Cheating: Academic Integrity In High School

In a survey of twenty-four thousand students across seventy high schools in America, approximately sixty-four percent of all students admitted to cheating on a test at least once (Facts & Stats: Academic Integrity in High School). Fifty-eight percent admitted to plagiarism, and ninety-five percent admitted to other types of cheating for example: using notes on a test, plagiarism, or copying another student's’ homework. Why do students feel pressured to use notes on a test or copy a classmate’s work? High school students tend to have a number of reasons for cheating on assignments, but that does not change the fact that it is ethically and morally wrong and could possibly develop into other types of dishonest behavior.

The most common reasons expressed by students for cheating are not understanding the material, unrealistic expectations set by administrators, and simply being lazy. It is no surprise that students with low grade point averages would cheat from time to time, but what is surprising is that students with exceptionally high GPAs cheat as well. Cheating is considered the easy way out of school work and an easy way into an exceptional grade. For many, school is boring, but the desire to socialize is not and the curriculum is usually what deters
Although a habit of cheating could appear to be “helpful”, it can most definitely hinder the ability of the chosen skill. Not only that, but cheating can become a part of a person and branch off into different activities until it becomes a daily routine in which it would no longer be recognized as cheating. Cheating shows a lack of respect for the efforts of the teacher and the classmates who did the work (10 Reasons Why Cheating is Wrong). This habit leads to embarrassment and the impossibility to be as proud of an achievement as someone who did the work and passed the assignment from their own