UGA finds disagreements in cheating survey

University of Georgia professors and students don't always agree on what's cheating and what's not, according to survey results summarized in the university's annual academic honesty report.

Nearly 40 percent of students say it's OK to falsify a bibliography, while only 12 percent of teachers have that opinion. More than a third of students don't think it's a serious breach of academic honesty to copy someone else's homework, compared with 9 percent of faculty members, according to a survey conducted last year among UGA students and faculty.

Just more than half of UGA students said they had committed at least one act considered a serious violation of UGA's anti-cheating code. That's a lower rate than at most universities, where about 65 percent of students admit they've cheated, according to the report.

Overall, UGA students' responses to the survey are about the same as what researchers find at other universities, said Debbie Bell, UGA's coordinator for academic honesty. Nearly 1,000 students and 600 faculty took part in the survey.

Students said their most common violations are working with others when asked to do individual work (34 percent) and getting questions and answers from someone who has already taken a test (27 percent), according to the UGA report.

Few students out-and-out cheat, said Jeffrey Dorfman, an agricultural and applied economics professor.

"It's not a common thing for me to encounter," he said.

And thanks to the Internet, it's easy to catch students if they plagiarize others' work, Mr. Dorfman said.

"On papers, it's amazingly easy for us to catch people," he said.

"I'm always a little suspicious of surveys, and putting too much stock in one survey," said Jere Morehead, the university's vice president for instruction.

But, "I think it's a concern. I don't think it's surprising," he said of the divide. "It's clear evidence that we've got to do a better job of educating our students."

All new UGA students are required to attend orientation sessions, and academic honesty is part of that training, Mr. Morehead said.

Cheating seems to be on the decline at UGA, Mr. Morehead and Ms. Bell said.

During the 2006-07 academic year, UGA faculty filed 429 complaints of student cheating and 287 students admitted the violation, both records. But the numbers dropped to 329 complaints and 228 admissions in 2007-08.

"I believe it's because we're doing a better job educating students, not only our office but faculty members," Ms. Bell said.

Source: UGA Office of Student Academic Service