Introduction

According to The Economist (2005), cheating in Poland is seen “as no more of a moral question than disobeying traffic rules,” a statement which prompted us to devote our research to the question of academic dishonesty. We predicted that since this phenomenon seems to be so widespread in our country, this would consequently be represented at our university.

As English majors, we decided to focus our study on our fellow philology students in the Jagiellonian University (UJ) philology department. In order to effectively illustrate the true scale of the problem, we designed a questionnaire to investigate the number of examination cheaters and plagiarizers, identify the most common and effective methods of cheating amongst students, as well as to help us define the source(s) of academic dishonesty and possible solutions.

Design of the Questionnaire

We designed one questionnaire, which consisted of two parts, the first comprising the following questions:

1. Have you even cheated on a test during your academic career?

2. Have you ever submitted a piece of work that was not written entirely by yourself?

3. Have you ever purchased as essay or paid for essay writing services?

4. What do you think are the most common reasons why students cheat?

5. What are the most common ways of cheating?

6. Which method(s) have you used?