Today students across the United States are expected to honor the academic integrity integrated into higher education. The difficulty of some courses is understood by many instructors and professors but they still demand a lot out of their students academically. No matter what the material may be, students are still held accountable for their actions in the classroom pertaining to possible violations of academic integrity. However, there was a specific case when a class at the University of Central Florida was caught cheating on a final exam. The decision by the professor to have a mandatory retake was the correct one. All of these students who were in this class should have been held accountable whether or not they took part in the cheating scandal.
The amount of ignorance that students in college have today is unfathomable, and this case in specific is an example. Students go into college to learn about their selected major and yet they somehow expect to be able to cheat their way through four years of schooling. In this case at the University of Central Florida the students rage and anger directed at the professor for having a mandatory retake, was selfish and embarrassing the educational process. Professors choose their profession for a reason, to demand excellence in the classroom and help students learn in pure honest ways.
The professor goes about addressing the class in a very disappointed manner, but professional manner as well. The evidence and proof he shows to the class makes it very apparent a large portion of the class did in fact cheat on the exam. “I performed a forensic analysis of the data and noticed abnormally high grades this year compared to last”, stated Professor Quinn. Professor Quinn also informs the class that someone had slipped an answer key to the exam under his door, revealing that someone had gotten ahold of the key. According to KnightNews.com the University of Central Florida has had a history of academic dishonesty and therefor the university has begun increasing its punishments for students who were caught cheating on tests. This helps back up the decision made by the professor to have a mandatory retake for his class.
Personally I feel the professor made the right choice in his decision to have a mandatory retake. I do not really understand the reasoning behind students motive to cheat because they are going to school for something they supposedly want to be doing for the rest of their lives. As a fellow student I understand some of the difficulties that come with college classes however the consequences for academic dishonest heavily out weight the possible pros. These consequences are what keep me from taking a chance at being caught cheating on a test or exam and they should do the same for all students.
It was obvious that the students or a large majority of those in the class did cheat on the exam. It was obvious because of all the evidence that the professor had to solidify his argument. On the video the professor took he gave statistics showing the glasses average grade point average going up a grade in a half as well as a chart to help back it up. If this had been just pure accusation this would have been a different story, however he had valid evidence to prove his students had cheated.
It is no secret that there is a high amount of academic dishonesty in today’s higher educational systems. The only thing left for these institutions and professors to do is to find ways to combat these occurrences and establish some sort of academic integrity within these students. If universities are truly worried of the tainting of academic integrity then they will be forced to come up with some sort of punishment that will scare these cheaters out of their dishonest ways.
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