INTRODUCTION

A few years back it was reported in a local newspaper that a 16 year old boy was admitted to hospital after he received a call on his mobile phone and fell unconscious. Panic gripped everyone and they stopped receiving calls. But after the doctors checked him out they found there was absolutely nothing wrong with him. The boy later confessed that he made up the whole thing just to avoid his upcoming exams. This is one of the many examples of made up phony excuses of students in the academic life. Using of false and phony excuses in class room has gained limited attention than plagiarism and cheating on exams but past studies shows that its occurrence is just as high as any academic dishonesty. Students love to procrastinate, they cannot help it. As such they try to invent phony excuses to avoid being punished. But teachers will not buy all their excuses. Some will be successful other will not. In the end it is just a battle of the sexes. Female students given their extensive persuasive power can muscle out male students in this department. This being the main focus of my research I have also tried to concentrate on whether female students are more successful in manipulating teachers or not. Gone are the days of my grandmother died, I was sick or the dog ate my homework excuses. In todays world in order to procrastinate students have to come up with new and believable excuses. So how can female students overpower their male counterparts in this area? Is it true that they can be in charge of their surroundings by their persuasiveness? I have found answers to such questions through my research.
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BACKGROUND
It is a fact that all students have to make up excuses sometimes or often to avoid getting punished. Students think that without making up excuses and fooling teachers they cannot procrastinate; and most students do love to delay their work as much as possible. Use of phony excuses is a great tactic used by students in order to get out of trouble and it is getting more and more popular everyday in students academic life. This is a very alarming situation for teachers because when one student has a tendency to procrastinate; other students learn from that student and it goes on. From my experience I have seen that female students have more tendencies to manipulate teachers with their persuasiveness. It is no secret that they are a lot convincing than their male counterpart. Female students can easily justify their falsified excuses or get good marks just by persuading their teachers. I also think teachers have a soft spot for the female students. For this reason I tried to find out whether female students are more successful in making up excuses and trick their teachers than male students. And I have found out that it is true. During the time of research I have gathered various secondary data from the internet and I have also done some survey to find out my answers. Most of the data have supported my arguments; although few of the data contradicted with my assumptions. So it is safe to say that female students are more engaging in making up excuses and they can influence their teachers to a great extent.

AREAS OF RESEARCH
One of the main areas of my research was to find out why students needed to invent excuses and fool their teachers. Here, I found out that most students feel the need to procrastinate and that they are lazy. I also tried to focus on the matter that what types of excuses students actually make. Here, I assumed that students would be more creative in making up excuses but I found out they generally use the usual excuses like I was sick, I was stuck in traffic etc. One of the main concerns of my research was to find out whether female students are more successful in manipulating teachers or not. I found out My other focus was also to find out how often students make these types of ruse to get out of trouble. Alarmingly enough, I have found out that most of the students have to make up excuses frequently. One of the other areas of my research was to find out whether students of all qualities lie to their teachers or not. Here, I have found out that both good and bad students are involved in academic lying which is a very serious issue now.

HYPOTHESIS
Students of all ages, of all qualities always try to invent innovative excuse to avoid being punished. From my research I expect to find that female students are more creative in making up excuses. I believe they are more persuasive and the teachers have a soft corner for them. I also think that female students deliberately try to manipulate teachers, in order to favor them. I also expect to find that female students are more successful in justifying the excuses than male students.

METHODOLOGY
For my primary research, I have conducted a survey taking a sample of thirty students out of which twenty were male and twenty were female students. I designed a questionnaire for both these groups, which gave me a range of useful data to answer my research questions. I spread out the questionnaire in universities like North South University, Dhaka University. Getting all the useful information was quite a hassle because not all students had the time to fill up all the questions of my survey. For my secondary research, I had to browse the internet, searching through various search engines and tried to relate my research with some behavioral case studies found online. Also I found out some books, online articles and various journals which share the same ideas and hypothesis as mine.

Primary Data presentation and analysis

The questionnaire I designed for the students gave me a lot of information. These are described with graphs and analyzed:

Being a student did you ever make false excuses to your teacher?

YES

Description: The pie chart above shows students who makes excuses to their teachers. In my survey I found out that that all (100%) students tried to fool their teachers by making phony excuses. Analysis: This graph proves my hypothesis that all students either good or bad, makes falsified excuses to their teachers. It also proves that most students are lazy and they love to procrastinate.

How often do you have to make up excuses?

frequently often sometimes

0%

20%

40%

60%

Description: The bar chart above shows how often students have to make up excuses. The X-axis shows the percentage of students making excuses and the Y-axis shows the degree of frequency. From the chart it is seen that 25% of the students makes excuses frequently and 50% of the students makes excuses often and the rest 25% does sometimes. Analysis: The graph is a clear proof of the students increasing need to invent excuses to teachers. As we can see, 50% of the students have confessed that they make excuses often. They reason could be that students are becoming more and more lazy.

How often do you manage to fool your teachers into believing your excuses?

50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% often sometimes very often

Description: The above bar chat shows how often students can make the teachers believe their excuses. The X-axis shows the degree of frequency and the Y-axis shows the percentage of students managing to fool teachers. Here, we can see that 50% of the students marked sometimes. 30% of the students marked often and the rest 20% confessed that they were able to fool their teachers very often. Analysis: This graph shows that students are becoming more and cleverer and they know how to convince the teachers to believe their fake excuses. The reason for this could be teachers lack of punishment and vigilance.

How often do you use the power of persuasion to justify your excuses?

45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% often sometimes very often never

Description: The above bar chart shows how often students use the power of persuasion to justify their excuses. The X-axis shows the degree of frequency and the Y-axis shows the percentage of students who use oiling to make-believe their excuses. Here we can see that 30% of the students marked often; 40% of the students marked sometimes; 20% of the students marked very often and the rest 10% confessed that they never persuaded their teachers. Analysis: Here it is evident that most of the students try to justify their excuses by oiling teachers. One of the interesting findings in this case, is that the students who ticked often and very often were mostly female students. So in this case my hypothesis was proved to
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be correct. One of the reasons for this could be that teachers have a soft corner for female students.

While studying in the university did you ever get the idea that, "without persuasion teachers I cannot get a good grade?

yes no

Description: The pie chart shows the students who gets the idea of getting good grades by oiling teachers. Here we can see that most of the students (90%) have marked yes, but only a handful of students (10%) have denied this question. Analysis: The graph is a clear indication that even before joining the classes the students think about manipulating. One of the factors that initiate this is that students tend to outsmart their teachers from the very beginning.
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Have you ever tried to persuade your teacher into giving you good grades?

80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

yes no

Description: The above bar chart shows if students ever tried to persuade teachers into giving them good grades. The X-axis shows the degree of frequency and the Y-axis shows the percentage of students who tried. It is seen that almost 70% of the students tried to persuade teachers into giving them good grades and the rest 30% answered no. Analysis: This graph is a clear indication that students in high numbers are trying to persuade teachers into giving them good grades. The reason for this could be that students want get a good grade but they do not like to study.

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Were you able to get a good grade by manipulating teachers with your power of persuasion?

70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Description: The above bar chart shows if students were able to persuade teachers into giving them good grades. The X-axis shows the degree of frequency and the Y-axis shows the percentage of students who were successful. It is seen that 60 % of the students were successful while the other 40% were unsuccessful in manipulating teachers. Analysis: It is evident from the graph that not all students are successful in manipulating teachers. The reason could be the fact that teachers are now becoming more vigilant and they cannot be influenced easily.
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yes no

Do you think making excuses and manipulating teachers are fair to others?

100% NO 50% 0% NO YES YES

Description: The above bar chart shows if students think whether making excuses is fair to other students or not. The X-axis shows the degree of frequency and the Y-axis shows the percentage of students who thinks it is fair to manipulate teachers. It is seen that 90% of the students think it is not fair. However a handful (10%) thinks otherwise. Analysis: From the graph is evident that even though students maybe unethical in terms of academic life, but they have not lost their morality. It is a positive sign that most of the students thinks that manipulating teachers is not fair. One of the reasons could be the fact that teachers are making the students more aware of this situation.

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Who do you think is more successful about manipulating teachers?

girls boys

Description: The pie chart shows the proportion of students (girls/boys) who are more successful in manipulating teachers. Here we can see that most of the students (70%) think that girls are more successful in manipulating teachers. Analysis: From the chart it is pretty clear that female students have more convincing power than male students. One of the reasons could be that teachers have a soft spot for the female students and they are more persuasive.

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Secondary data presentation and analysis

The sources of my secondary data include various online articles, books, magazine and other statistical data taken from the internet. These sources are discussed and analyzed:
One of the interesting articles that I found online was Lying and Cheating: Fraudulent Excuse Making, Cheating, and Plagiarism which was edited by MIGUEL ROIG & MARISSA CASO professors of Department of psychology of St. Johns university. It was study conducted upon 380 students of different ages and the following data were found:

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As we can see from the above data that the percentage of fraudulent excuses of women is more than men; this proves my hypothesis that female students are more prone to making up false excuses. Miguel roig and Marissa Caso also claimed that:

Undergraduates reported their use of fraudulent excuses; 72% of the student participants claimed to have used a fraudulent excuse in college at least once.

This claim however contradicted with my findings since I found out that 100% of the students claimed to have used fraudulent excuses. The reason for this discrepancy could the fact that my survey questions were a bit too direct and a bit biased. There is book named Affective responses before and after fraudulent excuses by academic procrastinators written by Ferrari, J. F., & Beck, B. L which provided me some excellent information. They claimed that:

Students whose scores indicate procrastination use fraudulent excuses more often than non procrastinators.

This information agrees with my point that students use fraudulent excuses to procrastinate and delay their works.

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Another study conducted by Caron et.al shows the frequency of using fraudulent activities. This is shown in the chart below:

This study somewhat coincides with my research because I also found out the frequency of fraudulent excuses greater in occurrence.

An online news magazine named lawyers weekly published an article called Women leaders more resilient, persuasive survey finds, claimed the following:

One striking finding was that women leaders are likely to be more persuasive than their male counterparts one of the survey results that Calipers president calls counterintuitive.

This survey too relates with my research thus proving that female are more persuasive than their male counterparts.

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LIMITATIONS
One of the major constraints I faced was that students were not filling up my survey questions properly. As such I had to discard many of the questionnaires which could be a reason why my research findings were a bit biased. On the other hand I also faced time constraints as I was overloaded with assignments of various other courses. I wanted to do an interview but I could not find any one who was willing to share their experiences on the record. This was a major setback for my research.

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CONCLUSION
I feel that students will continue to make fraudulent excuses to teachers if they are not vigilant enough. Students could be taught ethics in class and they should try to finish their works on time so that they do not have to come up with excuses. Some of the researchers have already conducted some study as mine. If anyone else was to do this research then I would recommended them to take more sample size. Also their questions should be open ended and not biased. They can also look into other areas like the relation (positive/negative) between fraudulent excuses making and the students CGPA.

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REFERENCES
Griggs, Richard A. (2001). Academic dishonesty. In Griggs, Richard A (Ed.). Handbook for teaching introductory psychology(p167). New Jersey, NJ: Psychology Press.

Kibler,W. L., Nuss, B. G., Paterson, B. G., & Pavela, G. (Eds.). (1988). Academic integrity and student development: Legal issues and policy perspectives . Asheville, NC: College Administration Publications.

Roig, M., & Caso, M. (2005). Lying and Cheating: Fraudulent Excuse Making, Cheating, and Plagiarism. The journal of Psychology, 139(6), 485494. Retrieved from: http://www. eng333.wikispaces.com/file/view/RoigCaso.pdf

Ferrari, J. F., & Beck, B. L. (1998). Affective responses before and after fraudulent excuse by academic procrastinators, 118, 529537.Retrived from http://www.questia.com.

Karen, K.(2011).Never Underestimate the persuasion power of a woman . Retrieved from http://www.kalon-woman.com Raymer,E.(2005, June 24), Women leaders more resilient, persuasive survey finds. Retrieved from http://www.lawersweekly.ca/

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