Whether it is a student revealing information to others about what to expect on an assessment or sharing grades after a test is passed back, science teacher Casey O’Connell has observed that academic peer pressure influences an individual’s decision-making on school performance, creating ethical gray areas.

“Students have reported to me that they feel a tremendous amount of pressure to disclose (assessment) information in situations where they don’t want to,” he said.

According to O’Connell, cheating culture is often fueled by the continuous cycle of receiving and passing on information. For example, those who accept unauthorized test content from others may return the favor by sharing material from other assessments to cope with the fear of their peers labeling them as “hypocritical.”

To mitigate the difficult social dynamics that academic peer pressure encourages, O’Connell urges teachers to take greater responsibility in implementing clearer practices that reduce opportunities for students to potentially cheat.

“(Teachers) need to be more diligent about writing different versions of assessments so they discourage students in different (class periods) from feeling like they can game the system by talking to each other,” he said.

O’Connell hopes that with these visions of healthier classroom environments in mind, students may feel less pressured to go along with unethical behavior — not because they lack values, but because the social cost of saying “no” can be high.

“If you take that (toxic social interaction) all away, imagine how much better students would feel,” he said. “Imagine how open to healthy social interaction they would be, how much more vibrant our class discussions would be and how much better they would bounce back from setbacks (in class).”