Ethics is the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity, as defined in the oxford dictionary. In simpler terms, ethics are a code of conduct established by a human, group, culture etc. An undergraduate student is in the beginning stage of entering the ‘real world’ therefore ethical values place an important role on the overall success of that student. In a student’s college life he/she will face many situations where he/she will be tested on ethical values.
The most common unethical practice done by students is that they cheat in exams; they may do this by gaining illegal access to the questions before the actual exam, use of mobile phones during a written exam etc. Mostly outside pressures lead a student to cheat. Mark Clayton in his book, A whole lot of cheating going on, states “Students say time and workload pressure are major factors spurring academic dishonesty, followed by parental pressure. ” Example: In Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, pressure from parents is at an all time high specially when it comes to education.
Moreover most undergraduate students are involved in many different activities in addition to studies, these are their social lives, extra curricular activities, he/she may be working part time, just to name a few. Thus the time available to spend on studies is minimized and the student would definitely feel the pressure leading him/her to cheat in the exam for an easy pass. This will eventually become a habit and will affect the person negatively when he/she starts a job, they will keep trying to find quicker and illegal solutions to complete their work which would label them as an unethical person in their field of work.
The Essay on Cheating in Exams
One day I had an exam and I shocked when I saw my best friend cheat and I start wondering why she did that despite she was smart and hard work, people especially student cheat in all stages (young or adults) nevertheless they know that cheating is wrong and bad behavior even in Islam as a Muslims cheating is prohibited as prophet Mohammed said "who cheat us is not of us " there are many reasons ...
A student is tested on being ethical when he/she has to cite and reference the sources used in an assignment. If this is not done the student will be accused of plagiarism, which is a huge crime in the business world. Citation is important since the reader will be aware of where the information is obtained from. if this is not done or if the information is incorrectly cited, the reader will believe that the writer has stole the work of someone else. St. John University. Why is proper citation important?
