Opportunism

During my freshman year, I had a friend, who I will call John, that was taking a relatively easy 100 level lecture course (easy meaning most students received an A in the class). Many students took the class to boost their GPA while others took it as a required course for their respective majors. John personally took it because it was one of the required courses for his major, but expected to receive an A.

This class was notorious for its minimum work load and effortless exams. The class required students to participate in lecture through iClickers and all the exam were online except for the final. Because all the exams were online, it was easy for students to find the solutions from previous students who have taken the exam and not get caught. However, when John had the opportunity to partake in receiving the easy A, he chose not to look for the solution and took the exam without any aid.

The exam itself consisted of about 50 multiple choice questions with a three-hour time limit. Prior to the actual exam, the students had to agree to following these rules: not receive help from students who are not currently taking the specific course, not posting and sharing solutions to exam questions for other students after the student has completed the exam, not taking the exam in place of another student, or having another student answer exams questions on your behalf, and not engaging in any other activities that will dishonestly improve the student’s results. However, like I previously mentioned, there was no way to enforce these rules given that it was a huge lecture class. The students were ultimately not held accountable for their actions which increased the motivation for many students to act opportunistically.

Putting myself in the shoes of my friend, I knew that there were 3 options: not looking up the solutions, looking up the solutions, and taking the test without the solutions and then comparing it with the solutions before submitting the exam. Going with the first option would be the most ethical choice in that it would not violate the rules of the exam and you would be truly tested for your knowledge in the curriculum. The second choice would result in a good grade with minimal effort but make things difficult in the long run since you’re not allowed to look up the solution online for the final. For me personally, I felt that the third choice would have been the most opportunistic choice because the most selfish choice would have been to learn from my mistakes (comparing my answers to the solutions) and not have my grades suffer as a result.  

To give you a little background about John, he is a very engaged learner and has a very strong work ethic. He excels in most of his classes and his GPA is relatively high. Given his background, his desire to be a good citizen and ethical work performance is what I believe drove his decision to not act with opportunism. He wanted his grades to truly and accurately depict his knowledge in the curriculum he was learning. Morality is subjective and it can sometimes be hard to distinguish what is “right” and “wrong”. However, the exam policy clearly states that looking up the solutions would be a violation of the rules and violating the rules essentially equate to unethical behavior.

However, I wonder if the situation would have been different if John’s GPA was struggling or if he didn’t have enough time to study prior to the time of the exam. I am curious to see how “bad” his situation would have to be before he succumbs to pressure of acting opportunistically, but knowing him as a friend, I don’t think he would ever put himself in a situation like that.