Cheating phenomenon in English Examinations at the Iraqi Colleges: Causes, Styles, Effects and Treatments

Abstract

The educational system consists of three basic elements which are: the instructor, students and curriculum. The defect of each may affect negatively the two other elements. Cheating in examinations in general and in English in particular may be considered as the most dangerous phenomenon that effects negatively this system. In fact, cheating is a deviated behavior that totally destroys the main spine of the pedagogy of the evaluation, because cheating presents a false test score which suppose to be accurate to keep the ongoing evaluation for the sake of fulfilling the educational objectives. There are different reasons behind cheating, some are related to the students themselves, while others are related to the instructors and some others are related to the psychological and educational system. Whatever the reason behind cheating, all of them represent the response to failing in the examination and its side effects. The researcher thinks that the educational institution is one of the main fields in which the personality of the student may be built and developed correctly. Thus the college as one of the educational institution has to take on its part in this important mission, and this is why the researcher conducted this research.