ABSTRACT
The theology professor’s warnings regarding cheating illustrate an attempt to prevent cheating from happening. Individual teachers and institutions have tried various means of preventing cheating, including exhortations like this professor’s. However, throughout history, their attempts have not been overwhelmingly successful. In Miyazaki’s (1963/1981) review of 1,400 years of examinations in Imperial China, the success of attempts to prevent cheating is summarized in this way:
Preventing cheating is valuable in its own right: as one strategy for promoting more valid testing, more accurate conclusions about test takers’ knowledge and skills, and more appropriate decisions about certification, remediation, instruction, placement, and so on. Additionally, the relatively infrequent detection of cheating and erratic responses to cheating suggest that prevention of academic dishonesty is apt to be the more efficacious route to addressing the behavior.
