Online Learning Prompts Cheating to Become More Prevalent Among Students

Due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, schools in the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District have been operating in an online-school format since March 13 and have closed for the rest of the academic year until further notice. Thus, staff members are currently adjusting to this new form of online instruction that involves platforms including Zoom calls, Powerpoints and Edmodo. However, for aspects of digital education like online tests, teachers are unable to supervise their students, causing cheating to become more prevalent among students. This has prompted the need for some teachers to come up with creative solutions to prevent cheating. Although teachers cannot completely stop students from cheating now that tests are online, teachers at Peninsula can alter the setup of their tests and quizzes to discourage such behavior.  

With assignments being administered online, test takers now have more resources to use to their advantage. For example, students are able to search up answers online and call friends during exams without the supervision of teachers. While this cannot be fully prevented, teachers can encourage their students to take tests without the use of the internet. For instance, tests can be open-book and contain more difficult questions that are harder to find online. Also, applying time restrictions will make searching for answers online more challenging.

“I have taken several online quizzes with time restrictions which are already stressful enough,” junior Layne Oschman said. “I cannot imagine trying to simultaneously take a test and search for answers also while under a time restriction. Therefore, I think that inputting stricter time limits on tests can discourage students from cheating because it would only cause them more stress.”

Teachers can also make their tests more subjective, requiring students to come up with personalized answers. This can help teachers tell whether or not students are copying one another’s work. Additionally, softwares such as Turnitin is a great way for teachers to discourage students from cheating, as it can instantly detect plagiarized work and highlight phrases that have been copied. 

“Most of my teachers who have written assignments use Turnitin,” junior Alexis Ferguson said. “I think it is beneficial for teachers to use, since they can see how much of an essay is plagiarized. People cheat when they do not think they can get caught, but with Turnitin, people know that they can get caught, so I think they are less likely to cheat.”

There is no doubt that these past few months have been difficult for students who are not accustomed to full-time learning at home. Regardless, the same amount of dedication and effort that students show at school should have been and should continue to be displayed during online learning. It is important for everyone to stick together during these times in quarantine and continue to understand the value of maintaining one’s morals. 

“Who wants to add more stress to their lives by getting caught cheating online?” sophomore Lindsey Burruss said. “Even if you get away with it, you are still jeopardizing your education and will not be prepared for future tests. Students should all come together and continue to work hard from home.”