Cheating Up 100%+ at Some New Zealand Schools

Plus, Parody at University of Wisconsin. Or is it? Plus, Cheating at a NYC High School.

Issue 56

New Zealand Reports Major Increase in Cheating

According to news reports, cheating reports at New Zealand universities are up significantly over 2019 - a whopping 258% at one school.

The reporting says:

University of Canterbury had a 258 percent increase in academic misconduct in 2020 compared to 2019. Lincoln University had a 104 percent increase, Waikato University had a 61 percent increase, Victoria University had a 21 percent increase and Massey - 10 percent.

The papers say that, overall, five of the country’s eight universities saw a jump in reported cheating. As you may suspect, I’m skeptical that the other three didn’t see more cheating. It’s more likely that they weren’t as diligent in detecting or reporting incidents.

And it’s not just me. The news report cited above says:

Lecturers say the issue is far worse than figures show, as lockdowns disrupt valuable face to face teaching.

It quotes Dr. Myra Williamson, a lecturer at the University of Waikato who said she was shocked how “simple it was to cheat” adding,

It was such a rush to the online space for obvious reasons, we had to go and do all of our assessment online, but we haven't really put in place the infrastructure, if you like, the learning infrastructure to be able to maintain academic integrity in that space.

Williamson described the numbers in New Zealand as “the tip of the iceberg.”

The reporting also quoted an unnamed professor at Massey University, who said his students were cheating on “an online file sharing service” and said,

You pay a monthly fee. You actually submit the specific question that you want the answer to and then the contractor in India writes the answer for you immediately, like within 15 minutes of the question, and the answer is being posted publicly for all the other members of the website to see. So not just a student who posted the question, any other student in the class who looks for it.

Boy, I wonder which “service” he could be describing there. Cough - Chegg. It’s Chegg. He’s describing Chegg.

University of Wisconsin Paper Offers Light Take on Cheating. Or Is It?

The University of Wisconsin student paper, the Badger Herald, has a funny, tongue-in-cheek rant on cheating, from an editor there.

It’s clearly sarcasm or, likely more accurately, hyperbole. Maybe.

It says:

This year is going to require a whole different type of work — school work.

Don’t act so surprised, literally everyone cheated last year. And if you were one of the six total people on campus who cared about “academic honesty,” congratulations! You got f[word] by the curve and now your parents hate you.

The author used the actual word, for the record.

And:

The days of foolish professors trusting their students and deciding not to use Honorlock are over.

They say all good humor is based in truth. And, you know how sometimes parody can be a little too accurate? Yea, this is that.

Another Story on Cheating in the U.K.

I don’t know the outlet, Metro U.K., but it has an interesting story on cheating, saying students have been more tempted while taking courses and exams at home. It’s a story we’ve heard before.

The story is nonetheless interesting because it quotes a student who cheated by paying a service for exam answers, a lawyer (barrister) who represents students accused of cheating as well as academic integrity researcher Thomas Lancaster of Imperial College London.

The student says, while taking an exam at home, she used Google to search a question and,

The question had already been answered on this website, so I clicked on it, saw the answer and copied it.

Yup.

The barrister told the paper that cheating during the pandemic became “normalised,” adding,

It is rife

And,

I was training student union advisers this morning and they all said they had seen a massive increase in cases of academic misconduct, particularly collusion.

Again, pretty common story.

Report: Queens (NYC) High School Leaders Made Up Classes, Gave Answers to State Assessments

In June, investigators with New York City schools issued a report on conduct at Maspeth High School in Queens, New York City. The allegations and findings of misconduct by the principal and other teachers and administrators are numerous and shocking.

For example, school leaders are accused of making up courses so students with discipline or attendance issues could graduate early. One witness told investigators that the principal instructed teachers to pass students and issue a diploma even if it was, “not worth the paper it was printed on.”

But among the findings is that teachers also gave students answers to the state’s Regents Exams, which are statewide assessments. According to the findings, school leaders would request special assistance for some students, allowing for test sessions in which questions and possible answers could be read aloud. During these assessment sessions, the report says, teachers only read the correct answers or changed their tone of voice to indicate the right choices.

The back-and-forth text messages between the school principal and a teacher over whether it is actually helping students to give them test answers is quite something. That’s on page 26/27 of the report.

I’m including this in “The Cheat Sheet” because it’s not always students who abuse academic integrity. Teachers do too, which somehow feels worse.

In the next, “The Cheat Sheet” - I’ll get to that example of essay mill advertising. Plus, I will also, or at least I plan to, get to more on that Chegg/Pearson law suit. I’ve now spoken to a couple of lawyers on it and I’ll share what they say. Plus, a Florida TV station reports on the ease of cheating. Plus, more.

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