Cheating is epidemic in high schools across America, making it a common problem teens face daily. A 2020 survey by the International Center for Academic Integrity of 70,000 high school students revealed that:

• 64% of students admitted to cheating on a test
• 58% admitted to plagiarism
• 95% participated in some form of cheating at least once during their high school career

Reasons that Students Cheat in School

There are many reasons that high school students choose to cheat in school. Here are just a few:

• The importance placed on grades in our society puts a lot of pressure on teens which can give them the mentality that it’s ok to do whatever it takes to succeed. This pressure comes from a variety of points, including parents, peers, culture, and college admissions.
• Students that manage their time poorly or whose schedule is overcommitted will cheat to complete assignments or perform well on exams that they did not have time to do or prepare for.
• Teens might give a peer answers to a test or let them copy their homework in order to please a friend or to fit in.
• Teens might justify cheating if they will be penalized for getting a low grade (e.g., getting kicked off a sports team or losing some privilege from a parent). 
• Some teens feel justified to cheat if the environment is particularly tempting, for example take-home tests, unmonitored environments, or easy access to AI.
• Students also feel justified if they see others cheat with no consequences and feel unfairly disadvantaged.
• Some students engage in unintentional cheating because they do not fully understand what specifically constitutes cheating.

Many of these reasons are understandable, even if cheating is a bad idea. Parents, teachers, and other adults who interact with teens on a regular basis should take the time to reflect on these reasons and consider whether they are inadvertently sending mixed messages to the teens in their lives. Be sure you are not placing too much pressure on grades, praising results over effort, overscheduling, or punishing bad grades.

10 Reasons that Cheating is Wrong

Ultimately, cheating hurts the person who does it, but most young people don’t see that from their limited perspectives. Since cheating is so common in school, it’s a good idea for parents to discuss this issue with their teens on a regular basis. Below are some specific reasons that cheating is a bad idea. Use these to open a discussion with the teens in your life about cheating.

1. Cheating is the same as lying and stealing. Each time you hand in schoolwork, you are basically telling the teacher that you completed that work on your own. That’s either true or, if you cheated on the work, it’s lying. Cheating is also stealing because you are taking someone else’s work and calling it your own.
2. Cheating causes stress. When you cheat, you inevitably worry about getting caught. The stress of getting caught increases when you consider the possible consequences of your actions, such as getting in trouble at home or receiving disciplinary actions from the school. Even worse, you may have to develop a story to cover up your cheating, which can lead to getting trapped in a web of lies because it’s so difficult to keep your story straight when it never happened. It created unnecessary stress.
3. Cheating is unfair to others. Have you ever played a game by the rules only to have a friend who was so intent on winning that they cheated? Cheating is very frustrating when you are playing by the rules. When you cheat in school to get better grades, it’s unfair to the kids who actually studied and did the work. You may also receive unfair recognition for the better grade, when it is not deserved.
4. Cheating is unfair to you. Accomplishment feels good and helps build self-esteem and self-confidence. When you cheat, you are basically telling yourself that you do not believe in your own abilities. You might get an A on a test or an assignment, but you’ll know that you really didn’t earn it. Cheating just makes you feel bad about yourself.
5. Cheating hampers progress. Learning tends to build on itself. You learn basics first so that you can use those basics in more complicated problems later. If you don’t know the basics, then you will have to continue to cheat, or start over learning the material from scratch. Every time you cheat, you’re not learning skills and lessons that could be important later on.
6. Cheating is disrespectful. Teachers work hard to share knowledge to help you be successful in academics, career, and life. Cheating shows a lack of respect for the efforts of your teacher and your classmates who did the work.
7. Cheating kills trust. It only takes getting caught cheating one time to ruin trust. Even if you never cheat again, those in authority will always have a hard time trusting you and will likely be suspicious of your work. When others hear about your cheating, their opinion of you will be compromised.
8. Cheating can become a habit. People who cheat don’t usually do it one time. It becomes a habit that follows people throughout college and into their careers. Just like gambling or stealing, cheating can become a part of who you are and spread into other areas of your life. Cheaters tend to lose perspective as to what is acceptable behavior and demonstrate a disregard for others.
9. Cheating eventually leads to failure. By skipping the hard work involved in learning, you will never develop the important traits of persistence, dedication, diligence, and sacrifice. Success takes hard work, and cheating is the easy way out. Eventually, you will find that it is difficult to achieve your goals without these important skills.
10. Cheating is embarrassing. Your actions define who you are to those around you. When you cheat, you are expressing yourself to others as lazy, incompetent, untrustworthy, selfish, unintelligent, and disrespectful. Imagine your embarrassment when you are suspended for cheating or you discover that school personnel informed a college admissions officer or potential employer of your actions.

Final Thoughts…

The alternative to raising a generation of students who cheat in school is to raise a generation of students that value integrity. To learn how to instill integrity in the youth that you know, read our previous blog, Instilling Integrity in Youth.