves to learn. So they will not develop the skills to do good honest work on their own. The more common the cheating and plagiarism has become has caused students to believe it is not a big deal. “Students reported the just once mentality and did not really feel it was a big deal”(Hongyan Jane Ma). Another effect of students cheating and plagiarizing in the digital age is the fact that they do not try as hard in school. “Students reported that they sometimes decided to cheat because they felt that they could not achieve well within a short time”. When a student believes they will not achieve well they seem to lose confidence in their work leading them to cheating and plagiarizing. They do not seem to realize that plagiarism is against the law and cheating is