CheatingCheating has seemingly become an everyday phenomenon in exam
situations at most of Hungarian universities. Almost every student prepares
for the examinations making handy little bits of paper, contemplating on
where to sit and, during the exam itself, the most sophisticated even use
their mobile phones to surmount the numerous gaps in their knowledge. Day
after day in the exam period stories such as the following circulate in the
corridors of the School of English and American Studies, as well as other
faculties of ELTE and other universities in our country. It may seem
surprising, but the story is not fiction, in fact, a student at ELTE told
it to HVG last year. ‘I always elaborate on all the possible topics at home
and write them down on A/4 sheets of paper. My special ‘examination suit’
has an A/4 size pocket. I always put the sheets into it, and, at the
examination I wait until the topic of the essay is given out, then pick the
right sheet in my pocket, and hand that one in.’ 2.1. Research Questions Is
cheating really such an everyday phenomenon as it appears to be? Is
cheating so easy to manage? What about morals? 3.1. Theoretical Background
Brown, Earlam and Race reported in their practical handbook for teachers
that ‘Sitting written exams is one of the most stressful parts of life for
many pupils’ (p. 44). The book also suggests that if candidates get away
with cheating, it is going to be regarded as the teacher’s fault. Most
teachers feel uncomfortable when encountering cheating and they do not
think it is their task to prevent pupils from doing it. At least, they try
to minimise the possibilities by telling students to leave their bags
someplace far from the desks, and before starting the exam they are
reminded to double check that they have nothing on their person that could
be interpreted as a crib (Brown, Earlam & Race, 1995, p. 44). But there are
always a few who take the risk. ‘Better safe than sorry!’ – say students
afraid of not knowing one single answer to the exam questions. This is why
they invented their own means, the ‘illicit aid’, as termed by teachers:
the cheat-sheet. Students know hundreds of methods to avoid spending long
hours preparing for examinations and tests. Of these, everyone can choose
the one which best suits his cheating skills and of course the aim.
Cheating, in general, begins at senior primary school. The most widespread
methods at this age are hiding small bits of paper (which contain all
relevant information) in their pockets, under the question sheet or into
their pencil cases, and writing things on their palms. The creation of the
small sheets is quite time (and patience-) –consuming as kids do not use
computers to design these pieces. Writing on one’s hands is risky as there
is no way to remove the text when the teacher approaches suspiciously. As
you can see now, these methods are quite elementary, easy to discover and,
in fact, mostly done to amaze classmates rather than instead of learning.
The next age group, 14-18 years old, uses more sophisticated methods.
Modern technology is often of great help to the secondary school student:
the computer edited A4 page can be reproduced on a much smaller scale.
Experts on the topic say that the smallest font legible to the students’
eyes is the 3 pt size. The laziest do not bother with typing, they simply
photocopy the book at about 8 pages / A4 rate and cut the pages apart.
University students prefer the ‘previously-written-essay method’, which is
often much more dangerous than the others, that is why they use those as
well. Everyone tries cheating once. After that, he decides whether it is
worth it or not (Réka & Bunny, 1999). In September 1996 a research was
carried out at the University of Economics (BKE), Budapest for personal
purposes under the co-ordination of G. Vass (personal consultation, March
3, 2000). A small group was interested in students’ opinion about honesty.
Similar to us, the research group used a questionnaire as a measuring
instrument, which had, beside 45 others, 5 questions about cheating at
university examinations. They asked about 100 participants from different
faculties to fill the questionnaire. However astonishing the results were,
the research has not been published in any way. The first two questions on
the topic had four possible answers: ‘Always’, ‘Often’, ‘Sometimes’ and
‘Never’. The first question concerning cheating was the most obvious one,
‘Do you cheat in exam situations?’. The results showed that the vast
majority of the participants were ‘regular cheaters’, in fact, 12% said
‘Always’, 53.5% ‘Often’, 26% ‘Sometimes’ and a strikingly low 6.5%
proportion said ‘Never’. It must be noted, though, that cheating was
defined as ‘making use of any source of information apart from the
student’s own mind’. The second question of their questionnaire was ‘Do you
get caught cheating?’. The answers partly explain the results of the first
question. Most of the students never get caught, the risks are minimal, ‘So
why not?’ – said youths at the University of Economics – ‘It’s much more
convenient than learning.’. Table 1.a – Questions and results of the 1996
research at BKE Question Always Often Sometimes Never Do you cheat in exam
situations? 12% 53.5% 26% 6.5% Do you get caught cheating? 0% 5% 18% 77%
The following three were Yes/No questions focused on the
fact that cheating
is something dishonest, something that should not be done, a fact which
they ought to be aware of. They were, as it was clearly shown by the
answers to the questions ‘Can you be proud of a mark which is the result of
cheating?’, ‘Do you feel uncomfortable when cheating?’ and ‘Would you say
that cheating is a ‘normal’ way of passing exams?’ (The answers given to
these questions are summarised in Table 1.b below.) Table 1.b – More
questions and results of the 1996 survey at BKE Question Yes No Can you be
proud of a mark which is the result of cheating? 8% 82% Do you feel
uncomfortable when cheating? 62% 38% Would you say that cheating is a
‘normal’ way of passing exams? 27% 73% The overall conclusion of this
survey was that students at the University of Economics are not as honest
as one would expect educated people to be but they are at least aware of
it. Another fact may be of some significance concerning the topic of our
research. It is the fact that Western European and U.S. Universities are
not experiencing the problem of cheating as a problem at all. Of course,
their students do cheat sometimes, but so few of them and so seldom that it
cannot be considered ‘general’. A quick survey of only one simple question
shows that, for example, at the Utrecht University only 3 out of 50
students would risk cheating at an exam (personal consultation with Tobias
Kulka, March 6, 2000). Much the same is the situation at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT). Of the 20 students asked only one person
answered that he does cheat sometimes at examinations (personal
consultation with Sarah Thomson, March 2, 2000). Unfortunately, the
question ‘How can you manage so well without cheating?’ was not asked
either in Utrecht or in Massachusetts – in fact, Hungarian students might