Writing

Book Review: Cheating Lessons - James M. Lang

Book Review: Cheating Lessons - James M. Lang

Cheating is a prevalent concern throughout society. Headlines regularly appear with news of the next great scandal. In fact, you and I have probably cheated at least once in our lives (even if it was as small as changing the card drawn so as not to lose a game of Candy Land to a toddler). Less publicized but still highly prevalent is the epidemic of cheating in higher education. Depending on the study, up to 82 percent of all college students have cheated at least once in their educational experience (12). At some point, an occasional cheater might give up and become a serial cheater, which is not an intended outcome of higher education (223). To address the problem of cheating in college, James M. Lang wrote Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty as an extension of his work for the online newspaper The Chronicle of Higher Education. Published by Harvard University Press in 2013, Cheating Lessons walks readers through some of the reasons why students might engage in academically dishonest behaviors, how increasing opportunities for learning decreases cheating, and practical ways in which instructors can begin to adapt their own courses to reduce cheating.

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