While I am not an avid techie, nor do I continually lean heavily to the left on many issues, I am still a weekly reader of Slashdot. The occasional article on education tends to raise interesting points, sometimes about technology (forcing students to submit assignments through an anti-cheating system with the suggestion that they’re all guilty until proven innocent) and sometimes not. Thursday, an article from Reuters was posted, claiming that graduate business students admit to cheating more than any other graduate field.
The study of 5,300 graduate students in the United States and Canada found that 56 percent of graduate business students admitted to cheating in the past year, with many saying they cheated because they believed it was an accepted practice in business.
Leaving behind the overt cynicism of the article and the discussion among Slashdot readers regarding the general moral standards of business practices, I found the article more interesting for the rest of the survey’s results. (I am certainly not here to defend the worth of business programs at universities, as they are usually well deserving of the snide comments their low standards and ridiculous courses produce.)
Following business students, 54 percent of graduate engineering students admitted to cheating, as did 50 percent of physical science students, 49 percent of medical and health-care students, 45 percent of law students, 43 percent of liberal arts students and 39 percent of social science and humanities students.
Suggestions as to why this could be so were tossed about in the discussion at Slashdot. Myself, holding a degree in literature, I have always been baffled by those students in my classes that seemed to have an inclination to cheat. The thought of doing such a thing only ever entered my mind when trying to calculate the necessary effort such a scam would require. Because I was almost always presented with a very small number of assignments (almost all writing), and those generally required me to not only create my own topic but correctly defend my position as well, the thought of having to track down something perfectly related and somehow original always seemed to me to be a more complicated, longer task.
A few of the commenters over at Slashdot seemed to think that because original creation is so important to the liberal arts and humanities, while the hard sciences may generally have more right/wrong situations, that this could be the reason for the level of cheating. It’s simply easier when everyone is required to have the same answer. I think this is mostly logical, but at the graduate level I would imagine that engineering students are also creating projects and defending decisions, not just answering multiple choice tests.
From the words of an anonymous commenter:
As a former (undergrad) math student I can honestly say that it all depends on how you define cheat; yes like every good math student I will argue over definitions. In one of my courses my Professor openly said that he anticipated that everyone would end up working in groups to understand and solve the challenging proofs, but he required us to write it up on our own and use our own words; as he pointed out in real world math you needed to be able to collaborate with other mathematicians in order to solve difficult problems, and anyone who was trying to get a “free ride” on the work of someone else would (probably) fail the tests so he wasn’t concerned.
In many humanities and social sciences the point of a paper is to come up (and defend) your own argument; any collaboration (beyond editing) can be seen as a type of academic dishonesty.
Granted, different types of material require different types of evaluation. In my own classes, I’m always cautious to mark students wrong when the question is absolutely wrong, but to allow them points if an answer is plausible. In some instances, I’ll openly allow them to defend their choices, but only if the question warrants such a possibility.
Still, the cautious reader will note how the AC’s post begins: “How do you define cheating?” For myself, I’m unsure how so many people have come to the conclusion that certain actions are only cheating if they can’t rationalize it. Several of the posts over at Slashdot had such an introduction before a personal anecdote. Here’s another example:
I think it depends less on the individuals in the field than it does on what _opportunity_ for cheating exists in the program.
A rather pragmatic and depressing introduction. The poster continues, however, to echo the same thoughts of others.
As an engineering undergrad, cheating on assignments (other than in-class exams) was rampant because there was almost always a clear ‘right’ answer. Sure, you’d fudge things a bit so that intermediary steps were different, or falsify a data point, but you’d want to get more or less the same answer as the guy sitting next to you.
As a social science grad student, each assignment was unique. I might be doing a paper on X while my friend wrote something up about Y. Professors always vetted paper topics to make sure that no two students were working on the same subject. Aside from comparing class and reading notes, there wasn’t much we could do to help each other out.
Where did this sad excuse for ‘appropriate cheating’ come from?
It’s right if no one can tell… It’s not wrong because there’s no way to prove it… People do it in the real world anyway… It’s ok for some subjects because their curriculum all but asks the student to cheat…
Not even a week ago, I was discussing the upcoming first report cards with a few of my students. One student remarked that his English teacher (the year before) had “something like 63 assignments graded in the first 6 weeks alone.” He went on to tell me that he had 13 zeroes and that, frankly, they didn’t really affect him. If a student is not taught that his work has a value, why would anyone be surprised when he later takes immoral shortcuts?
Most of the education courses I took at my previous university had ridiculously complex rubrics that scored an inappropriate number of assignments (usually between 45 and 65 for a single semester) with insignificant values. (Compare this to having only four papers a semester in the Arts.) If a student has to put in a 2+ hour effort on an assignment, it is not appropriate to give him 1.5 points which contributes to a total score of 214 points. Yes, that’s about .007% of the total grade. Even the most irrational, untaught mind will kick in and see the inherent worthlessness in that kind of time-to-effort exchange.
In my entire life, I have only cheated once. It was something of an accident, but I can still admit that it was cheating. My high school chemistry teacher decided that it would be amusingly cruel to test us on various laboratory equipment names by pulling them from a box, throwing them up in the air (giving us about 2 seconds to recognize them) and having us write down the names. No second chance viewing. Because of the seating arrangement during tests, some students were at the regular one-piece desks and others were up at the lab tables (those big black counter-like things with gas spigots). I was in a regular desk and someone else was up at one of the lab tables, sitting almost directly in front of me, but facing to the side. Totally frustrated that I missed one (or probably more) of the items, my mind and eyes wandered away from the side of the room (where the teacher was) and back to my table, and whatever was in front of me. For a brief second, my eyes landed on a classmate’s paper and saw the answer. My mind knew the answer was correct, but also that I didn’t have it myself seconds prior. I wrestled mentally for a moment, then shamefully put the answer on my own paper.
As is evident by the story, I’ve never forgotten that moment, and yes, I still feel guilty about it. It was a stupid thing to do. Not because I could have been caught, but because it was dishonest to myself. I knew I didn’t have the answer, but I wrote it down anyway; gained through convenience and chance, not hard work.
The amount of intellectual laziness required for a graduate student to wholeheartedly believe that an action isn’t cheating if the professor never explicitly banned using someone else’s work is truly outstanding. Then again, if they do not recognize the value of completing one’s work independently, then a discussion of what is and is not cheating is nothing more than splitting sad, brittle, pedantic hairs.
While the issue of cheating in education courses might seem to rank near the bottom of immediate importance, it is, nonetheless, pervasive. I’ve yet to see an education or certification course that wasn’t built upon “groupthink” or that didn’t endorse stealing images off the internet without documentation. I can’t remember a single instance where I was asked to cite sources for lesson plans, and I have witnessed intern teachers present lessons from printed workbooks as if they themselves had taken the hours (or weeks) necessary to create them; nary a nod to the owners or authors. What is one of the most common phrases among teachers…?
“Teachers are always stealing ideas from one another.”
Like too many other things, this is said in a lighthearted, joking kind of manner, as if to play down the meaning of the words. Oh no, they’re not stealing, more like … “utilizing without credit”. Ultimately, these practices are encouraged and usually backed up with some kind of rationalized justification like, “Teachers should collaborate for the benefit of their students.”
So just what kind of teacher does this create? I won’t attempt to over generalize, but I will summarize. Teachers joke about stealing from one another. New teacher interns are repeatedly told to use images and materials without documentation. Professors of teachers model laboriously worthless grading rubrics that do not demonstrate the value of work, but push forward the idea of “busy work”. Education courses have nothing to do with the subject teachers will ultimately teach… they are disconnected jumbles of theory, slanted values and complaints about “everyone else who doesn’t understand how hard it is to be a teacher”.
If a proper teacher, instead, understands the value of hard work and awards it an appropriate value, she will be able to skip busywork. She will also be less likely to ignore the persistent problems of plagiarism. Busy work is easy enough for anyone to BUY. Thoughtful assignments that are directly related to the day’s lessons at hand (yes, that means you must be in charge of your curriculum and keep it in line with each group of students.. ) will have a cumulative effect upon the student. Assignments will be interrelated, relevant, and worthwhile. Sure, it’s likely they’ll be harder, but the worth is twofold.
So long as an appropriate academic value is attached to the assignment, the process of having to work hard on an assignment that deals directly with the curriculum SHOWS the student the worthiness of both the content and of the hard work necessary. After all, the best rewards are those the student can hold internally — those which raise his personal sense of integrity and confidence — and such rewards cannot be taught through disconnected slogans, lectures, or rules.