Research: Cheating More Likely in Large Groups

Plus, more national coverage of college cheating. Plus, chess and cops. Plus, academic integrity is number one barrier to teaching STEM online.

Issue 17

Cheating is More Likely in Large Groups

Researchers from three topline business schools (HEC Montreal, Kellogg School at Northwestern University and Harvard Business School, with lead author Celia Chui), recently published research showing that the larger the group, the more cheating is expected.

The findings have direct application for Deans and other college administrators regarding class sizes, especially in online sections where misconduct is already more likely.

The authors say that, across four studies:

Our findings reveal a serial mediation pathway whereby having a larger number of competitors increases expectations of the absolute number of cheaters in the competition group, which heightens perceptions that cheating is an acceptable social norm, which leads to more cheating. 

The study did not examine academics directly, but competition for reward generally. Nonetheless, the results may focus needed attention on course structure, and not pedagogy and assessment alone, as a factor in academic integrity.

Number One Barrier to Teaching STEM Online: Ensuring Academic Integrity

Bay View Analytics (formerly Babson Survey Research Group) and a host of partners and sponsors such as the National Survey on the State of Online STEM Education (NSSOSE), recently released a report, “Teaching Online: STEM Education in the Time of COVID.”

The report is built on a survey and found that the “inability to ensure academic integrity” was the most commonly cited “barrier” to teaching STEM subjects online. Fifty-two percent of nearly 900 faculty members surveyed tabbed integrity as a barrier.

Only one issue (academic integrity) was selected by a majority of the respondents.

The second-most cited barrier was “students not sufficiently motivated,” with 48% of teachers in agreement.

Significantly, when asked to name the “most serious” barrier to teaching STEM online, academic intergrity was still highly ranked. Seventeen percent of faculty named lack of integrity controls as the top impediment, second only to student motivation at 24%.

Fox Business Covers Cheating

Following a week of national media attention that included the Today Show and CNBC, Fox Business ran a story (March 28), titled, “Virtual learning leading students to cheat more often.”

Naturally, the story cites common cheating pathways such as Chegg but also “Slader and Course Hero, as well as ‘essay mill’ sites like Grademiners and 99Papers.” The coverage continues:

Jeffery Bettag, a senior at the University of Notre Dame, told Fox News that Chegg and similar websites are frequented by students in beginner or intermediate classes because the exams they are taking may include questions that are more generic than those on exams for higher-level classes.

And continues:

Bettag doesn't think the honor codes do much to help.

“Do I think that really changes anything? No, I don’t,” he said, adding that almost all professors include some kind of honor-code reminder on virtual exams, but he wouldn’t be surprised if students ignore it.

The article says students think online classes are “a joke” and cites cheating incidents at:

… Boston University, Princeton University, University of North Carolina Greensboro, University of Minnesota, Texas A&M, UPenn, Georgia Tech and others have grappled with students using Chegg and similar websites to cheat as they take part in virtual classes.

Military academies including the U.S. Air Force Academy and West Point have also addressed cheating scandals amid virtual learning.

Those are a few of them. As documented here, that list is many times larger.

But again, the news here is the news. Academic misconduct, as frequent and damaging as it is, does not usually get much attention in the United States.

Cheating Cops and Cheating Chess

In Connecticut, a former Police Chief has asked a judge not to send him to prison over charges related to his cheating on a police chief’s test then lying about it.

Meanwhile, Georgia has offered to rehire and pay a settlement to many of the 32 state troopers who were fired after being accused of cheating on a professional exam. The officers said they thought they were allowed to collaborate on their test answers.

Also this week, 20 players in the woman’s FIDE World University Online Chess Championships were disqualified after computer analysis flagged their play as suspicious. Among the bounced was the 23-year old Ukrainian Iulija Osmak, who was stripped of her title as World Champion.

International chess rules do not require a governing body to provide any evidence related to what raised suspicions. That’s because when players know what the computers are checking, they don’t stop cheating, they just change how they cheat to try to fool the integrity systems.

As I wrote in September 2020, that approach is an idea with merit and application to higher education, based on some compelling research.

In the next “The Cheat Sheet” - a new tool to catch collusion on online exams may be a breakthrough. Plus, more cheating coverage and, you guessed it, more cheating. Don’t miss it.