Cheating Lessons

James M. Lang

“This lively book combines a review of key studies of cheating, inspiring examples of active student efforts to stop academic dishonesty, and useful guidelines for how faculty and institutions can respond when it does occur.”—Elizabeth Hayford, Library Journal (starred review)

“Practical and insightful… Whether tracking historical incidents of cheating to illustrate different factors, or discussing how university communities can talk to their students about academic dishonesty, Lang is an upbeat guide, effectively arguing that even small steps can help reduce the potential for cheating.”—Publishers Weekly

“Lang’s book serves as an excellent introduction to principles of effective teaching—that is, teaching that leads to meaningful student learning. Happily, these principles also reduce student motivation to cheat, as Lang cogently argues. Faculty will find in Cheating Lessons many practical examples of ways they can implement these principles in their teaching.”—Derek Bruff, Vanderbilt University

“Lang reminds educators that their primary focus should be on promoting learning, and not on preventing cheating. This helpful book provides accessible summaries of literature on academic cheating, its nature, causes, and prevalence—and illustrative examples of how successful instructors build their courses to encourage learning, and as a by-product, reduce cheating.”—Colin S. Diver, President Emeritus, Reed College

“James Lang has written a smart, original, well-researched guide to ‘building better learning environments’ framed as a guide to avoiding academic dishonesty. Rigorously grounded in empirical studies, rich with illuminating examples, and engagingly written, Cheating Lessons promises to be an eye-opening and immensely useful book for post-secondary educators.”—Christopher Hager, Trinity College

Related Links

• At the Time Magazine blog Ideas, read James Lang’s response to a recent survey of Harvard students (given in the wake of a cheating scandal) in which almost half of incoming freshmen admitted to cheating
• Read an interview with Lang at Inside Higher Ed
• Read an essay by Lang at The Daily Dot on cheating’s prevalence in the newest format for group education—the “massive open online course,” or MOOC
• On WBUR’s Radio Boston, listen to Lang discuss how to encourage academic honesty among students
• In the Boston Globe and Times Educational Supplement, read Lang’s argument that the current rewards structure of many classes encourages dishonesty
• At the Chronicle of Higher Education, read Lang’s argument that in many educational situations, students are incentivized to cheat and his findings on the importance of offering frequent, low-stakes opportunities to demonstrate learning as a means of mitigating those incentives
• Visit Lang’s website
• View more HUP titles on Higher Education