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As explained in Section 1, neutralization and rationalization play an important part in college student cheating. They make it more convenient for students to justify cheating in their own minds.

Students with strong internal and external controls may be able to resist cheating more than students with weak controls (Reiss and Nye's internal and external control theory). If punishment (a direct control) has not been effective in preventing cheating, students may cheat. If students have not been appropriately rewarded for not cheating, they may cheat. If the fear of parents' disappointment (indirect control) does not control students' behavior, they may cheat. And, if their sense of guilt (internal control) is not strong enough, they may cheat. Students with high self-control will be less likely to engage in cheating or any other criminal act (Gottfredson and Hirschi's self-control theory).

All these theories and factors work together to help create students that may be motivated to cheat. Then, any time cheating becomes the most convenient path to good grades, these students may decide to cheat.

When a motivated student and a suitable professor come together in a social context that is conducive to cheating, the student then must evaluate the situation and determine if cheating is the most convenient path to good grades. If it is not, then the student is not likely to cheat. If cheating is the most convenient path, then the student must make a rational choice to cheat or not to cheat based upon the expected utility (rational choice theory, another individual theory). If the student expects that cheating will better his/her grade with a minimum chance of being detected, he/she may decide to cheat. If the student feels the better grade is not worth the risk of detection, he/she is more likely to decide not to cheat. The student's decision to cheat or not cheat may be episodic. Depending on the student's mental state at the time of the decision, his/her moral constraints may or may prevent him/her from cheating at that point in time (Matza's drift theory). Once a student either cheats or is accused of cheating (even if he/she did not actually cheat), he/she may be labeled as a cheater. The next time the student evaluates a situation as to whether it is a convenient time to cheat, the label of cheater may make him/her more likely to consider cheating as being the more convenient path to good grades (labeling theory).

SECTION 3 CONCLUSIONS

As discussed in Section 1, numerous criminological theories have been empirically studied as to their ability to explain why college students cheat. Of the established theories, neutralization/rationalization appears to be the one that best explains why college students cheat. Young college students do not live complicated lives. For them to try anything new, all they have to do is justify the behavior in their own minds. Neutralizations and rationalizations provide students with all the justifications they need to release themselves from any social controls that may prevent them from cheating.

Although neutralization/rationalization seems to offer the best explanation to why college students cheat, this does not mean that the other theories do not contribute a lot to explaining why the students cheat. As explained in Sections 1 and 2, all the theories have something to offer in the explanation of why college students cheat.

Although convenience theory appears to explain all college student cheating, at this point it is merely a proposed explanation. It needs further refinement and it needs to be empirically tested to determine if it can significantly explain college student cheating.

Figure 1: Convenience Theory Development Chart (Omitted)

References. (Omitted)

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