Research: Compared to What Cheating Really Costs, Prevention is Cheap
Plus, cheating at Quinnipiac University and University of British Columbia. Plus, Franklin College says it's "comfortable" with anti-cheating efforts, despite an 850% increase in reported violations.
The Risks of a “Culture of Cheating”
During his presentation at the International Center for Academic Integrity (ICAI) on March 3, Dr. Jean Guerrero-Gib, Director of the Center for Ethics and Integrity at Universidad de Monterrey (MEX), shared the risks and benefits of colleges and universities establishing a “culture of academic integrity.” YouTube of his presentation is here.
That culture includes establishing institutions, procedures and policies that reduce both the incentive and opportunity to cheat. The first reason to create an integrity culture was “to avoid media scandals” around cheatings incidents. Dr. Guerrero-Gib said,
It is just a matter of time [before you] become the focus of attention of some media, to find a case that will provoke some sort of scandal.
He asked, bluntly,
How much does your brand cost? How much do you lose in terms of prestige when a scandal hits you? Does it affect your enrollment?
The presentation also included related research showing
Every dollar invested in compliance programs at the university saves $5 from potential lawsuits, loss of reputation and productivity.
At the heart of the Guerrero-Gib research is analysis and research connecting academic conduct and integrity to professional, cultural and government conduct, “linking cheating in school and corruption” at the national level. “There is a strong relationship between self-reported academic cheating on exams and the country level of the corruption perception index,” Dr. Guerrero-Gib shared.
Cheating Forces Students in Vancouver to Retake Their Exams
Local news in Vancouver has the story (March 3) of students at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Sauder School of Business who will have to retake exams because of cheating. The article says
An e-mail from a senior associate dean to students in the Managerial Accounting course says potential violations of academic integrity range from “collaboration between and among students” to “the use of online resources such as Chegg.com.”
Some students believed, according to the article, that an “open book” test meant they could discuss the test with classmates and pay sites such as Chegg for answers. So, the school called a do-over, even for students who did not cheat.
As is often the case, cheating doesn’t hurt cheaters; it hurts the students who did not cheat. Moreover, “open book” assessments don’t necessarily limit cheating.
Cheating at Quinnipiac University, Franklin College
According to an article from the Quinnipiac University paper, (March 2), “Academic dishonesty at Quinnipiac is on the rise amid online learning.”
The increases date from 2017, the article says, because that year reporting academic misconduct became mandatory and then Covid-19 forced instruction online.
The Office of Academic Integrity disclosed … that many cases reported at Quinnipiac involved the use of online resources such as Chegg and Course Hero.
The article also reported
there have been over 17,000 documents — including study guides, assignments, essays and lab reports — uploaded to Course Hero from Quinnipiac.
Nonetheless, the article reports that some professors are using anti-cheating tactics such as honor codes and creating different iterations of assessments. Still, one department chair said,
The number of Academic Integrity violations decreased substantially when we started using [a remote exam proctoring company]
At Franklin College (IN), it’s a similar story, only worse. A local report (March 6) says cheating is, “on the rise with virtual instruction options.” It says,
Kristin Flora oversees everything academic at Franklin, from the curriculum to off-campus internships. In the fall semester of the 2019-2020 school year, four cases of academic dishonesty came across her desk, compared to 34 this past fall semester.
That’s bad. But the situation is actually worse than that because, despite the eight-fold increase in academic dishonesty cases, the school said it was not planning more cheating deterrence measures.
“I feel comfortable with the two pieces of software we use,” Flora said.
The article also quotes Benjamin O'Neal, professor of biology, as using a “hands-off approach” to cheating, saying he “relied more heavily on students' integrity.”
"It would be poor stewardship of my bandwidth as an instructor if I spent all my time policing student integrity," O'Neal said. "I would rather focus on helping the 98% of students who are invested, than trying to police the two percent who are in the business of cutting corners."
Research shows that number isn’t likely 2%, but closer to 25%. And knowing that a professor isn’t doing anything to preserve or protect integrity is, research also shows, likely to increase cheating.
With an 850% increase in reported cheating, relying on student integrity alone may not be entirely working.
In the next “The Cheat Sheet,” VICE tries to show how students are cheating their way around some remote proctoring solutions. What they really found is something quite different. Plus, more cheating. Subscribe for free: