Even though online learning has become increasingly widespread globally, there are perceptions of whether online studies have become relevant as it is stipulated. How students cheat in their Online classes and exams has become a highly discussed topic of online education. A higher percentage of students believe that cheating in an online class is easier than thought just because online classes do not majorly involve face-to-face interaction with your professors thus making it easier to get involved in cheating. After all, “how can even my professor check what I am doing with my class or who is doing my class yet he or she is miles away? I can just also google all answers to my homework assignments and projects because no one is looking at what I am doing anyway!”
Could it be that the introduction of online education led to an increase in cheating? After the eruption of the COVID pandemic, there was a great rise in online education in response to measures set aside to reduce the spread of this virus. Physical classes were reduced by a greater percentage shifting to online classes and doing online exams. The biggest question however is, “how do students cheat in their Online classes and exams?” the existence of the internet and other related technologies has necessitated this idea, giving students many more options to dishonestly complete their academic work, achieve good anticipated grades and leave. With an increase in more and more online courses, there is a worry arising on the importance of education anymore as it is anticipated that there will be an increase in malpractice especially when students are expected to take assignments and classwork from the eyes of students.
Why is there an increase in online classes? Most colleges nowadays have a system where students personally choose how they want their courses delivered, either traditional face-to-face live classes or online classes delivered through their computers through the internet. However, universities often view online classes as a way by which they can increase enrollment of students by reaching students from far and abroad. Students will also choose online studies in relation to the freedom associated with online classes. A student taking online classes is able to do their classwork schedules anytime as long as work is done before the deadline. At the same time, it reduces other miscellaneous costs like travel expenses. A lot of students who are also going for online classes are working students. One could be working and wish to do more courses or advance personal studies without leaving work. Killing two birds with one stone by enrolling in an online course so that they can work on coursework after their hustles become the best solution for them. Presence of rising in online methods of course delivery, there have been more concerns about academic dishonesty with various researches revealing how students cheat in their online classes and exam. Did you know that cheating is mostly common in professional schools with attributes relating to peer behavior and ethical environments with deeply embedded honor codes that may play a significant role in establishing an ethical environment?
However, every action is normally triggered by something or a reason for this. Why do students cheat in their online classes and exams? What triggers this type of behavior in students? In order to understand why students cheat in their online classes and exam, it is best to understand underlying psychological concepts concerning students’ moral reasoning. It is important to note that the moral judgment of an individual is normally triggered based on individual needs and cultural structures. The moral values of a person are always characterized past those held by what is eld by an individual or those around a specific individual leading to various causes of specific actions. Major reasons triggering students to cheat in their online class and online exam include;
Personal education goals and ambitions; we all have personal goals that we wish to achieve by all means necessary. Students set up high personal especially education goals that they wish to achieve in whichever means possible. With a desire to get good grades, one can always choose to cheat in whichever way possible especially when things are almost getting out of hand. One common way online students normally use is seeking online help from online experts available from different websites such as teratutors through various platforms like take my online class. Through this service, a student can hand over an entire class work to an online expert to complete the class on his or her behalf. Teratutors has a team of qualified experts who do online class help services to students through pay someone to take my online class or take my online class service at affordable prices. This is what students view as something worth going for. If it happens that a student is enrolled in an online class and is in a position of failing a class, hiring teratutors becomes a solution for the problem because experts are they who can easily deliver good grades to you with your struggling online class. Additionally, online exams are sometimes a holding pin between your success and failure. What is worth risking is hiring an expert to do your exam through take my online exam service like that found in teratutors. However much complicated or hard exams are, experts from teratutors are available to deliver good grades. To any student who views the risk of failing an exam due to exam complication, unpreparedness, or tension, seeking refuge at the hands of online experts becomes the solution.
Disinterest in course work; A student enrolling in an online class is always eager to work hard with coursework activities including assignments, discussions, and homework. At times interest in the course deteriorates completely leaving you with no more room for hard work in studying and completing the online course work. Therefore, in order to complete the course without falling in the end and losing a lot of investment, a student would rather cheat just to complete the course and move on.
Poor time management and procrastination; this is big challenge affecting many people. Many students are faced with the challenge of a proper time management plan that can comfortably or evenly distribute available time with required responsibilities. Lack of proper time management can land a student in much trouble, either leaving you unprepared for any class activity or leaving coursework incomplete. This is also why students cheat because they will need to compensate for lost time in any way possible and complete any required coursework well.
Perception of no consequences in cheating; Students at times view cheating in an online class or online exam to have no consequences because no one is watching except on instances of proctored exams. Every professor has a personal way of dealing with cheating thus protecting the privacy of a student yet other students may view this as a breakthrough of going unpunished. This apparently has created an environment where cheating in an online class or an online exam is no big deal captivating students to do it more and more often. Most professors often punish cheating such as plagiarism with grade deduction which students view as something that can be compensated with other grades. A student therefore can say; “if the punishment for any cheat is not harsh as such, then no big deal with this.” Cheating in an online course has experienced low consequences and dedication to the context of a particular course making students view this as a leeway to cheat in a different course as even its consequences do not affect the other.
How students cheat in their Online classes and exams is majorly dependent on their type of class and exams. However, there are some common methods used by online students to cheat in online classes and exams.
Submitting others’ work as their own; Normally, in any online class, students cannot take an entire course alone. There must be others taking the same course and students are paired into groups taking the same class under the management of the same professor. It happens that whenever their tutor uploads an assignment, it is expected for them to submit their work online before the due date. Just like in normal face-to-face class situations, a student can request his or her peer to share similar work and edit a few things and submit another person’s work as personal.
Getting answers during a test or quiz; normally happens during an ongoing exam. It is normal for one to get stuck in an exam due to various reasons. An exam can get complicated and one is forced to seek answers to a question from other sources such as the internet or help from other students and experts. Using instant messaging during an assessment is common among students. In most cases when an exam is not proctored, students contact external sources for help with their exams. Experts like teratutors experience such instances where students reach out to them during an exam seeking assistance with some questions. Such experts send back answers to students as they upload them to their online class portals.
Receiving answers from someone who had already taken a test or quiz previously; any student taking an online course may have received a recommendation from someone about the course, its characteristics, and advantages of completing the course. If you are a student taking an online course, it means you are not the first one to do it and there are some previous students who might have taken the same course. In some cases, current students may reach out to some previous students to help them with their previous done tests and quizzes. Some students may have also uploaded their previous work online to help incoming students whenever they face challenges taking their quizzes and tests.
Hiring someone else to do an online class or exam; ‘Can I hire someone to take my online class or exam?” Yes, it is possible because there are some companies with experts such as teratutors who help students by taking their classes and exams on their behalf at some fee. Some experts are also available at Fiverr who can be hired by students to do their exams. It normally happens with instances where students are unable to do their work personally. Some online students are working while studying hence find it hard to work and dedicate some of their time to classwork. Other commitments can also consume much of their weekly time hindering students from having sufficient time to either work on their course work or prepare for an exam. Hiring online experts and tutors is therefore what to go for because, in the end, good grades are guaranteed, so it is worth going for. At times, online exams could be proctored, which means students are being monitored including their computer activities, hence they cannot browse for answers using their computers, the only option to succeed is through help from external experts such as teratutors among others.
Knowingly plagiarizing from an article or book; plagiarism is the act of taking someone else’s work and using them as your own. The act of wrongfully copying texts or words of another author without mentioning the source (citation is a very serious offense. Plagiarism can happen in four different ways; Direct plagiarism where one adopts part of the content without source mentioning, mosaic plagiarism where a student unintentionally but fails to mention the real source of content, self-plagiarism where student copies work from another student or previously done assignment or accidental plagiarism where a student misquotes phrases or parts of the content. Punishments of plagiarism can actually be very high depending on the tutor or institution. Under copyright laws that protect the rightful content owner or author, writing should have real essence and thus should have the writer putting down words to sound genuine. Sometimes exams and classes require heavy research on given assignments and questions. Students therefore can land on some articles that answer given questions straight on point online. Instead of doing research and developing personal ideas and concepts on answers required, they just copy and paste work from articles and various books or other resources available online. This is considered a cheat and a student faces real punishment including grade deductions. Sometimes to avoid this, students hire online experts to help them develop content and research on given work.
Using a term writing service or a system; There are systems available that help a lot when solving different questions. For example, there are systems that can help solve mathematical problems easily, fast, and very affordable, yet others are free. So then, students normally view this as a way to easily handle their question burdens and opt to use them for the fast delivery of assignments and exams. There are some websites like Chegg and Course Hero where students source some of their answers because a higher percentage of questions are similarly answered in Chegg and Course Hero yet ideally, they were never designed for cheating but places where students can find help during revision.
Whenever students cheat in an online exam or class, most of them say they are just in search of passing, finish and going. A lot of students believe that switching to online education especially after the pandemic has greatly affected their capabilities of learning and possessing information. Others also believe that asking questions in an exam is quite difficult for them due to a lack of in-person experience. This is because unlike in a face-to-face class scenario where a student can ask a question and get feedback immediately in class, in any online setup, students may ask questions but do not get immediate feedback in real-time, thus affecting how they prepare for an exam or how they answer questions. This may leave them feeling like they have insufficient knowledge to handle course questions. Others are also finding it hard to adapt to the new environment of online classes and how to handle technology in studies. They then believe that it will hit their grades somehow and this is why they cheat. In the long run, the main mentality running through their minds is the pass and move on the idea. Hereby applying all means necessary for the same. All online students want nowadays is not many life complications but rather get the right answers in a class, complete it and move on. Even though they could be worried about the consequences of cheating, they just stand their choices.
