E-Cheating: Incidence and Trends Among College Students

There has been substantial research in the area of student cheating in traditional face-to-face classes but much less on cheating using technology often termed "e-cheating." With the increased offering of online courses to provide students with greater flexibility, concerns regarding academic integrity arise. How many opportunities exist for students to cheat when taking an online course? The authors have utilized a biannual survey to gather information on student cheating in both traditional and online courses. This paper summarizes the results of the authors' surveys for the past five years. Findings show that the most common type of cheating activity reported by students is the downloading of Internet papers and representing them as the student's own work. In addition, students report that they believe that other students cheat more on homework problems as compared to exams, term papers, and Internet projects. The most troubling finding for educators, however, is that e-cheating appears to be on the rise.