Because of the sensitive nature of this article, names of student sources will remain confidential, and generic pseudonyms will be used instead.

Note cards. Apple Watches. Arms.

Several anonymous Sunny Hills students who cheated on different school exams in the past said these are common assets that students equip themselves with to cheat. Whether they scribble answers on a note card, text their friends through their smartwatch or peek at the words written on their arm, different creative ways have been concocted to gain an advantage over others. 

“I know some people would wear long sleeves and try to peek inside to see the math formulas they wrote on their arm,” sophomore Robert Jones said. “I think trying to communicate with friends during the test is another big way, too, especially since there’s so much technology that can be used to do that.” 

Although academic dishonesty is not a novel topic, it’s of note that the College Board, which oversees the administration of Advanced Placement [AP] exams, has acknowledged a slight increase in the number of score cancellations over the summer compared with previous years.  Because of College Board’s suspicion that more students have found ways to cheat on its exams, it has pushed for more digital options than ever before — a total of 28 will be converted to College Board’s Bluebook app next May.

The Accolade was able to contact University of Virginia sociology professor Joseph E. Davis, who offered to expand on this phenomenon and the psychology behind the growing disposition toward cheating. 

Davis has authored several behavioral papers such as “The Basis of Everything: The Fragility of Character in a Truth-Challenged World,” which was published last spring in The Hedgehog Review,

Based on his research, the reason as to why students feel so inclined to commit this act lies in three major factors, he said. 

AN ACADEMIC RACE 

“I want to get into top schools like an Ivy League or a private school, and I felt like cheating was the best way to secure a good score on my exam to help me with this goal,” senior Mary Hart said.

Davis understands this sentiment and feeling of a more cutthroat academic environment. 

“There’s that whole kind of competition to get into a good college while there are relatively small numbers of colleges and universities, so it’s very high stakes for many students,” the professor said. “School has become so competitive because of this, and there’s so much emphasis on getting good grades or a good score on an AP test.”

Disappointing results from AP exams and the SAT, although still optional for many schools, can put a heavy burden on students since those scores can still make an impact on their college application, the professor said. 

“I talk with a lot of young people, and it’s like their life depends on them getting a good grade or getting a high SAT score,” Davis said. “If you are not sure how you’re going to do, then there’s a kind of incentive to cheat, buy access to the test or whatever you can do that will help you get a better score.” 

Davis refers to the infamous 2019 Varsity Blues cheating scandal, a large college admissions scheme involving several Hollywood celebrities, as a prime example of this ideology. 

“The scandal was an egregious example where people were paying to cheat but reflects a common phenomenon,” he said. “People want to get into these elite schools, so you’re willing to cheat on tests like the AP exams because you feel like it’s so important for your future.” 

According to tutors.com, parents make payments ranging from $45-$100 per hour for their child’s SAT and test prep tutoring. It also costs from $100-$200 per month for children to enroll in tutoring centers in Fullerton. Such financial costs can also add to the stakes of taking College Board tests.

“My mom pays a lot of money for me to get tutored for a lot of my AP classes, so I feel the pressure that I need to do even better on the AP tests to make money worth it,” Jones said. 

At a certain point, every test or quiz, big or small, can feel threatening for students.

According to an Accolade poll given for most of September, around 83% of 155 respondents believe that the competitive academic environment is what induces people to cheat on AP or college entrance exams. 

“Clearly, a score on a test like the AP exam is one thing and can have a lot of effect on what school you might get admitted into, but at the same time, all the little grades are also important and might give [students] an incentive to cheat on all of them,” Davis said. “Still, students can feel more incentivized to cheat on the bigger exams like the SAT or the AP exams because of how impactful they can be to your acceptance into a college.”

HONESTY IS FADING

Fifty-nine percent of high school students admitted to cheating on a test in the past year, 80% admitted to copying another student’s homework and 34% said they cheated many times, according to a 2010 survey conducted by the Josephson Institute of Ethics.

Data such as this illustrates the steady disregard for the truth, Davis said. 

“Honesty is a kind of absolute value,” the professor said. “You don’t tell the truth to get something; you just tell the truth because it’s [an] absolute value; the problem is, in our society, truth has lost that quality.”

According to Harvard Business School, cost-benefit analysis is the process of comparing the estimated benefits that are connected to a decision. 

This concept has a high correlation to academic dishonesty and incentivizes cheating in a calculated manner. 

“When you put honesty in a cost-benefit analysis, the answer seems to be cheap because the chance of getting caught is so low, and the reward is seemingly high,” Davis said. “So instead of thinking of honesty as an absolute value, you say, ‘Well, I’ll calculate my interest, and if the truth works for me, fine.’” 

Such a thought process can nudge students to buy questions to AP exams ahead of time, believing they would get a large advantage with low risk. 

According to the College Board, cheating on any exam could result in scores getting canceled, potentially banning test-takers from future exams without any retesting allowed. Cheating on an AP exam could also prohibit violators from taking the SAT or CLEP tests. 

The length of this ban varies on the severity of the violation, which the College Board determines in discretion. According to the organization, it has the right to share information about students’ cheating records with their high schools and interested colleges. 

“I feel like a lot of students think they can cheat successfully because they don’t see a lot of people actually getting caught,” Jones  said. “I also think people aren’t really aware of the actual consequences the College Board lists out, or they just underestimate its severity.” 

For the AP exams, Sunny Hills officials have no control over the consequences for tests unaffiliated with the school, assistant principal of Instructions & Operations Sarah Murrietta said. 

“If our proctors feel like any students might be doing something suspicious during an AP exam, they can report it to the College Board directly, which would then deal with the issue separately on its own,” Murrietta said. 

“I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE” 

Social pressure and comparisons have also impacted the upward trend of academic dishonesty. 

“There’s an awful lot of cheating going on in society and often people who cheat get ahead, and people see it around them,” Davis said. “If I go into a room to take a math test, and I think half the class is going to cheat, then I would think I’m almost at a disadvantage if I don’t cheat, and it’s hard not to be cynical; the same feeling can apply when you’re taking an AP exam.” 

Hart can relate to this sentiment. 

“Sometimes when I see people cheating on tests and quizzes, it makes me feel less guilty to cheat since I’m not the only one,” she said. “So I guess when I heard that some people had the answers to AP exams and that I could also get the answers, I felt more driven to do so.”

Davis said this widespread tendency to cheat undermines the value of truth. 

“You might say well why should I be Mr. Goody Two-Shoes when everybody else is cheating,” he said. “That perception students have that other students are cheating contributes to their tendency to cheat.”

THE SOLUTION LIES IN US

According to The Educational Testing Service, only 20% of high school students in the U.S. admitted to cheating in the 1940s; however, today that number has skyrocketed to 75%. 

These trends caused institutions to take subsequent action to combat the problem. 

As a response to the increase in cheating on May’s administration of AP exams, the College Board plans to push for almost all AP subjects to be fully digital, while some are to be in a hybrid format, according to a July 25 article from EducationWeek. 

“I think that making the tests digital would help lower cheating since people can’t get access to any leaked paper tests,” Hart said. “I think a few people will still somehow find a way to get early access to the tests but definitely less.” 

Despite these protocols, Davis said switching to digital-only AP or SAT/ACT exams is like just putting a band-aid over the wound — it doesn’t solve the problem. 

“Certainly, at some level, making it harder to cheat and increasing the penalties would have the effect of decreasing the cheating,” he said. “But overall over time, it doesn’t seem to have had that big of an impact since people still are able to find a way to cheat.” 

Instead, he suggests a different approach.

“What we really need is not more rules, but a strong moral wall you won’t cross,” the sociology professor said. “If you don’t think that telling the truth is really important, then I don’t see how rules and more controls are going to make much of a difference.”

He adds that this is why child rearing remains crucial with parents teaching kids from a young age the difference between right and wrong.

Now more than ever, Davis said society needs to tackle the root of the problem — people’s morals and values. 

“If you knew you could get away with something, you still wouldn’t do it; that kind of resolve and commitment seems to have waned a lot,” he said. “We need a kind of character that puts truth and truth-telling as a value all by itself and that you should tell the truth, even when it’s to your harm.”

Jones said such an approach could work but not by itself. 

“I think making sure us students are taught good morals and values from a young age can be important to stop us from cheating more in the future,” he said. “But, I also think that we need to stop putting so much pressure on students to achieve perfection in areas like the AP exams because that’s also such a big factor.”