Rafael Uribe

Writing 7

Summary N2 Final Draft

July 10, 2012

High tech cheating

In a journal Nurse Education in Practice article (July, 2006) entitled High tech

cheating, Mary Harper discuses how the technological advances had not only helped

the profession, but also damaged it directly and indirectly. Through a review on

literature about cheating in nursing profession, the researcher shows that there is a

positive correlation between a more active use of technology and academic dishonesty.

Moreover, the author alleges that there is a correlation between academic dishonesty

and professional misconduct that can affect the nursing profession, therefore, the

investigator proposed a combination of high tech and low tech techniques to diminish

the dishonesty, thus, the professional misbehavior.

The technological advances had affected both the nursing education (college and

graduate) and the profession in different ways, positively and negatively. The author

explained that prompt feedback, following procedures electronically, effectiveness,

adaptability, and convenience are the most common advantages of technological use in

the nursing profession. Technological use has also negative effects, that is, academic

dishonesty and plagiarism. The author reviewed different literature trying to explain the

relation among tech cheating in nursing education and professional misconduct in

nursing.

Throughout the last years, cheating has become a common behavior in students

in all disciplines. This issue can be reflected in a survey that found that almost all the

learners had reported seeing someone cheating, but only a few of them recognized have
done it. This result is commonly attached to technology. The author infers this due to

the increasing technological tools that help in the cheating process; even a cellphone can

be used to cheat. The most common and less known form of cheating is plagiarism and

technology has made it fast and easy. Using the Internet anyone can do cyberplagiarism,

the cheater only needs a few clicks on the mouse. The causes may differ, but the author

believes that the most common is ignorance on proper citation, lack of knowledge using

the Internet, and moral crisis. In addition, the researcher explained that even if that is a

usual belief that cheating increase in long-distance education, there is not enough data

to prove it. Also, there is evidence on academic misconduct in graduate students.

The researchers explained that there are two factors that determine academic

dishonesty of the students: individual and contextual. The first one has relation with

internal influences, while the second reason has relation with the environment of the

student. The contextual factors are more important. This propensity to misconduct can

affect nursing. How? The author claims that there is direct relation among academic and

professional misconduct, that is to say, people that cheat during learning periods are

more likely to misbehave in their professional life.

The relation between professional and educational dishonesty has three major

implications for nursing profession: education, practice and research. In education, a

code of honor would help to diminish the contextual factors to cheat. An idea of

unacceptable misconduct is needed. Strong punishment to cheat and dishonesty will

discourage this kind of behavior. There is technology not only to facilitate cheating but

also to detect it. To improve the students behavior, the use of this technology is

essential. For long-distance education there are different methods, such as cooperation

assignment and developing academic integrity through combining high and low tech

methods. Also, for the nursing practice the implications are severe. This goes from
medical errors, going through incompetence, to mistakes in documentation. This

suggests that misconduct in academic class can have long-term effects. The associations

should value integrity, which means that they have to promote it and practice it.

Accomplishing integrity a moral community is developed, resulting in a better nursing

performance. Monitoring technology can be use to achieve honesty and integrity. The

author observes that there is also plagiarism in professional researchers, but states that is

due to their ignorance in writing rules. High and low tech instrument can be used to

reduce professional misconduct. Finally, the implication for nursing research is

plagiarism. The researcher concludes that more studies should be done to know more

about misconduct and its relation among students and professionals. A general

understanding of cheating is needed to reduce it. There is a problem in the reporting of

the misconduct, but there is nothing to do except using mechanisms, such as a low and

high tech mix, to correct this when needed.