By some estimates, 75 percent of students admit to cheating at least once in their college careers. With ChatGPT offering new avenues for unwelcome shortcuts, it may be easy for educators to feel deflated. Yet research suggests we have more control over this issue than we might think. 

According to Dr. James Lang, educator and author of Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty, students who engage in academically dishonest behavior are often responding to pressures in the learning environment that nudge them toward cheating. What’s striking is that the course design principles shown to minimize cheating actually follow the same formula cognitive theorists champion for increasing student engagement and learning.