Cheating in the Classroom

Or how about HESI cheating. We were divided into three groups to take the HESI with a lime limit of a couple of hours. The first group started at 830, the second started at 1130, and the third group started at 1300. By the time the 1300 group started, their buddies had already called them with “heads up” on questions that were on the exam.

My anatomy instructor said one time that he was wondering why on at least three occasions in a row that people kept looking at the ceiling until during the 3rd exam, he looked up himself and saw that someone actually wrote the answers to the tests on the ceiling. He said it was so amazing because it was a HIGH ceiling! Since then, for awhile, he would never announce the room an exam would be in. He'd leave a note on the door of our regular classroom telling us where to meet on exam days.

I taught briefly in an LPN program and cheating was rampant there, as well. The policy was that confirmed cheaters were to fail the class and would need to reapply to the program for the next year. Sadly, had that actually been implemented, we would not have had a graduating class for the two years that I was there. Although exams were well-proctored, I would estimate that 90% or more plagiarized their term papers, at least in part, and the majority of them cut and pasted entired paragraphs from the internet. Several turned in papers that were printed directly from the source, complete with web address at the bottom, and one went so far as to purchse his. What a disappointment.