Use of Publishers' Test Bank is Corrupting Our Higher Education System: Lazy or Complicit Professors or Unethical Students?

• In Event: SESSION 4B: Teaching and Technology

Abstract

A dangerous reality of today’s higher education system is the heavy use of purchased test banks by U.S. students. In discussing the use of test banks by students, we document the availability of test banks, provide anecdotal evidence of the use of test banks, and discuss how the student’s behavior in using the test banks fits the description of behavior discussed in the fraud diamond.
While it is tempting to lay all of the blame on the students, we also recognize that professors, administrators, and employers share some of the responsibility for the student’s behavior. Ignorant professors and rationalizing professors can compound the problem by using test banks when the possibility exists that students have access to them. More problematic though are the complicit professors and some administrators who prefer to use test banks. The use of test banks by these complicit professors with reinforcement by administrators also fits the description of behavior discussed in the fraud diamond.
Ultimately, the use of test banks has the capacity to threaten our higher education system and our profession as a whole as today’s students, who are motivated to engage in unethical behavior while in school, will become the leaders of the accounting profession tomorrow. The wrong students are being hired by CPA firms. We discuss how it is unlikely that these students will be able to resist future temptations to engage in unethical behavior after graduating. However, we also note that our profession has the power to change the corruption of the higher education system. We propose viable solutions which have the ability to eliminate the use of publisher test banks by students who no longer find them to be a valuable source.

Author

• Donald Larry Crumbley, Louisiana State University - Baton Rouge