Students are not receiving a good education during distance learning with cheating being so accessible

Isabella Montenegro 

Staff Writer 

As the pandemic is still ongoing, students are put to the task of completing school digitally. The major concern is with cheating and it becoming so accessible during distance learning; are students actually learning. Students are not getting a good education while learning online, with the easy access to cheating on assignments and assessments. 

Cheating on assignments and assessments has always been an ongoing issue when assessing a student’s knowledge on the material but concerns have increased with the transition to online learning. For example it is super simple to have one tab open to the test and one tab open to google to quickly search up the answers.

Cheating is not accepted and/or tolerated in schools for the main reason; it does not assess knowledge properly. Therefore, switching to online platforms for education has not changed that theory. 

If a student relies on cheating as a way to pass their classes, the student is less likely to pay attention to lectures or any other method used to teach the material and it only dramaticized matters.      

There are a lot of different and pressing factors to the fact that students would resort to cheating during distance learning. One may be that the teacher conducting the course is not effectively teaching the material, therefore the student may not be understanding what he/she is trying to learn. 

Another reason why students are relying on cheating more than ever is because of the hardships they are facing while trying to learn. Some may be worried and/or stressed out about the pandemic, others may be having difficulty with learning from their house, and others may be having trouble managing their time with such freedom. 

One may argue that students are learning effectively during distance learning even with cheating being so accessible. Teachers are altering their assignments and implementing stricter regulations. However, students are not really following these regulations because they are finding new ways to cheat the system.