One teacher, desperate to eradicate cheating at its source, has come up with a theory of cheating and a plan for what he calls “The (Nearly) Cheating-Free Classroom.” In his book Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty, James M. Lang, Associate Professor of English at Assumption College, recounts his experience with cheating, and his personal journey to rid his classroom of its influence. Lang undertook his research on academic dishonesty because, “My personal experiences with cheating were probably a lot like yours: students occasionally cheated in my classes, it baffled and frustrated me, and I was never sure how to react.” Lang turned to the available research on cheating, searching for ways to fight back.

When Lang looked into the data on who cheats, and how often, the numbers varied widely. As most of the studies on cheating rely on student self-reporting, cheating statistics depend on students’ and researchers shared understanding of the definition of cheating, and that’s a high hurdle to clear. In one study, in which respondents were given clear definitions of academically dishonest behaviors, such as “writing a paper for another student,” or “copying answers from a text or other source instead of doing the work independently,” 75 percent of students admitted to at least one of the pre-defined cheating behaviors over the course of their college career—an uncomfortably large percentage.

After clearly identifying the problem, Lang presents his solutions for combatting the cheating epidemic:

First, teachers should be focused on encouraging mastery rather than performance on assessments. When Lang looked at research on how teacher’s goals for their students influence cheating, he found that there are two types of learners, mastery- and performance-oriented. According to Lang, mastery-oriented students “pursue understanding,” whereas performance-oriented students hope to “demonstrate their ability.” When students are more focused on their grade point average than the material they are supposed to be learning, they are much more likely to cheat. Worse, when students compete with each other around grades, they are far more likely to put their energy into demonstrating their ability than to pursue their own individual understanding of the material. If we want to curb student cheating, we should be aiming higher than the carrot and stick of grades and assessments and engage our students in learning for learning’s sake.

This relates to another cause of cheating, in Lang’s view: high-stakes testing. According to Lang, “The more pressure you load onto an exam or assessment of any kind, the more you are likely to have students who respond to that pressure with academically dishonest measures.” We all yearn to be seen as competent and smart, but when the consequences of one assessment can means the difference between graduation and flipping burgers at minimum wage, the temptation to cheat can overwhelm the better angels of our otherwise morally stalwart nature.