Academic Dishonesty and the Culture of Assessment

Authors

Emrys Westacott, Alfred UniversityFollow

Date of this Version

Fall 2008

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council 9:2, Fall/Winter 2008. Copyright © 2008 by the National Collegiate Honors Council.

Abstract

Mention the escalation of academic dishonesty and most of us working in education are immediately inclined to whistle for our moral high horse. But too much moralistic tongue-clicking can blind us to the ways in which we who constitute the system contribute to the very malady we lament. For if academic dishonesty is like a disease—and we repeatedly hear it described as an “epidemic”—we may all be carriers, even cultivators, of the virus that causes it. Let me explain.