Dive Brief:

• To address cheating and academic dishonesty, some teachers have seen success in holding classroom discussions around ambiguous hypothetical situations that push the moral and ethical boundaries of students and challenge them to assess their own beliefs.
• KQED reports both men and women cheat equally, and most cheaters are never caught; to address the issue, the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in the Bronx has created a peer-review system called the "Academic Integrity Board," which is similar to a restorative justice court for student offenders to be evaluated by peers.
• Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke and author of several books, told KQED that societal mechanisms create conflicts of interest, and put students in untenable situations that invite dishonesty and cheating.

Dive Insight:

At the new program at Fieldstone, students watch this video to help spark discussions over academic dishonesty. A similar video for educators could help curb the spate of teacher cheating scandals that have spread across the U.S, involving traditional public schools, like those in Atlanta orHarlem, and charters schools alike. 

Universities are also not immune. 11 educators from Fordham University in New York were found guilty of inflating student exams grades. "With educators' livelihood and reputations at stake, the pressure to raise test scores from students who were already under great stress became overwhelming,” Fordham University's Mark Naison noted at the time. “It is understandable to see how some educators, in this immoral and untenable position, chose to manipulate test scores rather than put their students under even greater stress.”

Recommended Reading

KQED: How Educating Students About Dishonesty Can Help Curb Cheating