Student Cheating

1
Student Cheating

• Understanding the cultural context
• University of Guelph
• May 15, 2002

2
Objectives

• Discuss research data on the state of student
  integrity.
• Discuss what faculty can do to reduce student
  cheating.
• Discuss Academic Integrity Policies Procedures.

3
Institutional Factors That Influence Cheating

• Cheating is campus norm (cheating culture)
• School has no honour code
• Penalties for cheating are not severe
• Faculty understanding/support is low
• Little chance of getting caught
• Cheating higher at larger, less selective schools

4
Honour Codes

• Traditional
• Unproctored exams Pledge
• Student judiciary Non-toleration
• Modified
• Student judiciary Pledge
• Academic integrity a campus-wide priority
• Rehabilitative sanctions

5
Personal Factors That Influence Cheating

• Business/engineering majors
• Future plans involve business
• Men generally self-report more cheating
• Fraternity/sorority members
• Younger students
• Students with lower GPAs

6
Summary Cheating Indicators -Student vs. Faculty
Perspectives

• Students Faculty
• Test Cheating 23 - 45 (23) 29 -
  55 (51)
• Written Cheating 45 - 56 (50) 76 -
  83 (84)
• Serious Cheating 53 - 68 (55) 81
  - 90 (86)
• All Cheating 68 - 83 (73) 85 -
  91 (90)
• Repetitive Test 6 - 17 (6)
  6 - 21 (23)
• Includes Internet cheating.

7
Many U of G students see little cheating

• Guelph has an extremely low incidence of
  cheating.
• Cheating is not a problem on this campus.
• But not all agree
• Cheating has become a social norm amongst
  students

8
Faculty also hold differing views

• I dont think we have a serious cheating
  problem on this campus
• Cheating does seem to be a serious problem, and
  the internet has made cheating on essay
  assignments increasingly easy.

9
Serious CheatingStudents vs. Faculty

• Students
  Faculty
• Copying on exam 78 (84) 95 (96)
• Plagiarism 69 (83) 92 (95)
  
• Collaboration 24 (12) 52 (57)
  
• Failure to footnote 35 (29) 40 (51)
  
• Internet plagiarism 48 (27) 90 (49)
  

10
New technologies are an issue

• Downloading papers from the Internet
• 5 - 10 (2) admit theyve done it and
  one-quarter (20) dont think its serious
  cheating
• Internet plagiarism
• 10 - 20 (41) have cut and pasted material into
  a paper without citing the source and almost half
  (3/4) dont think its serious cheating

11
Internet Quizzes Seem To Be An Issue

• Internet quizzes permit friends to assist in
  answering questions.
• Students assisting each other on the internet
  based tests.
• By far, the most common is cheating on internet
  based tests. They should be taken in private and
  are usually taken in groups.

12
Collaboration

• Collaborative learning has great value, but so
  does teaching students to accept responsibility
  for their own work.
• Many students dont know where to draw the line
  and faculty often provide little guidance.

13
Prevalence of Collaborative Work

• Unpermitted
• 
  Collaboration Help
• Students 44 (44) 48 (26)
• Faculty 23 (55) 43 (46)

14
Most students dont view collaboration as
serious cheating

• Students Faculty
• Collaboration 24 (12) 52 (57)
• Unpermitted Help 38 (18) 71 (61)

15
Collaboration at Guelph

• Collaboration on take-home assignments that are
  supposed to be independent.
• Group collaboration on non-group projects.
• Students copy and collaborate from each other or
  from assignments from previous years and hand it
  in as their own work.

16
Preventing Collaboration

• Reduce the relative importance of assignments
  that lend themselves to collaboration (e.g., busy
  work/repetitive problem sets).
• Minimize individual assignments when course
  thrust is collaborative.
• Clarify your expectations!

17
Objectives

• Discuss research data on the state of student
  integrity.
• Discuss what faculty can do to reduce student
  cheating.

18
Faculty Safeguards

• NC Mod Code
• Change exams 79 82 70 (70)
• Discuss integrity 63 59 55
  (63)
• Info in syllabus 57 61 52
  (60)
• Remind students 48 47 60
  (44)
• Different exams 49 42 28
  (38)
• Discuss detection 27 19 12
  (22)

19
Faculty reactions to cheating

• 55 have reprimanded a student (37)
• 40 have lowered a grade (18)
• 30 referred to authority (30)
• 21 have referred issue to Chair (25)
• 32 have done nothing (NA)

20
Guelph Faculty Issues

• Ensure standards of academic integrity are
  applied even-handedly across everyone (from
  President to student).
• We need a sliding scale of penalties
• The rules are clear. They musty be evenly
  implemented. The fear of legal problems is
  stifling the application of academic misconduct
  rules at the moment.

21
Many Students Seem to Agree

• Cheating policy and prevention at Guelph is a
  joke. A JOKE!! Even if a student is caught
  there is little penalty.
• I have witnessed a great deal of cheating much
  of it known by TAs or faculty and yet I have
  never seen any serious consequences.
• I dont think faculty want to hear about
  cheating because if means more work for them.

22
Students want more guidance

• Guelph needs to be tougher on educating the
  student body on the consequences of cheating
• Teachers leave it up to the students to educate
  themselves on the policies via the undergrad
  calendar it is not in understandable language
• At the beginning of the year someone, be it a TA
  or a prof, should go over all of the plagiarism
  rules...

23

• Academic Integrity 10 Principles
• McCabe Pavela
• December 1997
• Principles of academic integrity for faculty.

24
Faculty Principles

• Affirm the importance of academic integrity.
• Affirm that the pursuit of truth is grounded in
  certain core values, including diligence,
  civility, and honesty.

25
Faculty Principles

• Foster an environment of trust in the
  classroom.
• Most students are mature adults, and value an
  environment free of arbitrary rules and trivial
  assignments, where trust is earned, and given.

26
Faculty Principles

• Clarify expectations for students.
• Faculty must clarify their expectations
  regarding honesty in academic work, including the
  nature and scope of collaboration. Most students
  want such guidance.

27
Faculty Principles

• Reduce opportunities to engage in academic
  dishonesty.
• Students should not be tempted to engage in acts
  of academic dishonesty by ambiguous policies,
  undefined or unrealistic standards for
  collaboration, inadequate classroom management,
  or poor examination security.

28
Faculty Principles

• Challenge academic dishonesty when it
  occurs.
• Faculty who ignore academic dishonesty send the
  message that the core values of academic life are
  not worth any significant effort to enforce.

29
Faculty Principles

• Encourage student responsibility for academic
  integrity.
• Students want to work in communities where
  competition is fair, integrity is respected, and
  cheating is punished.

30
Objectives

• Discuss research data on the state of student
  integrity.
• Discuss what faculty can do to reduce student
  cheating.
• Discuss Academic Integrity Policies Procedures.

31

• Some Good News
• About Academic Integrity
• McCabe Pavela
• Sept./Oct. 2000
• The basic elements of a
• good academic integrity policy.

32
Student Involvement is Critical

• Ask students about the nature and extent of
  campus cheating.
• Give interested students and faculty a voice in
  setting campus policy.
• Help student leaders educate their peers.

33
Addressing Alleged Violations

• Develop fair, prompt and efficient due process
  procedures.
• Allow students to play a major role in the
  resolution of contested cases.
• Enforce significant sanctions, keyed to an
  academic integrity seminar.

34
Other Points

• Give student leaders support and guidance.
• Keep faculty/senior administrators informed.
• Encourage presidential leadership.
• Evaluate and benchmark.

35
Fundamental Values Project

• Center for Academic Integrity