At one high school, more of its students than ever before have been caught cheating on their homework assignments; for example, many students have asked other students to provide them with answers for assignments.

At one high school, more of its students than ever before have been caught cheating on their homework assignments; for example, many students have asked other students to provide them with answers for assignments. The school is considering making a change to help decrease the number of students who cheat on homework. Which ONE of the following actions do you think will be most effective, and why?

• Asking parents to monitor their children as they do their homework and confirm that their children have not cheated
• Increasing the penalty (punishment) for cheating
• Asking teachers to create homework assignments that will make it more difficult for students to cheat.

In my opinion, compared to asking parents to monitor their children as they do their homework or asking teachers to make the homework more difficult, the most efficient way to avoid the cheating behavior is to increase the penalty for cheating.

First, students will refrain from cheating spontaneously because of high costs. If not only the students who copy other people’s homework but also the students who lend their homework to others get seriously punished, then students who complete their homework by themselves will be reluctant to lend their homework to others. Take my high school for example. In my school, both students who lend their homework to others and those who copy other people’s homework will get an F for the course. That means no matter how well a student does in class, he won’t pass the class anymore once he cheated. Hence, for high-score students, nobody is willing to lend their homework under such a high risk. And for the other students, any low score is better than an F.

Second, asking parents to monitor their children while they are doing their homework is limited by time and space. Not to mention how busy parents are, they may not be able to monitor their children every minute. Even if they have enough time, students can cheat on their homework outside home and lie to their parents.

Third, asking teachers to make assignments more difficult does not help students understand class materials. The function of homework is to help students understand what they have learnt. If the homework is so difficult that only a few students can complete it, most students will become desperate and lose interest in the class.

In brief, compared to asking parents or teachers to help avoid cheating, the best way to prevent cheating is to increase the cost of cheating.