![]() ![]() In England, penalties issued to GCSE and A-level students for bringing mobile phones into exams increased by 22% in 2018 compared with 2017. Combine advancing technology with plagiarism, ghost writing, and good old fashioned copying, and there are numerous and increasing ways that people find to dishonestly pass tests or exams: Methods for malpracticeĪs well as making access to unauthorised information potentially easier, technology has increased the options available to test takers seeking to corrupt the testing process. So, many people don’t see plagiarism as wrong. With social media, fake news, and deep fake, our understanding of reality and truth is becoming more blurred. ![]() Smartphones, smart watches, and the introduction of new (and ever smaller) devices increases temptation. We also know that the higher the stakes of a test, the more likely it is that test takers will try to get around the rules, and opportunism does come into it. ![]() Teenagers in particular are in a risk taking stage of their development, pushing boundaries and trying new things. Younger people are generally less concerned about risk than older people. Similarly, many psychologists believe that rule breaking is a maladaptive or learned behaviour, but it isn’t inevitable. It’s important to remember that if people do have a predisposition towards dishonesty, they don’t have to act on their impulses. What we also learn from this, and other research, is that the rates of test fraud increase if a test taker believes they aren’t being watched. So for these people, cheating provided some sort of stress release. The results showed that participants with high levels of testosterone and the stress hormone cortisol before the test were the most dishonest about their grades, and the more people cheated the more their levels of cortisol went down. They didn’t know that researchers were also able to grade their performance. In research from Harvard University, participants were asked to take a maths test, grade themselves, and then report their performance. Similarly, hormones that have an impact on trust, empathy, and social bonding also seem to play a part in our tendency towards dishonesty. Research has shown that the more you have, the more likely you are to be drawn to things you shouldn’t do, such as trying to circumvent the rules. The desire to take risks has been linked to the dopamine D4 receptor gene, dubbed the thrill seeking gene, that’s also implicated in gambling addiction. That it is more in their nature than others. Nature and geneticsįor example, there is evidence that some people have a biological predisposition towards risk taking. There are multiple theories about dishonesty – is it down to nature, nurture, opportunism? Opinions are often conflicting, but what everyone does seem to agree on is that the reasons why people try to break the rules are both complicated and varied. There is a growing body of research that explores motivations for fraud in tests and exams, which becomes increasingly important as we look for effective methods to prevent malpractice. But it does seem that psychologists and researchers are almost as interested in the psychology of test fraud as they are in the science of infidelity. If you are looking for relationship advice, I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |