In a study, Thirty (30) instructors and TAs from CCI, UNC Charlotte, were asked why students cheat; Seventeen (17) out of them (about 57%) mentioned pressures for achieving a specific grade and five (5) specifically mentioned societal or family pressures in getting good grades.

International students from other countries have to learn a new language and may find it challenging to adapt to the new culture along with the pressures of grading [4].

The study mentioned earlier, Twelve (12) out of 30 (about 40%) stated either the coursework being too difficult or unprepared makes them desperate, leading to cheating.

The study also showed, time or workload pressures and procrastination can lead students to academic dishonesty, as mentioned by 6 participants (20%). Additionally, students may suffer from motivational issues or don’t want to put in the effort by thinking that a course is “not worth their time.”

Educating students about the expectations is very important. The instructors or TAs should clearly demonstrate what is allowed and what is disallowed. To be more precise, students should be educated about the acceptability of different practices in using resources and assistance.

It is very important to design a course in a way that ensures transparent visibility of the students' progress in assignments or group projects. For example, the author in [5] suggested "… we get students to collaborate on assignments or content on a Wikipedia-style server that they can all edit simultaneously. That's been successful. … Because it's online, the students see an evolving project and can see the group members' work. As staff members, we … can see who's doing work and who's not."

Strategies discussed by instructors to discourage cheating [5] included :

• Heightened awareness of the consequences of cheating

• Requiring students to commit to abide by academic integrity policies

• Observing students working

• Monitoring work

• Setting staged assessments

• Making work visible

• Requiring students to work in groups

• Oral presentations

• Interviewing student

• Making it too risky to cheat

Joyner, in his work, explained that “preventing collaboration on homework was impossible.” Collaboration and suggested considering homework assignments as “a learning opportunity, without the high stakes that would otherwise motivate dishonesty” [6]. He also suggested proctored exams in order to measure students’ abilities and test how much they have learned from the homework assessments.

Sheard et al. discussed in [5] “interviewees agreed that the incidence of cheating is greatly reduced in invigilated situations.” Open book exams could be a very good strategy to reduce cheating. Nevertheless, the assessment needs to be designed in a way that the answer “can’t simply [be found] from the internet” [5].

The author in [5] focuses on empowering students “so as to reduce the likelihood that they would resort to cheating or would want to cheat.” So basically, the author suggested supporting students, building relationships with them, and emphasizing learning rather than just grades.