According to Orment, et al., cheating can become widespread in a school that does not have a specific, clear, uniform policy on what constitutes academic dishonesty. Lack of a school-wide policy can lead to situations in which one professor or teaching assistant may define a certain behavior, such as working in groups, as cheating, while other teachers may not only condone collaboration, but may encourage and even require the practice.
Parental pressure can also lead to cheating. According to Professor Daniel J. Bauer, parents sometimes coerce their children into attending college by relating horror stories to them about people who never attended college. Parents will tell their teenagers that they will never succeed in life without a college education. These well-meaning parents may even expect nothing but A's on their child's transcript. This parental notion overlooks the possibility that a vocational program may indeed be a better fit for a student. It also increases the pressure these individuals feel to succeed, whether in high school or college, or risk losing the love of their parents. Failing a test, for example, is not an option, so they feel they must pass at any cost, even if it means cheating.
According to Orment, et al., another factor that could drive students to cheating is the attitude of the professor or teacher. If the instructor is not inclined to offer help outside of class, seems insensitive to the fact that the students are taking other classes, or has too harsh a definition of what constitutes cheating, this could lead students to cheat. Another practice that can lead to cheating the researchers mentioned was weighting a final examination so heavily that failing the test automatically fails a student.
The practice of grading on a curve can also lead to academic dishonesty. As Orment, et al. point out, such grading can foster a climate of excessive competition among the student population. Once the students find out the professor or teacher is grading on a curve, a student who usually earns high grades may begin to fear that someone who does not work as hard as she does can actually receive a much higher grade than the student herself does, despite how hard she studied.