how our goal orientations influence our behaviors (achievement goal theory), how our behaviors are also shaped by what we see happening around us in our environment and by our peers (social‐cognitive theory), how our expectations for success or self‐efficacy influence our choices and behaviors (Situated Expectancy‐Value Theory), and finally, how our needs for autonomy, competence and belonging may dictate how we respond when these need resolution is frustrated (self‐determination theory). Anderman and colleagues’ review of the research educates us that while these theories explain why cheating is a normal outgrowth of education and development, the research and theories also help us identify solutions to minimize cheating and enhance integrity and learning. Readers interested in crafting their own research agendas to explore academic motivation and academic integrity are provided suggestions for moving the knowledge forward, and those interested in evolving their own teaching to enhance academic integrity may pick and choose from the nine practical suggestions offered in the chapter.
Next, Waltzer and Dahl use insights from psychological theories and research to posit a bold new hypothesis that students do perceive cheating as “wrong”, and they act in concordance with this moral judgement the majority of the time. However, when students do cheat, which the authors argue is rare, it happens for one of three psychological causes: 1) students perceive the behavior incorrectly based on the facts available to them; 2) students evaluate the act as cheating but still consider it a better option than an alternative; or 3) students decide the act is cheating but yet acceptable in some circumstances. Waltzer and Dahl use the literature of the last 30 years to level out support for their hypothesis as well as to suggest the resulting implications for research and practice. For example, when do students see cheating as acceptable or not? Do notions of cheating develop or change over time? What types of interventions could be designed to simultaneously target student perceptions, evaluations, and decisions about cheating? Which interventions—in the moment of the cheating decision—might be most effective in enhancing integrity?
This last question provides the perfect segue into the next chapter by Goldman, Carson and Simonds who focus on evidence‐based pedagogical practices to promote academic integrity and thus prevent cheating. Goldman and colleagues suggest that the complex interplay of forces shaping cheating can be best addressed not by surveillance or other forms of policing student conduct but by choosing and implementing high‐impact pedagogical practices. Such practices like problem‐based learning and service learning, not only engage and motivate students in their own learning but they help create a sense of belonging, meet students where they are at in their own lived experiences, and generate an inclusive classroom environment in which academic integrity will be more normative than cheating.
The idea that better pedagogy can address many of the causes of cheating is picked up in the next chapter by Harrison and Spencer, who focus on what we've learned about the relationship between pedagogy and cheating as a result of the pandemic and the abrupt move to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT). After cogently arguing that ERT is not equivalent to online learning, Harrison and Spencer walk us through what the last 30 years have taught us about academic integrity and online learning. Particularly that we should not expect to combat cheating with blunt force objects like surveillance technology; we have seen during the pandemic era the many downsides of such a reliance. Instead, we should be embracing the good pedagogical techniques that we know work for enhancing learning and integrity regardless of instructional modality: 1) cultivating and maintaining socially presence, a sense of community, and social engagement if you will; 2) building and supporting cognitive presence, the purposeful intellectual engagement in the learning activities; and, 3) universally designing learning experiences to meet the full range of diversity that is in the classroom.
After this thorough exploration in six different chapters of the state of cheating in the twenty‐first century, as well as the causes and solutions for cheating, the authors of the next chapter wrap it up in a bow of sorts with a review of the most influential writings on academic integrity of the last 30 years. In 2012, the International Center for Academic Integrity (ICAI) celebrated its twentieth anniversary by selecting and publishing an AI Reader which listed the 43 pieces of academic writing that were most influential in shaping research and practice. In 2022, ICAI is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary and has, once again, selected the most influential pieces written on academic integrity between 2010–2020. Rogerson, Bertram Gallant, Cullen and Ives explore these 80+ pieces to call out the themes that seem to drive the research agenda, the lessons that have informed practice, and the ways in which research influenced, and were influenced by, cultural and contextual factors prevalent at the time. From this chapter, readers will be able to envision the next 30 years of an academic integrity research agenda along with the areas of practice on which we should be focusing now and into the future.
CONCLUSION
In the past 30 years, cheating in school has moved in and out of the periphery of the public eye, but the abrupt move to (and then lingering of) Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) and the explosion of new educationally‐peripheral technologies (e.g. proctoring companies; contract cheating providers), served to bring academic cheating into sharp focus for both the industry press (e.g. Lederman, 2020; Supiano, 2020) and general interest news media (CBS News, 2021; Hobbs, 2021; Moody, 2021; Newton, 2020). Higher education is at a crossroads and after the “Varsity Blues” scandal (Medina, Benner, and Taylor, 2019), the public is questioning the fairness of the education system as a whole. Cheating can tear at the fabric of the entire enterprise of higher education by turning any university into a diploma mill, so it has never been more important to ensure that students are graduating with an authentic education that prepares them for life as a whole human.
Together, the chapters is this book, and its companion piece (Journal of College and Character, 23(1), 2022), provide researchers, instructors, students, and staff with 30 years of knowledge about how we can all do more to stop cheating academic integrity and to start prioritizing the integrity of the academic experience and the academic degree in the twenty‐first century. Readers who have not yet found the special journal issue should add it to their reading list because it includes topics not covered explicitly in this volume, such as the influence of research from the Australasia region on our understandings of cheating; the important policy and procedure features that institutions must consider, including the history and impact of honor codes; the evolution in universities from punitive to educational responses to cheating; and finally, the call for institutions to attend to the complexities and needs of our student populations who come to higher education with linguistic and cultural diversities that impact how they relate and experience learning, academic work, and academic integrity.
REFERENCES
1 CBS News (2021). ‘As online education grows, the business of cheating is booming’. Available at: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/online-education-cheating-business/ (Accessed: November 15, 2021).
2 Hobbs, T.D. (2021). ‘Cheating at school is easier than ever—and it's rampant’, The Wall Street Journal, 12 May. Available at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/cheating-at-school-is-easier-than-everand-its-rampant-11620828004 (Accessed: November 15, 2021).
3 Lederman, D. (2020). ‘Best way to stop cheating in online courses? “Teach better”’, Inside Higher Education. Available at: https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2020/07/22/technology-best-way-stop-online-cheating-no-experts-say-better (Accessed: November 15, 2021).
4 Medina, J., Benner, K., and Taylor, K. (2019). ‘Actresses, business leaders and other wealthy parents charged in US college entry fraud’, The New York Times, 12 March. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/us/college-admissions-cheating-scandal.html (Accessed: November 15, 2021).
5 Moody,