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Most people view cheating as a failure of moral judgment. But research by accounting professor Timothy West shows that a student's moral compass does not necessarily lead him or her away from cheating. Rather, students with high levels of moral judgment develop sophisticated ways to rationalize their cheating.
"It all comes down to how good a person is at justifying his or her behavior," said West.
West, with Sue Pickard Ravenscroft and Charles Schrader of Iowa State University, has been conducting research on cheating and moral judgment in college classrooms.
The decision to cheat stems from a variety of internal and
external factors, West explained. However, one variable is nearly
universal - all cheaters develop mechanisms to justify their actions.
For his research, West administered two separate tests to his students. One contained open-ended questions that allowed students to express their individual views on cheating. The other was the Defining Issues Test, one of the most commonly used tools for assessing a person's level of moral judgment, or one's ability to discern between ethical and unethical behaviors.
"I went into this study expecting to see a correlation between a person's level of moral judgment and his or her level of honesty," West explained. "After completing the study, I found that that simply isn't the case."
Surprisingly, West found that many schools' emphasis on team-building is one way that they can unwittingly foster the cheating mentality.
To prevent this, West believes that schools may have to move away from issuing so many group assignments and back toward more independent work.