Introduction
Code of ethics is a worldwide known phenomenon that prevails in every industry. Every organization expects its employees to practice the code of ethics in every field of service. Failure to adhere to the code of ethics is regarded as violation of rules. Business ethics are rules that are set in place to ensure that delivery of service is proficient.
It ensures that employees and other stakeholders adhere to certain constitutional rules that are set by the organization. The article ‘Cheating: Making It a Teachable Moment’, describes the manner in which the author handles an exam cheating situation within her own class The author explains a unique approach that was used to deal with the vice by punishing those students who were involved in the scenario.
Therefore, there should be strict measures of govern the codes of school ethics to ensure that there is discouragement of falsehood acts in examination situations. There is a need for instructors to understand how to react to cheating cases both psychologically and logically. They should also know how to set up consequential actions should be followed in the procedural justice process.
Effective measures should be taken to avoid the repetition of exam cheating vices in the future. This report provides a review of the article ‘Cheating: Making It a Teachable Moment’ with a view of relating its significance to the field of education and other industries.
The Stakeholders in the Article
The stakeholders in the article comprise the students, the teaching staff, and subordinate staff among other faculty members who are related either directly or indirectly to the education process. Each stakeholder group plays a significant role since they assume different positions in the school organization. They follow a code of ethics to ensure effective delivery of services throughout the different units of the school.
Continuous involvement and interaction of the students with teachers has a direct effect on the general performance of the students. Therefore, the reputation of the lecturer is highly regarded. Rosile (2007) advances that students, lectures, and the non-teaching staff are the primary stakeholders who have a great impact on the education system since they are part of the whole process of learning.
If any school activity violates the school code of ethics, one of the stakeholder parties is held responsible for influencing the education system negatively. Therefore, the stakeholders are bound to stick to ethics that are set by the education system.
The School’s Corporate Reputation
Varieties of courses that are offered in the curriculum determine the standards of college education such as the quality level of educational facilities that are used for practical or technical projects. Most importantly, the means of providing quality education determines the delivery of efficient content to the learners. Delivery of content also determines the alleviation of vices such as exam cheating.
These practices have enabled colleges to uphold quality education. In the context of the article, the authority and administration of the college allows the lecturers to advance strict punishments on students who cheat in exams. This situation implies that learning institutions should maintain ethical standards of education. In addition, the author uses a professional and humane approach to alleviate the cheating situation.
This approach assures the malicious students the assistance of their teacher, even after punishing them by issuing an academic disciplinary probation. However, Rosile (2007) reveals that previous experiences in the Business faculty indicate that the former administration had ignored cases of cheating in exams.
Although the syllabus had set clear set of rules against cheating, in the quote, ‘I have gathered reports from business faculty whose clear-cut cases against cheaters were swept under the rug by department heads and deans.’ (Rosile, 2007, p. 20).
This statement implies that the initiative of the authority to curb the vice of exam cheating should take into account the efforts of the both the teachers and students in a bid to obtain relevant information for establishment of the reasons behind the root course of exam cheating.
The main objective of the research initiative and discouragement of cheating was to uphold the reputation of the learning institution to sustain competitiveness. According to Day, Hudson, Dobies, & Waris (2011), the observation of the ethical conduct of the learning institution will ensure that potential employers do not deter the careers of students during the selections new market entrants.
How the Topic of this Article Enlightens my Personal and/or Professional Life
The topic of this article enlightens my personal life by revealing that importance of upholding integrity in a school setting. Particularly, students at the college level should uphold a heightened degree of self-discipline and veracity to avoid termination of their careers by the disciplinary committees. Exam cheating has increasingly become rampant in colleges.
This situation has affected the standard of services that individuals offer as professionals. According to Stanwick & Standwick (2014), their roles as prospective employers are also rendered ineffective. In some cases, incompetency leads to interview failure or even loss of jobs. Insufficient personal learning and comprehension of concepts renders a student incompetent both in exam and work situations.
For instance, Day, Hudson, Dobies, & Waris (2011) advance that the use of the cellphone to cheat in exam situations has become a common habit amongst many students. Cellphone cheating is a bad habit that makes students to forget about the relevant materials that they learn in class or private studies. As a result, they fail to understand the questions that are set for the exam.
Consequently, they shift their attentions to rely on the acquired answers via Short Messaging Services (SMS) and internet-enabled cellphones (Kapoor, 2014). Through falsehood, they cunningly use their cellphones to seek solutions to the questions that are provided by their examiners.
According to the article, the author managed to come with a trap, ‘sting’, which was a set of incorrect answers that were placed outside the classroom after the test to evaluate the students’ performances prior to the compilation of the exam results. However, the cheater’s accomplices sent messages of the answers to the students aspiring to cheat in the exam by the use of their cell phones.
The author claims that about 4-percent of the students exhibited the same trend that led to presentation of false answers. In my point of view, this approach is suitable for clearing the mindsets of exam falsehood. Kapoor (2014) reveals that the method also discourages the malpractice of cheating in exams in an attempt to make the future of the students better.
How the Article Applies to Organizations
The article is very relevant to many learning institutions whose learners practice exam cheating as well as other non-academic organizations. In the article, the author offered rigorous counselling to the ‘exam cheater’. Counselling was a very important decision that was made by the author as a lecturer.
The author reveals that student counselling was done in a systematic process by taking into account factors such as psychological preparation and procedural justice. This strategy is regarded as a humane way of approaching suspects but by following the rule of law and the codes of ethics that are upheld by organizations.
This procedures can be adopted by the prosecution process in Law Courts where suspects are presumed ‘innocent until proved guilty’ by regarding the humane nature of the suspects and taking into consideration the emotions of the suspects (Stanwick & Standwick, 2014).
Procedural justice is also applicable to government offices where suspected individuals are presumed to have gone against the constitution owing to misuse of public offices for personal interests.
Conclusion
Although the author has made significant endeavors in an attempt to curb the cheating habit amongst her students, she had self-doubt that deterred her efforts to pursue individual culprits who cheated in the exam.
To sustain robust ethical responsibility programs in schools, lecturers, deans, and administrative authorities of learning institutions should come up with measures of preventing exam cheating cases by setting up tough punishments to discourage the vice.
The ‘exam cheaters’ example is used in this article to show that the consequences that may be experienced by those students who are found practicing exam cheating can make other students shun away from practice.
However, the presence of high-tech garget has led to changing exam cheating tactics by cunny students. Therefore, the administration should guard its code of ethics by ensuring that proper amendments are executed in time to uphold the standards of quality education.
Reference List
Day, N., Hudson, D., Dobies, P., & Waris, R. (2011). Student or situation? Personality and classroom context as predictors of attitudes about business school cheating. Social Psychology of Education, 14(2), 261-82.
Kapoor, K. (2014). Preventing high-tech cheating. Claims, 62(9), 11.
Rosile, G. (2007). Cheating: Making It a Teachable Moment. Journal of Management Education, 31(5), 582-613.
Stanwick, P., & Standwick, S. (2014). Understanding Business Ethics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Cage.