Cheating Cases Double at Canadian Institutions

Plus, a new tool to combat unauthorized collaboration during exams. Plus, two student views on cheating.

Issue 13, March 18, 2021

Cheating Cases More than Double at Canadian Institutions

Recent reporting out of Canada repeats the familiar pattern, an unprecedented surge in cheating at three different schools - Thompson Rivers University, University of Regina and the University of Saskatchewan. The articles are here and here.

There’s no indication that cheating is more common in Canada. The difference is that Canadian schools share their information on misconduct and discuss the challenges openly, which helps create a culture of honesty. Unfortunately, most American schools do not.

At Thompson Rivers, the increase in cheating was characterized as “an explosion” and 80 students have been recommended for suspension. But the numbers are up significantly at all three schools.

Thompson Rivers:

Last school year saw double the number of cases from the previous year, including; 514 incidents of plagiarism, 342 incidents of cheating, five incidents of fabrication and 347 incidents of academic misconduct for a total of 1,208 cases, recorded from Sept. 1, 2019 to Aug. 31, 2020. The previous school year saw only 579 cases, according to the report.

Further from Thompson Rivers:

A majority of the incidents occurred at the first and second-year level, with 424 cases reported at the 1000 course level (first-year courses) and 354 reported at the 2000 level (second-year courses).

The Office of Student Affairs also reported “there has also been an unprecedented number of students incurring multiple infractions.”

A majority of the infractions (673) were conducted by a student once, but in 158 instances, infractions were conducted by a student multiple times, according to the report. 

Credit: Thompson Rivers University

At Saskatchewan:

during the Winter 2020 semester the school saw the amount of cases almost double.

During that period, there were 91 allegations made compared to 48 the year prior. 82 students were found guilty compared to 45 in the previous year.

At Regina:

the University of Regina said academic misconduct has not been a widespread problem historically, but since moving online, several faculties have identified an increase in academic misconduct investigations.

Joe Piwowar, the associate dean of the Faculty of Arts, at Regina said,

“We’re very concerned. I think one of the things that we want to make sure is that our degrees, certificates and diplomas have value,” he said. “We are vigorously following up on all the allegations we receive and tracking them down."

Student: A Focus on Academic Integrity is “Unfair”

A student at Memorial University of Newfoundland interviewed the school’s Provost for the college’s newspaper (March 9). The interview and article touched on cheating, specifically a February news report about misconduct at the university, which the student referred to as “the recent cheating scandal.”

Setting up the topic and the February article, the student writes,

[the February] article was met with predominantly negative feelings from students, who thought that the university’s focus on academic integrity rather than supporting students and faculty is unfair.

She continued,

I questioned why the university would participate in an anti-cheating article when I (and other students like myself) thought there were much larger issues this year. In mentioning these complaints, I cited a lack of easily accessible academic support and the availability of sites like Chegg, which can permit students to find entire exams online, thus increasing the temptation to cheat.

She also asked about

lack of support for professors, who may not have incentive or resources to create new exams or new ways to force students not to cheat

Note, “force students not to cheat.” In other words, it’s the school’s responsibility to make teachers make the students stop cheating. If they don’t, if students still cheat, you can’t blame the students.

If you follow the research on cheating, this responsibility-shifting is incredibly common.

For more on this, consider viewing the presentation, “The Age of Whataboutism: Addressing Undergraduate Justifications for Academic Misconduct” by Dr. Douglas Jones of Binghamton University, presented at the 2021 International Center for Academic Integrity conference. YouTube of it is here.

Or review Dyer, Pettyjohn, Saladin paper from May, 2020 which says,

Results of this study found that students are insistent that the responsibility for mitigating the opportunity for cheating be placed on the institution and the instructor. It is imperative that faculty, staff, and administrators understand that the perceived responsibility of an institution is that unless cheating is being prevented and discussed, the institution is essentially tacitly encouraging it.

Stopping Shadow Chatting During Online Exams

A group of biomedical engineering professors at Rensselaer Polytech (RPI) (NY) released a tool this month they say will help curb unauthorized collaboration during online exams.

In an interview, lead researcher and graduate student Mengzhou Li described the solution, “distanced online testing,” as a system that groups students into cohorts by achievement level and staggers exam questions among the cohorts in a sequence that makes cross-cohort collaboration impossible. With it, an average student could not possibly get test answers from a high performing one.

As explained, the system has three serious advantages. One, it allows cheating to be curtailed in an exam in which all students take the test simultaneously. These test formats are notoriously easy to hack through digital collaboration and chat tools but are nonetheless far more secure than staggered-start exams in which entire exams often leak to online “services” in minutes.

Second, the RPI solution works with a test bank of just 150% of the proscribed questions - 30 banked questions for a 20-question test, for example. That’s considerably fewer than other, randomized solutions.

Three, unlike random question distributions, the Li/RPI approach does not limit cross cohort collaboration, it makes it mathematically impossible.

Significantly, when RPI tested their solution, they essentially verified that students were cheating in the exams before the tool was used and were not cheating (or were cheating less) when it was in use.

Two caveats: the RPI tool does not stop or deter intra-cohort sharing, which is likely more common than cross-cohort misconduct. Further, the measured drop in performance/cheating when using “distanced online testing” may be compromised as the professors explained the system and technique with students in advance, making it impossible to discern causation - whether the impact was due to deterrence, culture (discussing cheating reduces it), or the new test method.

Even so, student collaboration with chat apps or on group social media platforms is a growing academic integrity challenge. Any approach that can address it is welcome.

Mizzou Student: “Cheating as Part of Their Lifestyle”

A student at the University of Missouri has a column in her student newspaper (March 15) on the rise of cheating during online learning. It’s worth a quick read.

She writes,

Students soon found cheating as part of their lifestyle

And

Cheating has come to the point where students no longer care about learning material, but more about getting assignments done and receiving an A. With easy access to online resources, students have loopholes to find answers online or cheat on a test.

Businesses that offer homework and tutoring services, such as Chegg and Course Hero, have turned cheating on online tests into a business model. 

In the next “The Cheat Sheet,” a look at 60 days of cheating. Plus, cheating reports at Duke University and others.

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