A new study shows that most students don’t want to
cheat. Research by the University of California, Riverside, found that the
majority of college students will make a legitimate attempt to answer online
homework questions, even when shortcuts are available.
Students in the study were asked to complete
short-answer homework questions using digital textbooks that provided both
“Check” and “Show Answer” buttons. The “Show Answer” button disclosed the
correct answer without a grade penalty, but 84% of the students still used the
“Check” button first. Just 1% of the students “blatantly cheated the system.”
“We created the material under the assumption that,
fundamentally, students want to learn,” Frank Vahid, UC Riverside professor,
said in an article for eCampus News. “We believed they would challenge themselves to answer
questions if those questions really help them learn. We were delighted that the
study confirmed our assumption. Such data not only guides us in creating and
improving learning material, but can really change how teachers view and
interact with students.”