Cheating: student attitudes and practical approaches to dealing with it

The preliminary results of educational research conducted at Kettering University is described in which students in an introductory engineering materials course (MFGE-370) were asked to complete a survey on their perceptions of cheating. The overall objective of the research was to determine those things students believed constituted cheating, the frequency to which they cheat and their attitudes about what steps could be taken to curtail cheating within a course. Practical approaches to effectively dealing with cheating are also discussed including using learning objectives for writing fair tests, promoting group work through cooperative learning teams, holding review sessions before tests and building a good rapport with students. Data were gathered from 65 students in two offerings of the course.