79% of Students at Elite NYC High School Admit to "Academic Dishonesty"
79% of Students at Elite NYC High School Admit to "Academic Dishonesty"
Plus, parents in Egypt are arrested for assaulting a test proctor. Plus, maybe the quote of the year.
Issue 93
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Elite NYC High School: 79% Engaged in Academic Misconduct
If you don’t know it, Stuyvesant High School is an elite public high school in New York City. Many consider it among the best public schools in the country.
According to a survey of Stuyvesant seniors last year, a remarkable 79.1% of them said they’d engaged in “academic dishonesty” at least once over their time in high school.
Here’s how it broke down:
20.9% Never
45.8% Once or a few times
20.9% Semi-often
12.4% Regularly
Those are big numbers. One-third either “semi-often” or “regularly.”
What’s interesting about the survey is that the school asked these same 2021 seniors the same questions when they arrived four years ago, as freshmen. Then, as freshmen, these same students said:
40% Never
40.3% Once or a few times
14.1% Semi-often
5.6% Regularly
You can probably spot the trend.
Quoting the school paper, which published the results:
Over the course of four years at Stuyvesant, the class of 2021’s perception of academic honesty changed dramatically. While 40 percent of the class of 2021 in middle school never partook in some form of academic dishonesty in middle school, the number drastically decreased to 12.6 percent in high school where 79.1 percent of the class of 2021 have partaken in academic dishonesty at least once.
Why the shift? The paper’s writers speculated:
the greater accessibility to online resources when taking exams online this year during remote learning may have contributed
Maybe.
It’s also worth noting that when asked whether academic dishonesty can or cannot “be justified,” the seniors said - by a 37% to 27% margin - that it could be justified.
Again, this is an elite school where, according to the same survey, about half (46.9%) of the seniors said they would be attending “Ivy League or elite universities.”
And I also find it noteworthy that the survey asked about “dishonesty” - which is heavy, blame-laden phrasing. Even with that, and knowing what we know about self-reporting being under-counted, 79% said they committed “academic dishonesty.” It is a whopping number.
Iowa State University and Cheating
The student paper at Iowa State University ran a story recently on academic integrity.
It’s noteworthy for three reasons, in my view.
One is the absolute groaner of a grammar error in the headline. I mean, come on.
The second is that the article mentions Chegg in the very first sentence:
As students take most of their exams and assignments online, little stands between them and a few google searches or a Chegg answer key.
And finally, the story has the early front-runner for the academic integrity quote of the year. It’s only February and competition will be intense. But this, from “a junior majoring in English education” is gold:
“I think within in-person classes it's a lot easier just because you have to meet with the teacher and stuff, which is nice,” [the student] said. “Whereas with online classes and things, there the only person holding you accountable is you and I don't always trust me.”
Pure gold.
CEO of StuDocu Makes a Podcast Appearance
Marnix Broer, the co-founder and CEO of StuDocu, was a recent guest on “The Ed Up Experience,” a fun and resourceful podcast on higher education. They had me on as a guest a few weeks ago.
The Broer segment is relevant because his company - StuDocu - is a major cheating provider (see Issue 61).
How major? On the podcast, he said StuDocu now has 26 million student users every month. Twenty-six million. A month. They have more than 70 employees. Seventy.
Serious kudos to podcast host Joe Sallustio for asking Broer about cheating on his site, which he does about 12:40 into the interview, if you want to skip to it. The question is much too forgiving, in my view. Nonetheless, Broer replies in part,
I do get their concerns, though. No one wants their students to cheat, right? And I’m not saying that cheating is right and I also don’t say that cheating is being done on StuDocu or other platforms.
I do. I say that. Cheating is being done on StuDocu and other platforms.
He continued,
But, of course, people do help each other. And it’s more the question ‘what is the definition of cheating.’ I think cheating is really, I don’t know
Long pause.
A seriously long pause - go listen.
After fumbling it, he says cheating is …
ah, falsifying your tests - but practicing more than you did before, I think that’s only great.
Because millions of students are using his company to practice.
He goes on to say that his service helps people understand instead of memorize. And how “old fashioned” colleges aren’t teaching people how to learn in a world of technology, where information is everywhere.
Broer misses, naturally, that those cheating excuses are contradictory. Either paying for answers helps you learn the material or there’s no point in learning the material because, in your job in today’s technology-land, you can always get someone else to just tell you the answer.
Police in Egypt Arrest Parents for Assaulting Test Proctor
In Egypt, local press says that six parents have been arrested for assaulting a teacher who was giving a test. She was, according to police, not allowing the students to cheat.
There’s video.
And, I almost forgot, middle school.
According to the article:
six parents [were] involved in the incident of detaining and assaulting a female teacher in Daqahlia who prevented students from cheating in the mid-year exams for the middle school certificate.
The teacher is quoted in the paper saying,
I was eager to implement the instructions of Education Ministry to prevent cheating and achieve discipline in the committee.
I withdrew the mobiles from the students, and despite being exposed to many threats from the students and parents, I did not give up my principles to achieve equal opportunities for all students within the committee.