Enhancing the teaching of ethical issues by understanding the students´ environment

Data on academic dishonesty suggest students are regularly confronted with ethical dilemmas in the classroom, as they will be in the profession. This project proceeds from the notion that discussions of academic dishonesty can alert students to the prevalence of ethical challenges and serve as exemplars of resolution strategies. In a classroom exercise, students were first asked to delineate their own awareness of cheating techniques utilized in classroom settings; subsequently they were instructed to devise intervention, deterrent, and corrective strategies. Information from these activities is being used to develop new teaching and testing methods that are being tried in classroom situations.