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Ryleigh Custer

Professor Smith

Managerial Accounting

13 February 2022

A Guide to Ethics

In a recent event occurring at Kennesaw State, an accounting professor discovered that

online proctored exams enabled some of his students to cheat. The professor stated the three

students that he determined were cheating had scored below 60% on their previous exams yet

scored 90+ on the final. When reviewing the footage of the students taking their exams, they all

appeared to be looking at an off-screen device. Following the school’s code of conduct, he

reached out to these students and gave them options to take a verbal test with him or take the

average of the previous two exams for their final. Needless to say, the results for all three

students resulted in failing averages. Now the real questions comes into play, how can professors

curve the desire to cheat?

With many exams being online due to Coronavirus, students have found it easier to use

online study guides and tutoring programs to assist in their test taking strategies. These programs

such as Chegg, Quizlet, and Course Hero just to name a few, provide answers to questions and

make them readily available for access anytime, anywhere. There are several issues with using

programs such as these and others, some of which will be discussed here.

Problem number one: Retaining the knowledge. Students lack the motivation to learn

their information, rather than to just memorize and regurgitate it. Oftentimes, teachers and

professors don’t actually teach their students how to apply what they’re being taught which gives

the student the ability to reason their use of cheating. If a teacher were to ask, “Why do you
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cheat?”, they would likely be met with the response, “Because I don’t know how to apply this”,

or “Because you didn’t teach this well enough.” As a student, I feel that I am speaking for the

majority when I say that a lot of lectures are very lack-luster. Who wants to learn something that

puts them to sleep?

Problem number two: Ethics. Cheating is one of the prime examples of unethical

behavior. At its most basic definition, cheating is simply lying. It’s lying about what you know

and it’s a lie to the person who tried to teach you. Cheating on homework, an exam, a project is

essentially no different from lying to one’s parents, friend, or partner. It can break trust and can

many times damage one’s relationship with their instructor. Finally, cheating can result in worse

grades and even academic penalties which will likely ruin one’s career.

While I could go on about the list of discrepancies with cheating, the bigger question

remains, how do we stop it? I will be honest when I say that I have cheated in the past. I would

when I didn’t feel comfortable with the material and at the end of the day, it didn’t help my

grades. I have found that the biggest reason I cheated in the past was due to teachers who prided

themselves on making the material difficult to learn. Lectures were boring, unenergetic, and

overall grueling to sit through. On the flipside, I found that teachers with high energy, colorful

presentations, and strong body language helped me learn the material best. With that being said,

lectures need to be lively and enjoyable. Cheating comes from a lack of motivation; teachers

must find a way to motivate their students. Students should not be able to reason their need to act

unethically, they should be able to learn, study, and apply the material.

At the end of the day, unethical behavior can’t entirely be avoided. With that in mind, the

professor in the story took a very ethical approach to an unethical situation by giving the students

a chance to redeem themselves. He showed that they don’t have to lose his trust and that alone
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demonstrates his care about his students and their behaviors. Ethics is about knowledge, care,

honesty, and transparency. Without those traits, bad behavior is enabled.