Development of Cheating Dilemma as a Thought Experiment in Assessing the Student’s Ethical Decision Making

Abstract

Thought experiments give each individual the opportunity to critically evaluate, examine their knowledge, and come up with the best possible solution while keeping in mind societal ethical norms and the implications of their actions. Given that students are continuously confronted with ethical decision-making throughout their studies, new thought experiments may be devised to assist them in assessing and improving their decision-making abilities. New Cheating Dilemmas have been constructed by taking into account numerous ideas such as utilitarianism, right-based theory, the doctrine of double effect, and employing components of the well-known thought experiments like the Trolley Problem and Fat-Man Problem. In this study, the Self-Cheating and Peer-Cheating dilemma tests were established to see if they provide the same chances for thought experiments to be employed in the academic integrity issue of cheating for students. Factors influencing college students' ethical decision-making in reaction to cheating have been explored. Various variants of the developed cheating problems were analyzed using the duty and consequentialist framework. The findings result in actions and policies that will be designed to improve awareness regarding the importance of academic integrity for students