Cheating in class
Last week I had a conversation with a young professor, he was angry about students who cheated in his class. He showed me a study that showed over 40% college students admitted to cheat on exams. He said: “The number is high enough that demand stronger action from us and we should dismiss them all.”
I told him: “This is not new; cheating is as old as the education system itself. Students who cheat will continue to cheat until they got caught. If there is 40% who cheat then it also means 60% of students are not cheating too. We often spend too much energy on monitoring, preventing and punishing students who cheated, but not much on encourage integrity and learning in the classroom. There are lots of negative things in the classroom already but I prefer to focus on the positive side with good students who are serious about learning.”
He did not agree: “That is weak, without stronger action and disciplines, education will become a big cheating game.”
I explained: “My view is different. I do not see cheating is a student issue but a teaching and learning issue. Cheating happens because students have the chance and the motivation to do it. The motivation is about passing exam or getting good grade but if cheating does not benefit them, it would not happen. To prevent cheatings, I change my exams and homework assignments from year to year so students cannot cheat by using last year exams. I do not give them a chance to cheat during exam by walk around classroom to limit any temptations for cheating.”
He said: “It may prevent some cheatings but if you do not pay attention students will still cheat.”
I said: “I do not like to threaten them but explain my expectations and rules for my class. I told them that they come to my class to learn so if they use any reference materials, they should clearly explain the sources where they get them. As long as they wrote that the paragraph come from the internet or some websites, it means they are using quotation from some authors and that is not cheating. In that case they have to read, they have to learn from somebody to complete their homework. I prefer to use class discussion to determine whether students really know the materials or not rather than grade them on individual homeworks. I ask them to explain to the class on what they have learned, even they learned from somebody on the internet or websites then grade them on their understanding. I clearly let them know which behaviors are cheating and which are not.”
He said: “That is not effective, you cannot ask the whole class to do that, you have limited time.”
I explained: “For years professors have threatened students with “Don't cheat or you will be dismissed” but it did not work. Students who cheat know the consequences and they still cheat anyway. The reason that students cheat because they are afraid of failing or getting lower grade. The reason they come to class is to learn so I expect them to learn from their mistakes too. Each student learn differently so rather than give them hard punishment, I give them a second chance by asking them to go home and learn it again then come back to explain to the class of what have they learned. I told them that I value integrity standards (honesty, respect, responsibility, fairness and trustworthiness) rather than monitoring and control them. I treat them as responsible adults and most of them often act that way. If you treat them fairly they will act fairly and if you treat them badly then they will act badly too. I do not use exam as a measurements for how good they are but use the way they apply knowledge in solving problems. I encourage teamwork, let them discuss among themselves and facilitate learning. Since I have test every week, I keep all of them busy and if they fail a test, they have to do it again until they have it all corrects. If they do not know the answer in a test, they can mark it that they need time to learn then I let them go home to learn it again. Of course they will only have half of the point as compare with other who do well the first time. My view is what they learn is more important than what they get in a test. Since students know that they have second chance, they do not cheat as there is no reason to do so.
The key to stop cheating is to design courses that promote learning rather than to pass or fail students. In fact, cheating is a symptom of fear and if there are fears in classroom, there is no learning. By eliminate the fear factors, students will learn more.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
