High schools and post-secondary institutions should have and enforce an academic honor code. Academic honor codes make a positive difference, but it is all up to the students to report any misconduct of the honor code. Having an academic honor code can improve positive morals and ethics of many students. Many students will be encouraged to report any type of cheating or plagiarism because of the competition for getting into a medical school, law school, or universities in general. If a student went all throughout high school and college cheating and damaging the integrity of the honor code, in the near future they have a greater chance of having legality issues. Deans and principles should establish a culture of …show more content…
“McCabe’s surveys have indicated honor codes do reduce rates of cheating, but by how much varies. In three surveys of about 30 small- to medium-sized liberal arts colleges, slightly concentrated in the East, fewer students at colleges with honor codes than those without reported copying exam answers from one another. 13, 19 and 8 percent reported cheating at “code schools,” compared to 31, 32 and 14 percent at “no-code schools.” The surveys are from the 1990-1, 1995-6 and 2005-6 academic years” (Grasgreen)
That statement proves that the ethics and morals of students in schools with honor codes are more positive than schools without any honor codes. Schools that had an honor code had an average of 13.3% of students who cheated and schools without an honor code had an average of 25.6% according to the survey above. Every school should have an honor code and it will eliminate cheating and spread more positive ethics and morals. Deans and principles should all enforce an academic honor code because it can become a culture that the students can possess and spread throughout society. Imagine schools with a 10% less cheating rate, which makes a huge