Several years ago, Groveton College adopted an honor code, which calls for students to agree not to cheat in their academic endeavors and to notify a faculty member if they suspect that others have cheated. Groveton’s honor code replaced a system in which teachers closely monitored students. Under that system, teachers reported an average of thirty cases of cheating per year. The honor code has proven far more successful: in the first year it was in place, students reported twenty-one cases of cheating; five years later, this figure had dropped to fourteen. Moreover, in a recent survey, a majority of Groveton students said that they would be less likely to cheat with an honor code in place than without. Such evidence suggests that all colleges and universities should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton’s. This change is sure to result in a dramatic decline in cheating among college students.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
Honor codes are logical, effective, and fair. Groveton College has proven this to be true,’ declares the speaker. Groveton College’s decision to enact an honor code in 2005 was undoubtedly a wise one. The stringent guidelines that honor codes call for have certainly proven successful in deterring students from cheating and, in doing so, have made the college better. This change in policy demonstrates the wisdom of the college’s administration in not attempting to change too much at one time. Instead, the college began slowly and gradually adopted a policy around cheating that was less stringent than the previous system. After several years, when the new policy had been embraced by the majority of the student body, the institution decided to change the code to one that more closely matched its values.
At first, one might ask, what motivated the school’s administration to adopt an honor code in the first place? Presumably, the faculty wanted a stronger policy around cheating. One first need look no further than the statistics provided by the speaker to find the answer. According to those statistics, while the school was operating under an honor code, teachers reported an average of thirty cases of cheating per year. By contrast, just one year after the new policy was implemented, the number of reported cheating incidents had dropped to twenty-one. Five years later, the statistics indicate that the number had dropped even further to fourteen. Given this, it seems clear that the honor code was effective in keeping students from cheating. If the honor code had not been effective, it is likely that the college would have continued with the stricter policy. In fact, the school’s administration would have faced significant pressure from faculty and administrators to adopt an even more strict policy.
Finally, it is interesting that of the students who responded to the institution’s recent survey, 76% said that students would be less likely to cheat under an honor code than without. In other words, they were willing to place their trust in the honor code, even when cheating would not be punished. It is not surprising that students would place their trust in an honor code that serves as a deterrent to cheating. When students feel that they will be punished for cheating, they often decide not to cheat, regardless of the consequences. However, when the institution does not punish cheating, some students may be tempted to cheat. The fact that a larger number of students said they would cheat under an honor code than without suggests that Groveton’s administration might have overstepped the boundaries of its authority by adopting an honor code. Thus, while the school’s honor code is an effective deterrent to cheating, it may be wise for other institutions to adopt an honor code only once they have time to see how their students react to the honor code.
In conclusion, Groveton College’s decision to adopt an honor code has been successful. The strictness of the honor code has eliminated the prevalence of cheating among students, but administrators of other institutions may want to consider carefully before adopting a similar policy. Academic cheating can be a significant problem, and the integrity of institutions of higher education must be protected.