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Classroom cheating among natural science and engineering majors

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Abstract

The topic of cheating among college students has received considerable attention in the education and psychology literatures. But most of this research has been conducted with relatively small samples and individual projects have generally focused on students from a single campus. These studies have improved our understanding of cheating in college, but it is difficult to generalize their findings and it is also difficult to develop a good understanding of the differences that exist among different academic majors. Understanding such differences may be important in developing improved strategies for combating college cheating. The objective of this paper is to examine the relation between cheating and the choice of academic major with a particular focus on natural science and engineering majors. The data source for this analysis is a study of over 4,000 students from 31 campuses which was conducted in the 1995–1996 academic year.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The State University of New Jersey, 15 Washington Street, 07102, Newark, NJ, USA

    Donald L. McCabe (Rutgers)

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  1. Donald L. McCabe
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Additional information

An earlier version of this paper was presented by the author at a mini-conference, Practicing and Teaching Ethics in Engineering and Computing, held during the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, Washington, D.C., March 8–9, 1997.

Dr. McCabe is a Professor of Management at Rutgers and is currently serving as Associate Provost for Campus Development at Rutgers-Newark.

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McCabe, D.L. Classroom cheating among natural science and engineering majors. SCI ENG ETHICS 3, 433–445 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-997-0046-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-997-0046-y

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