More than half of the students in public and private high schools across the nation admitted in a survey to cheating on a test during the past year, an increase ethicists attributed to poor moral guidance during students’ formative years.

In its 2008 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, the Josephson Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the ethical quality of society, surveyed almost 30,000 students nationwide on their attitudes toward academic cheating.

Josephson Institute Executive Director Rich Jarc said the number of students admitting to cheating has increased at a troubling rate over the past few years.

‘It’s pretty alarming and pretty scary,’ he said. ‘The numbers are so high, I don’t know how much worse it could get.’

Jarc said he worried about the students who continued to cheat through college, saying it does not bode well for the future politicians, cops, corporate executives, parents and other important jobs.

Thirty-eight percent of the high school students who participated in the study admitted to cheating more than twice on exams, while 36 percent admitted to using material from the Internet to plagiarize assignments, up from 33 percent in 2006. The survey also found that one in four of the students admitted to lying on at least one or two questions on the survey.

Despite the high rate of cheating reported, 93 percent of the students in the survey said they were satisfied with their personal character and ethical conduct. Seventy-seven percent declared their actions better intentioned than others.

‘A lot of students cheat because they doubt themselves, and if they see people around having a different answer, they automatically think they’re wrong and other people are right,’ Boston University College of Arts and Sciences junior Elizabeth Majchrzak said.

Boston University philosophy professor Susanne Sreedhar said cheating has significant moral repercussions.

‘Cheating . . . shows a lack of respect for one’s fellow classmates, one’s teacher and one’s school,’ she said. ‘Harsher penalties might well deter cheating, but more importantly, they will send the message that cheating is very wrong.’

Sreedhar said most college students have the potential to improve their ethical standards given guidance.

‘They want to do the right thing, but they often need a push in the right direction,’ she said.