Academic Dishonesty (Cheating)

[Lukeje]

What's the point of making them resit the same test? Surely you as the teacher would have to compose another test? Otherwise they've all seen the paper before and are, effectively, cheating.

 

[b3nn3tt]

But, I think there is the possibility that if I make the punishment incredibly severe than no one will do it.

In many states in the US, the punishment for murder is death, that doesn't seem to stop people from killing others. The severity of the punishment does not necessarily coincide with a decrease in the number of people breaking the rules. Couple that with the fact that, as you said yourself, cheating often goes undetected, and the risk of punishment seems trivial.

People are saying that the contempt provided by the cheater's peers would have no affect on the cheater because there is no social network inbetween them. I don't think this is true; I have been to two colleges in my life; one was a community college were I commuted to class, and an actual university were I stayed in a dorm on campus. And I have to say even in the community college there was a strong connection between my peers and I. It was almost a certainty that you would have another class with at least one person in your class the prior semester. I am hoping that the social network would prevent them from cheating since it is now apparently clear that their actions will cause harm to people other than themselves.

I hate to use anecdotal evidence, but it seems appropriate here. I've just finished a three-year university course, made up of eight modules per year. There were many people who were in every single module that I took that I had not spoken to once in those three years. There were many other people in various other modues who I never spoke to. The vast majority of people I knew to say hello to but wouldn't really consider them friends. I think you put too much stock in hoping that the risk of causing other people to retake the test would be enough to discourage cheating. I also think that you think people are more selfless than they actually are. I doubt many people would care that the rest of the class has to retake a test if it meant that they (the cheater) got a second chance rather than possible expulsion.

 

[Aurgelmir]

It is just wrong to punish everyone, period.
The misery of others isn't enough to deter cheaters from cheating. So it will not prevent the uncaught cheaters from not cheat on the makeup test either.

 

[WolfThomas]

I'd hoped collective punishment had died with Stalin. B sounds like a terrible concept.

What's wrong with the way it usually is? There's an allegation of cheating, goes to a review board (because people are innocent before proven guilty) and then if it's confirmed they cheated, they fail or get academic consequences.

 

[Navvan]

So a recent event cause me to think about the topic of dishonesty in a college setting; a crime that, I think, is one of the worst things a person can do, yes I know my priorities are messed up. So since I plan on becoming a college professor at some point I thought that I would try and determine what I would do in the same situation that my teacher was in. I came up with a plan where the student has two choices, since I am the kind to give people a second chance to redeem themselves. Keep in mind that a student that is caught cheating may only choose choice B once, to avoid abuse of the system.

Choice A: The student fails the test, administration is notified, the student will be removed from my class with a non-replaceable F, and the administration can decide whether or not to kick them out of the college essentially ruining their academic career.

Choice B: The student that cheats has to come up to the front of the classroom, rip up their test, announce to the class that they cheated, and everyone must take a re-take. In this option the student that cheated can get no higher than a 70%.

The general consensus so far is that my plan is too draconian, and that I am punishing people who haven't done anything wrong; my reasoning behind this lies in a hypothetical situation. Say you go into a scientific field and publish a paper, if just one of your data points is faked then the entire paper is therefore discredited and the paper is essentially not even worth the paper it was printed on. I believe that this will not only discourage people from cheating, but also encourage others to prevent their classmates from cheating since everyone has the potential to lose. Personally I think that this may not be hard enough, I have spent my entire college career, working my ass off to get good grades, and then I watch some dumbass skate by and cheat his way to a 4.0 GPA. Yes, some people do get caught and get their comeuppance but I am assured that this does not happen to everyone. My proof lies with the testimonies of my father, who works at a government contracting office that helps design weapons for the military. It seems every week my dad complains that some recent grad just got a job at his office, starting salary between 50-75k a year, and does not know shit. Anyways I know this went on way too long than it needed to be but I get worked up on this topic. So what are your opinions on this? Good idea? Bad idea? "Alec you sexy sexy man your brilliance astounds me"? or "As soon as you try and implement this you'll be fired".

Also the class I was talking about wasn't English or Basketweaving 101 it was university level Physics. And I don't do poorly in class either, it's just the cheaters seem to do better than me.

I guess an explanation is required on why I would punish the entire class for the transgressions of one student. As someone pointed out, some classes are in giant lecture halls. I have taken a class in one of these before and it was a class of about three-hundred people; in one of these classes I am sure you could realize the ease at which a paper with answers written on it could be passed along the back rows. Keeping this in mind, while I may have only caught one student cheating I am unsure as to how many cheated. Cheating can be a collabarative effort, and if I catch one person cheating there is no way to determine who else cheated, and the caught student's word is not reliable.

As for the whole "graduating without knowing" thing goes, I find it fairly unlikely. The grads that my dad complains about where from Virginia Tech, a school that has an engineering program which is pretty much the best in the state, to my knowledge. I find it highly unlickely that someone can graduate without learning basic principles and applications since that is what I was learning in my first physics class.

The problem with this isn't because its draconian. The problem is it would get you fired. You could certainly make everyone retake the test and even have the guy voluntarily admit to cheating. However, you need to report any academic fraud your superiors and you aren't in a position to alter the universities punishment code.

 

[Robert Ewing]

I think if you cheat, and are caught. Then your entire grade is void. I don't think its necessary to involve other students in the punishment, or even letting people know that they cheated.

I think they should just take a note of who is cheating, tell them that they have been caught cheating quietly and discretely, and then void their grade. Retakes should be a possibility for them, in a more controlled environment. But it should be like the system we have in Britain now. If you want to retake a test, it costs money to do so. A considerable sum as well.

This alone seems ample punishment for cheating, and I don't think it should be taken any further than this.

 

[Pinkamena]

I feel that the system we have now is too harsh. Getting expelled from the university basically destroys your dreams, what you have been working all your life to achieve. Simply voiding the character should be enough, I think.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Everyone would hate you. And that's not an exaggeration. I'm pretty sure most people at RPI would avoid your class like the plague. Plus, if I was told that I have to take a retake for a test I did well on because someone I don't know cheated on that test, I'd throttle my professor.

 

[trooper6]

Here is something you should probably know. As a professor you can't just make up whatever you want. You have some leeway, but you have to follow university guidelines.

For example, at the University where I teach, professors have no choice to report academic dishonesty or not. If you discover academic dishonesty you must report it to the Deans. There is no room for your discretion on this matter, it is University policy.

Once reported the Deans go through their process. This involves assessing the severity of the academic dishonesty and then giving the proper corrective measures. That might mean anti-plagiarism training if the problem is poor citation skills, it might mean something far more serious.

On my end, I have a choice to decide what I do with the student in my class. My policy is you get a 0 in that assignment and there is no making up possible. Other people say you get a 0 in that assignment but you can redo it. I think some people say you get an F in the whole class. Whatever choice you make on that matter needs to be in your syllabus so that people know up front so they can decide if they want to be in your class or not.

You are not allowed to punish other people for the actions of one. University isn't Basic Training.

 

[Lavi]

Choice A: This isn't high school. Lots of Universities don't give the professors discretion and they shouldn't.

 

[Unesh52]

This factor seems to be repeated often. As I said before, in the scientific community, if a single data point in a scientific report is altered, the validity of the entire scientific report is nullified. As I see it, the test scores are a report, to me, by my students; it shows me how well the class understands the information that I am teaching them. If one person "fudges" the data by altering their score by cheating, then the report(test scores) as a whole are discredited. The only way to get an accurate representation then, is to do the entire experiment over again.

That analogy is flawed. While it is reasonable to compare a test for a college class to a scientific experiment, you're not trying to determine the competency of the entire class as a collective, you're trying to determine the competency of individuals. You can think of each test as an experiment on its own -- each testing a different hypothesis of the form "[student x] knows about [subject y]." The possibility that your student cheated is merely a source of error, then, and should be treated as such. In other words, don't assume error unless you notice something flawed in your method or see data that is very inconsistent. And you don't need to re-do evrey experiment of its kind just because you found error in one particular one. Nor would that reduce the error you get from the new tests. Assuming everything else is the same, you would still have the same potential for error. The only difference is that now your tests subjects are irritated with you

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I hate it so much when I am punished because someone in my class done something bad. Their is a person i my class who I really hate, he always gets in trouble and this one time he got the whole class in trouble. Instead of being annoyed at him most of us just got pissed at the teacher and for once I actually felt that he was dong some good in the world just because how often he annoyed my teacher. It only makes it worse when they say "I don't want to keep you all in". Bullshit. If you didn't want to keep as all in you wouldn't. Option B is the worst possible thing ever. If you one day make a post saying "My professor made my whole class retake a test because some person fucked up. I failed it even though I done really well on the original and now I an never get a job etc." I will just laugh at you for being stupid enough to come up with this option. It would be no different to putting you in jail because someone robbed the house next door to you. Go try that out and see if you still like option B.

 

[Liberaliter]

From the sounds of it a few people did better than you in class which has resulted in you wanting to take your anger out on future students by punishing everyone, so that's a no to choice B from me. You should probably get down from your high horse, concentrate on teaching and let the University handle the cheating.

 

[Bluelaughter]

My University had a policy of assigning a -100% grade for the first assignment you cheated on, and expulsion on a second instance. 70% seems too charitable.

Group punishment is a bad idea. The onus is on the teacher to prevent cheating where possible, or make it not worth the effort. Also, tests themselves are not a fully accurate dataset of how all students perform. Instead of devising this punishment system, improve your tests to accurately capture the knowledge of the students better.

 

[Sarah Frazier]

I approve of the option to let cheaters redeem themselves once after admitting to the class that they cheated. Sometimes it takes a bit of public embarrassment for a person to either decide it's not worth breaking rules or to do so much more subtly. Either way, they'll end up using that one last chance and if they do decide to keep cheating will be faced with failure and all that time wasted.

Of course I do see some clear problems with forcing the whole class to take a test again for having one or two cheaters caught:

1) The students who may have pointed the cheaters out will be less likely to do so if it means they get punished too.

2) Some students may try to help hide the cheater without actually cheating themselves. Would you auto-fail them too for being an accessory to cheating?

3) Enough students may complain about having their time wasted by taking tests over and over until you're told to drop the practice.

 

[Terminate421]

Being some one who did cheat their way through some classes, I would actually encourage cheating. BUT if you are caught cheating I would recommend an instant fail on that test/paper/ect. There is no rule that says once your in the job you can't use all the resources at your disposal to solve a problem even if it means doing some research. Some of my teachers used my method and honestly I was quite fond of it. IMO it's more intellectually stimulating to have to cheat and be unable to get caught. Ironically it turned out that only the smartest people in the class were smart enough to cheat. The stupid people had to learn everything by repetition.

I can partially agree with that.

Cheating should be allowed, but only if caught. I understand if someone worked hard and they were cheated on, but technically its their fault for not using scratch paper to cover their answers.

I sound like an Asshat saying that I know but in all seriousness, I don't hate cheaters, some important people probobly wouldn't be where they are if they had not of cheated.

With that said, I actually stopped cheating, as of my junior year in high school (I am currently a senior)

 

[Princess Rose]

I came up with a plan where the student has two choices, since I am the kind to give people a second chance to redeem themselves. Keep in mind that a student that is caught cheating may only choose choice B once, to avoid abuse of the system.

Choice A: The student fails the test, administration is notified, the student will be removed from my class with a non-replaceable F, and the administration can decide whether or not to kick them out of the college essentially ruining their academic career.

Choice B: The student that cheats has to come up to the front of the classroom, rip up their test, announce to the class that they cheated, and everyone must take a re-take. In this option the student that cheated can get no higher than a 70%.

The general consensus so far is that my plan is too draconian

As a college professor who has had students cheat before (and caught them), I agree, your choices are too draconian. Humiliation, while a good anti-motivator, makes the student (and the rest of your class) feel like you are a cruel dictator who takes pleasure in their pain.

Here's my policy on cheating (specifically plagiarism, since I teach English):

First Time: Fail the assignment with no chance to make up those points. Department head notified, but no other actions taken.

Second Time: Fail class and removed from class. Department head notified, student must repeat class, future instructors aware of previous situation.

Third time (in make up class): Explusion or some other legal or academic action as handled by the Department head.

 

[Jodah]

Being someone who didn't cheat but allowed his friends to cheat off his tests I honestly have no problem with people cheating.

Rather than punishing them for cheating it may behoove you to look at why they cheated. Was the subject matter poorly taught? Is it too difficult? Are there people taking the class because they need to but don't really care about it?

Often times teachers wonder why their students cheat or do poorly. They fail to see the common denominator in the equation.

Also keep in mind that testing peoples knowledge of equations or dates is a poor examination. Rather you should be testing whether they can apply that information. It doesn't matter if you know the equation to figure out the future value of an investment off the top of your head. What matters is if you know where to look for said equation and then how to apply it to the situation.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

And I don't do poorly in class either, it's just the cheaters seem to do better than me.

So that's pretty much all it bottles down to really? You're jealous because the cheaters get more recognition than you do?

Listen, if we're talking university grade physics then the cheaters are only punishing themselves. Physics, along with mathematics, chemistry and biology are subjects you just can't "fake" yourself through your entire life. If you plan to actually work with anything involving these subjects and you faked your way through them because you're just too lazy to do them, then your career will eventually suffer, along with your reputation.

So really, just drop the jealousy. It doesn't matter if these cheaters get undeserved recognition in an academic setting, because it will most likely come back to bite them in the ass "in the real world" (meaning: the world outside the safe little comfortzone we call "the academic world"). And trust me, that pain will be much worse than any classroom humiliation wil ever be.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

I feel that the system we have now is too harsh. Getting expelled from the university basically destroys your dreams, what you have been working all your life to achieve. Simply voiding the character should be enough, I think.

I have to admit that I agree with you.

One thing important to remember here is that not all cheaters are just "lazy assholes who can't be bothered to study".

Some people are driven towards cheating through desperation as well. They might have severe difficulties with a certain subject, but can't afford to pay for tutoring or have any real chance of getting any other kind of special help.

If they're desperate enough to cheat so they can actually get a degree, then their determination alone should show that it's unnecessary to expell someone from the university altogether.

So a certain degree of judge of character should come into the consideration when deciding if someone should be expelled for cheating or not. In the odd chance that it's just a poor student who needs extra help.