CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM AND IT’S SCOPE

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Cheating, just a mere common phenomenon happening in a student’s daily

learning, studying life. It is also said that: cheating is a lazy way to unqualified success,

or a false success since time will come that this success will become failure.

Since the dawn of time, cheating has been a “popular practice” to those

individuals that would like to live life effortlessly. These practices has been around even

in the time of monarchies and dynasties. An example of this is when: a king dies, his only

son, the prince, would be the successor to the throne. But, unfortunately the prince is

killed and the nephew would soon take his place as the successor but not knowing that it

was nephew that made the plot to kill the prince in order to take possession of the

kingdom. Another example of this is in the times of election, candidates would sometime

have a scheme to win a government position because they know that only a few would

vote for them because of the popularity of the opposing party. They would hire a bagman

to buy the votes of the registered voters.

On another account, they would formulate plans in order to miscount the votes

and making them win by the eyes of the people. And this practice has been passed down

to today’s generation. Like what is happening now in our modern society, children
cheating and people doing the act of plagiarism. And where would the hope of future get

this? Of course, to their ancestors who have done the same practices.

Due to the powerful minds of the people nowadays, they were able to come up

with other methods of cheating. But if we would be on a student’s point-of-view,

cheating is done in various ways. Some would peek on another student’s work, some

would have a “cheater’s paper” or a paper that would have answers written on it. Others

would simply ask there seatmates by kicking the chair and asking them by whispering so

that the invigilator would not know. Some would likely throw a piece of paper to their

“targets” and would have them write their answers on that piece of paper. And some

would use technology, such as cellphones, tablets, and other gadgets, in order to pass due

to reasons they have committed such as not studying because of their laziness, the scope

had too much to be studied on, and some were busier in their social media accounts more

than their studying. Yes, the student might have passed those subjects but the real

question they are facing is that, did they really learn something? Of course, no because

they were just cheating and knowing that success is a long-term process, they will not

benefit it in the near future to come.

Nowadays, this problem has grown to academic proportions and this practice is a

problem not only to a student’s learning performance and capacity but also to his learning

personality. And the researchers are bent to find out what are the most common method

of cheating that is used by academic students. And what certain feeling would he/she feel

after doing it.

1.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

THEORY OF CHEATING

The theory of motivated cheating postulates that test takers may cheat when they

do not know an answer. With probability k, an “observer” is unsure of an answer and will

copy from a nearby “target” with probability c. The corresponding parameters for the

target may be entirely unrelated to those of the observer. Thus, the undesirable feature of

bidirectional of parameters found in correlational techniques is not an inherent feature of

this theory of cheating. Predictions are derived, and estimates of k and c are proposed.

Statistically large values of c suggest that an observer was copying from a target. High

values of c for both the observer and the target suggest collusion. The theory is applied to

a 40-item five-choice test taken by students in an introductory psychology section. From

the full paired comparison matrix of target x observer parameter estimates, the method

identifies 2 students who were probably in collusion. {LINK, S. W. (1982)}. Correcting

response measures for guessing and partial information. Psychological Bulletin, 92,469-

48.

1.4 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This study is conducted in order to answer these questions. The following are the

research questions:

1. What is the most common form of cheating?

2. What are the factors that tempt students to cheat?

3. How did the respondents feel after committing the act of cheating?
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

This research is conducted in order to help deepen the understanding of the

readers towards the most common forms of cheating within a region. This was also made

due to the desire of the researchers to understand how a “cheater” would feel after

committing the act of cheating. If this research is successful then it could be a basis on

understanding the feelings of a so-called cheaters.

1.6 SCOPE AND DELIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

This research is only limited to at least fifty (50) respondents which will be from

Eastern Visayas State University. The number of respondents may exceed if the

researchers decide to. It has been conducted from July 2016 to February 2017. It will be

held on Eastern Visayas State University. It is only limited to the students of the Eastern

Visayas State University and should not have any respondents outside the scope of the

research unless recommended. The researchers chose the students of EVSU since

academic students- according to popular belief- are most prone to cheating.

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Cheating – to break a law or rule to gain an advantage at something.

Bagman - an agent who collects or distributes the proceeds of illicit activities

Plagiarism - the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as

one's own.

Invigilator – the person who is watching the students who are taking an examination
 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 RELATED LITERATURE

“I would prefer even to fail in honor than to win by cheating” – Sophocles

If the entire world and all of its’ denizens were to follow and truly abide by the

admirable words of Sophocles listed above, then perhaps the world would be a much

nicer, pleasanter, and better place to live in. But alas, that is sadly not the case! We live in

a world where there is rampant corruption, a seemingly disdainful attitude towards ethics,

and where one needs to be careful in dealings with other individuals, as it is always

possible that one could end up getting fleeced if not careful in such transactions.

Similarly, becomes increasingly obvious that students who cheat in school are very likely

to continue their cheating ways well into other situations, including workplace

transactions (Swift & Nonis, 1998, p.4). Cheaters cheating, corruption spreading, this

seems to be a growing pain in the head.

Unfortunately, this situation is also very rampant in colleges and universities and

other such academic settings, including elementary, secondary, and post-secondary

educational contexts (Aasheim, Rutner Li, & Williams, 2012; Jones, 2011; McCabe,

Butterfield, & Trevino, 2012). And a rather sobering statistics reveals that this trend of

cheating is ever increasing rather than reducing in frequency (Firmin, 2009).Similarly,

Lyer and Eastman (2006) mention the increasing rate of academic dishonesty, even
though the ranges do seem to differ depending on the researcher/study. McCabe and

Trevino (1997) offer an estimated range from about 13% to about 95%, whereas Park

(2003) states that about 50% of students cheat. Kidwell, Wonziak, Laurel (2003) and

Chapman, Davis, Toy, Wright (2004) all found that about 75% of students cheated. Nonis

and Swift (1998) found similar percentage (63%) of students cheating. McCabe,

Butterfield, and Trevino (2006) reported that about 56% of graduate students and 47% of

undergraduate students engaged in some form of dishonest of cheating behavior.

This kind of endemic academic dishonesty and cheating is not peculiar only to

particular country, but is indeed prevalent in several different countries (spanning the

globe) and in several contexts (both undergraduate and graduate students) as well as both

public and private schools of all sizes (Park, 2003). For instance, Duke University shot

into the public limelight in a rather unsavory fashion in 2007, after about 10% of the

graduating class of 2008 was caught cheating on a final exam (Conlin, 2007; Simkin &

McLeod, 2010). About, 69% of surveyed Russian business students reported having

cheated (Lupton, Chapman, & Weiss, 2002), whereas Grimes (2004) reported that about

74% of undergraduate from eight Eastern European countries (part of the erstwhile Soviet

Union) had personally engaged in cheating during their college education. 84% of

surveyed Slovakian students too reported that they had engaged in cheating behaviors

(Lupton, Chapman, & Weiss, 2000). Gbadamosi (2004) demonstrated that a high

percentage (56%) of his sample of students from Swaziland and Botswana also indicated

that they were prepared to do anything to excel in exams, even if those methods were

unethical and dishonest. Teixeria & Rocha (2010) did find that Scandinavian students
appeared to cheat lesser than did their British or East European counterparts, but on the

whole, they too cheat, just at a reduced level. Taradi, Taradi, & Douglas (2012) too found

that Croatian medical students appear to find academic dishonest acceptable behavior.

(http://www.igiglobal.com/article/a-comprehensive-literature-review-on cheating/98575).

2.2 RELATED STUDIES

ACADEMIC CHEATING

Academic cheating, or academic dishonesty, is defined as an illegal change of a

grade, the use of helping materials during a test without permission, or representing

someone else’s work as one’s own. Academic cheating is also every other act of

dishonesty on behalf of a student, a teacher or professor in an academic environment. It is

believed that academic cheating is wide-spread across all levels of education while it

usually begins among students at the age of 10 to 14.

There are a number of types of academic cheating. Two of the most common are

cheating on an exam and plagiarism. Examples of the first type are the use of a cheat

sheet during a test or the copying of answers from another student. An example of

plagiarism is copying parts of someone else’s work into a report or a paper without

giving credit to the author of the original work.

(https://www.jstor.org/stable/25073114?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents)
LEARNING FROM THE LITERATURE ON COLLEGIATE CHEATING: A

REVIEW OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

The role demographic, personality, and situational factors play in the ethical

decision making process has received a significant amount of attention (Ford and

Richardson, 1994). However, the empiric al research on students’ decision to engage

in collegiate cheating has not been included in this literature. This paper reviews the last

25 years of empirical research on collegiate cheating. The individual/situational factor

typology from Ford and Richardson’s review (1994) is used to compare the two

literatures. In addition, issues pertaining to the quantification of academic dishonesty, the

perception that cheating is increasing, and methodological considerations are addressed

in this review. An accounting student from University of Dayton said that “When you get

to college, you don’t follow the same rules your parents laid down for you. But we’re just

taking a break. We’ll likely get back to [the rules] later.”

Cheating, is this an isolated behavior some students engage in only while in

college? Or is the decision to cheat similar to the decision to engage in unethical

workplace behaviors? Most importantly, can the literature on collegiate cheating

contribute to our knowledge in business ethics? (Crown, D., Spiller, M. S. (April 1998)

Learning from the Literature on Collegiate Cheating: A Review of Emperical Research,

Netherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers.)

REFERENCES
These were the sources of the researchers in conducting this research and sends
their deepest gratitudes to the authors of these sources.

LINK, S. W. (1982). Correcting response measures for guessing and partial

information. In Psychological Bulletin, 92,469-486, (xxxx),

CROWN, D., SPILLER, M. S. (April 1998) Learning from the Literature on

Collegiate Cheating: A Review of Emperical Research, Netherlands, Kluwer Academic
Publishers.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25073114?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
http://www.igiglobal.com/article/a-comprehensive-literature-review-on
cheating/98575
https://www.google.com.ph/search?q=bagman&oq=bagman&aqs=chrome..69i57j
0l5.2409j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=plagiarism&*
 Republic of the Philippines
Eastern Visayas State University
Secondary Laboratory School

In partial fulfilment of RESEARCH 10 entitled:

“EPISODES OF CHEATING: AND THE MOST COMMON FORMS OF
CHEATING”

Members:
Khyle M. Agaton
Florian Dave A. Alterado
Neil Menard Q. Aurelia
Chester Andrei N. Kempis
Bien Jude C. Yamon
Grade 10 students of EVSU-SLS

Professor:
Ms. Mary Grace Aruta
 CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN

The research design applied in this study is the quantitative design because the

researchers would like to know the effects of cheating on a student’s learning personality

by the means of a questionnaire.

3.2 RESPONDENTS OF THE STUDY

The researchers chose to take only fifty (50) respondents for it is too much to

handle if it they would have more than fifty (50) respondents. The researcher would

hand-off the questionnaires off to fifty (50) Eastern Visayas State University students and

would have them answer the said questionnaire.

3.3 LOCALE OF THE STUDY

This study will be conducted on Eastern Visayas State University – Secondary

Laboratory School grounds. It was decided that the EVSU – SLS was to be chosen as the

research locale because of financial problems and the said place was home to hundreds of

possible respondents. EVSU – SLS is found in Brgy. 42 – A Quarry District, Salazar St.

Tacloban City, Leyte.

3.4 RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS

The research instrument that is going to be used is the survey questionnaire. It is

so because this research is a quantitative research.

3.5 DATA – GATHERING PROCEDURE

The researchers would simply give out the questionnaires to fifty (50) respondents

in the EVSU grounds. Then the researchers would record all the data gathered, tabulate

them and would somehow arrive to a conclusion.

3.6 METHOD OF SCORING AND INTERPRETATION

We, the researchers, would use the “check the box” method in our questionnaire
in order to simplify the answering of our dear respondents. Then we would tabulate the
results as “very common” to “least common”.
 REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES
EASTERN VISAYAS STATE UNIVERSITY
SECONDARY LABORATORY SCHOOL

Name (Optional):
Age:

Dear Respondents,
Greetings of peace! The researchers would like to ask very sensitive
question to you dear respondents. Rest assured that these information given is
strictly confidential and is only meant for the eyes of the researchers and should
not be exposed to the public. Please cooperate with the researchers and answer
honestly and whole-heartedly. Thank you for your trust and cooperation.

TEST I. Please check the appropriate boxes below.

1. Have you committed the act of cheating?

Yes

No

a. If so, please specify the act you did:

Peeking on your seatmate

Asking on your seatmate

 Throwing a piece of paper on to the “target” so that he can write his

answers

Providing a “cheating plan”

Others; please specify: ________________

b. If you provided a cheating plan please specify:

You put the answers on a piece of paper

Using your gadgets to obtain answers

You put a piece of paper with answers written on it on your ID

Others; please specify: ________________

2. Why did you cheat?

The scope of the test had too much information to be studied on

Because of laziness

You forgot to study

Not sure of your answers

You were too busy on your social media accounts

Others; please specify: ________________

3. What did you feel after cheating?

You felt a sense of content

You felt bad

You are anxious if someone saw you

You felt a sense of joy

Nothing

Others; please specify: ________________