Project by: Ricky Castillo (11th Grade)
Project Advisor: Charlene Cruz-Cerdas
Student(s)’s Advisor(s): James French
Description of the Project:
I am proposing a second part to the honors project I conducted in Trimester 2 where I examined the effect of an outside influence on the learning of high school students at LREI. To narrow down my project I focused on student motivation and engagement. My findings were overwhelming and one common trend I found in each grade was that although collectively they were experiencing feelings of significantly less motivation compared to last year they were actually doing better academically. One reason I found for this was that many of them echoed that they were able to cheat very easily and get away with it. This trimester I would like to examine the relationship between motivation and academic dishonesty. I’d like to discern whether there is a relationship, to begin with, and what features of a course or classroom practice create cheating opportunities. I would like to take this on in order to come to a better understanding of how my education works and what the real consequences of cheating are along with why it is happening in the first place?
Final Product:
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Open in new tab Final Reflection on Learning:
I learned a lot about students. Hearing around 50 individual responses drove me a little crazy when I was attempting to draw connections between, race, grade, gender, extracurriculars, having a tutor or not. I feel that I failed to take the proper time to really try to make those connections. I think on a larger scale and with more resources, I could answer my research question completely and be sure of that answer. I also cheat. I am not absent from this common practice. When you are expected to meet a certain standard, complete a certain amount of work, do this many extracurriculars you lose yourself and your morals. I don’t think this is a question of laziness or morals, I think it’s a question of how we got here. What happened that suddenly almost 80 percent of students in the country are cheating. I’d like to dedicate my time to learning more about how our education system works and how it needs to change.
Update on Progress from Weeks 1-3 (include any photos or video if relevant):
These beginning weeks began with trying to understand cheating and formulating my hypothesis along with my research questions. In order to do this, I needed to go back to where I formed this inspiration for this honors project. It began with my previous project that focused on student motivation and how it impacted academic achievement. I found that there had been an increase in academic dishonesty this year. I wasn’t surprised by this fact because I had too participated in this practice more this year. I wanted to know what was at the heart of this and why students, like myself, made that choice to cheat.
In the second week and third week, I formulated my research question and my hypothesis. My research question was: Why has there been an increase in academic dishonesty this year and what impacts a student’s likelihood to cheat on schoolwork?. My hypothesis that I finally stuck with was: Students at LREI are successful academically despite a dip in motivation/engagement and learning this year. In order to prevent from falling behind academically, students have cheated and committed to it across classes. Students are more likely to cheat or plagiarize if the assessment is very high-stakes or if they have low expectations of success due to a perceived lack of ability or knowledge of the material. It would expand beyond that but that was a place to start.
My next step was to do research. I was tasked to look at studies that have attempted to answer this question and go more in-depth with this complex topic. I also need to define terms like academic dishonesty, motivation and etc. In order to conduct a study I needed to know what I was talking about and that meant becoming an expert on academic dishonesty.
Update on Progress from Weeks 4-6 (include any photos or video if relevant):
I continued to have conversations with my classmates and people outside of the school in order to really understand what it meant to cheat. My research was overwhelming. There were numerous studies conducted and a lot of them contradicted with each other. I felt that I needed more time to look at everything with fresh eyes but it was time to start my study. The research did leave with a foundation in order to know what to expect and what questions to ask. My terms had been defined and I noted that both social (extracurriculars, use of social media / drugs, normalization of cheating, social engagements, justification of cheating) and academic factors (classroom size, skills / habits, penalties for cheating, style of teaching, time to complete assignments, difficulty of assignments, interest level, amount of material covered in time) come into play when considering whether a person cheats or not. My next step was to formulate questions to ask in a google form, that was to be sent out to the entire student body.
Update on Progress from Weeks 7-9 (include any photos or video if relevant):
I have formulated and condensed around 17 questions to ask with 5 pinpointing their race, gender, grade, activities, and whether they have a tutor or not. These questions would attempt to answer my research question and expose the truth about learning at LREI. After receiving around 50 responses I felt unfinished. The responses were primarily from the white population at the school with 2 black respondents. Their responses were fascinating but with only two I couldn’t really hypothesis anything. I felt I needed more time but I had to summarize my findings and finish my poster. I was shocked and sad. I guess every trimester I have those same feelings when hearing the voices of my classmates. I also felt inspired to move forward and attempt to find what the true problem is and how our education system can change.
