Yet another way to look at this issue from a sociological perspective is to frame it in terms of individual motivations and deterrents, and how they affect a person's actions in society.
For example, a person who is motivated by socialization that teaches us good grades are important may be motivated to cheat on an exam because society will reward him/her for it as long as they are not caught. The motivation to cheat increases if the chance of being caught decreases, and vice versa. A person may not think twice about cheating on a worksheet, but wouldn't dare cheat on a bar exam, thus the deterrents set in place by society work directly against the motivations we may have to cheat, especially the more serious the penalty gets.
This is simply evidence that many in society are more afraid of performing poorly than they are of being caught cheating, and that the deterrent level has to be set quite high in order to overcome that fear of poor performance.
A sociologist might also do a study on the limitations conscience places on our actions in situations where being caught cheating is unlikely.
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