Academic Misconduct at Yale

Last year, 29% of Yale students admitted to cheating. Plus, some crazy talk on cheating and profit.

Issue 104

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Yale Battles with Academic Dishonesty, Part I

There are two bits of news regarding academic misconduct at Ivy blue blood Yale University.

The first is that - and I cannot believe I missed this when it came out - back in April of last year, the school’s student paper, Yale Daily News, released the results of a survey on academic integrity:

the News conducted a survey on academic dishonesty at Yale, which was completed by 336 Yale undergraduates. Of that number, 96 students, or 28.57 percent of respondents, reported committing academic dishonesty during their time at Yale. Around half of those 96 students said they committed their first act of academic dishonesty during remote learning.

The paper says it conducted a similar, larger survey in 2019 which showed that 14% of Yale students admitted to misconduct.

In other words:

• Cheating frequency at Yale doubled between 2019 and 2021.

• With the reminder that self-report rates of misconduct tend to be lower than the actual incidents, 29% of Yale students said they cheated.

• More evidence showing remote learning linked to cheating.

Just the 14% from the 2019 survey works out to be more than 1,700 students, based on Yale’s enrollment. The Yale Daily News says that in 2019, the school’s infractions committee handled 30 cases of academic misconduct. Thirty.

The article quotes the Chair of the English Department at Yale,

I’m glad to say I haven’t encountered academic dishonesty among my students in English

None.

The 2021 survey did find that rates of acknowledged misconduct were lower than average in “humanities and the arts,” where 20% admitted to cheating. That your Department Chair hasn’t “encountered academic dishonesty” probably does not convey the message she intended.

And, by the way, a whopping 52.58% of Yale students admitted to cheating in “science” classes, according to the newer 2021 survey.

Finally, an anonymous Yale student is quoted as saying that he found class so “impossibly difficult” that he,

felt like it was very ethical to cheat.

That’s an idea that a Yale philosophy professor called,

self-interest disguising as a moral argument.

Continuing, the professor said,

“In the previous four years,” [the professor] said, “there were insane amounts of depression because of Trump being the president. … So shall we say, okay, so cheating for the last four years was fine. Climate change has been a problem that we’ve been increasingly aware of for the last 10 or 15 years. So shouldn’t we say that cheating was perfectly fine for the last 10 or 15? There’s always stuff.”

There is always stuff.

But - and I am sorry to repeat this - 29% of students admitted to cheating. At Yale.

Yale Battles with Academic Dishonesty, Part II

More recently, the Yale Daily News ran a story on the Yale University faculty Senate discussing academic integrity.

It begins with the links, once again, between online learning and cheating, a view shared by faculty and repeated frequently. The story says the faculty were reminded about:

a proliferation of online repositories with solution guides or walkthroughs for class assignments. 

To mitigate cheating, faculty were advised to hold in-person exams when possible.

That’s all fine.

But it’s the quotes from a Yale student, one of the school’s “academic policy directors,” that made my head spin. According to the news story, the student said:

concerns around academic integrity [are] “valid” given the continued use of virtual and hybrid learning.

But -

she also advocated for greater compassion for student well-being, noting that many still face pandemic-related burdens on physical and emotional health. 

Her quote,

When discussing integrity strategies, I would urge these groups to keep student ease and mental health in mind

Continuing,

It’s about finding a balance between ensuring that students are comprehending material/doing their own work, and that student well-being isn’t being sacrificed for grades or academic rules.

So, concern for cheating is “valid” but keep student “ease” in mind and don’t “sacrifice” student well-being for “academic rules.” There should be “a balance” between students actually understanding the material and doing their own work and “well-being.”

Gonna be hard to beat that gem for the academic integrity quote of the year.

So, I have to ask, when a course is difficult or when the learning environment is stressful, exactly how much cheating should be allowed? How much learning and integrity should Yale give up in this balance?

Crazy Talk On Misconduct Claims and Profit Motives

Todd Johnson, a Republican State Senator in North Carolina, is the name on the byline above a recent opinion piece in Inside Sources - an article which implies that the surge in academic misconduct may be fake or inflated for the benefit of companies that aim to stop it.

Note: - I have no idea what it means but when this article first appeared, it had two names on the byline, Johnson and someone named Ray Walker. I don’t know who Walker is since he had neither a photo nor a bio on the Inside Sources pages. Walker’s name has since disappeared. It’s odd.

The story opens with:

As students gear up for midterms, we can expect to hear the continued narrative about the student cheating “crisis” and the need to protect academic integrity. While cheating certainly happens and should be addressed, it’s important to recognize that some organizations who are raising the alarm about “systemic” cheating are the same people who stand to benefit financially from efforts to crack down on this issue.

Wow. You know what they say about The Nile.

As evidence, the article points to the outstanding podcast “The Score,” which has interviewed scholars and professors and experts on academic integrity, including me. The piece says:

you may be surprised to learn that this podcast is underwritten in part by Meazure Learning — formed by ProctorU and Yardstick Assessment Strategies, which both sell products aimed at addressing student cheating.

I don’t know how you could be surprised since that information is literally announced on every episode.

But the real vitriol in the piece is aimed at the conservative-leaning American Consumer Institute Center for Citizen Research (ACI), which recently launched an “Academic Integrity Project” (see Issue 65). Most of the piece is aimed at ACI, which is odd since, as far as I know, they don’t sell anything at all, let alone tools that deter cheating. So I cannot imagine how their work to raise awareness of cheating is driven by profit.

Anyway, the real motives of the article are pretty clear when whomever wrote it says, in relation to “freedom,”

Apparently this freedom does not apply to students who choose to use online educational resources like Course Hero, Chegg, or Quizlet

Completely absent any sense of irony, the good Senator named the three largest profiteers of industrial-scale cheating - companies making billions of dollars by helping students cheat. No mention of their profit motives. Here, cheating companies are “educational resources” and using them is freedom and choice.

It’s Orwellian.

But since we’re speaking of profit motives, it’s pretty easy to see that this article is really an ad for cheating companies. And they really don’t like people discussing cheating.

Here’s more evidence. Later in the piece, the author writes:

Students are reporting that, over the course of the pandemic, tutoring services and academic resources were scaled back. As a result, many have to turn to online supplemental educational resources to help them understand complex issues — particularly non-traditional students like those who work full time, or students with children who can’t make office hours to access help. Yet these are the exact resources that organizations like ACI are trying to go after in the name of academic integrity.

Again, it’s the “online supplemental educational resources” - Chegg, Course Hero and Quizlet - that are helping students and are the victims of a campaign against them, “in the name of academic integrity.”

I am sure we can all sleep better knowing that the billion dollar companies that sell cheating and credential theft have a true champion in Senator Johnson.

For those who actually care about academic integrity, the message here is that cheating companies feel threatened by efforts to talk about cheating. They are hitting back.

I leave you with this, from the Inside Sources piece:

I hope educators will not be fooled into embracing the narrative being spread by corporations that stand to gain financially from this “crisis,” particularly if the end result is taking resources away from students and making it harder for them to achieve.

Translation: don’t let the idea of cheating trick you into taking action against those who sell it.

Message received.

Honolock to Host Webinar on Assessment

Proctoring provider Honorlock will host a webinar on creating “authentic online assessments.”

The event is with folks from the University of Florida and the details are:

How to Create Authentic Online Assessments that Promote Academic Integrity

Webinar: March 31 @ 2 PM ET

Details and registration are here.