Research: External Responsibility Mindset Leads to Cheating

Plus, Chegg stock rocked. Plus, Fast Company keeps bad company.

Issue 115

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New Research: External Responsibility Mindset is Pathway to Cheating

A new paper from Guy J. Curtis of University of Western Australia, Helen M. Correia of Murdoch University and Melissa C. Davis of Edith Cowan University - all three in Australia - adds insight to the enduring question of why students cheat and what may be done about it.

Ample existing research supports the connection between the “dark triad” of personality traits - Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy - and misconduct (see Issue 64). But this research examines whether a middle condition of “academic entitlement” is necessary or explanative.

Relying on the work of others, the paper defines academic entitlement as:

the phenomenon of students holding implicit or explicit expectations that they deserve additional or special treatment in the educational context beyond that typically given to other students or warranted by their academic performance. Entitled students may hold a range of self-serving non-normative beliefs; for example, that their minimal effort should be rewarded with above average grades, that instructors should be at their immediate beck and call and that everyday problems should be given special consideration by their assignment markers in determining their grades.

The paper further breaks this entitlement into “entitled expectations” and “externalized responsibilities” where the former is related to how students think teachers should behave and the latter is about who they believe is responsible for their learning outcomes.

That’s important because, cutting to the chase, this new paper found that “entitled expectations” was not a middle conduit between the dark triad and cheating but that “externalized responsibilities” was. In other words, the authors offer, believing that the instructor is responsible for student learning - instead of the student themselves - is a key pathway from dark triad to actual cheating.

Noteworthy, the research team also reported that:

Consistent with previous research, we found significant positive relationship between the dark triad traits and students’ self-reported academic misconduct.

They also found correlation between academic entitlement in general and academic misconduct - a finding supported by other studies.

But the contribution of the correlation between an externalized responsibility for learning and cheating is significant because, the authors say:

Our findings suggest that educators and institutions should communicate to students their personal responsibility for their academic success, as this may help to break the link [between triad and cheating]

That sounds like good advice.

And if I may, I’ll underscore the idea from this research that how students think teachers should behave was not a cheating pathway from the dark triad. In other words, it’s not “being a bad teacher” that may move students to misconduct, even though that’s a very common rationalization.

A final note, just for the record, the sample was heavily female - 310 to 73. Given that we’ve seen a gender difference in who is most likely to cheat, I’m not sure if such an imbalance was a factor. The authors, as far as I could tell, did not mention it.

Anyway, it’s a relatively short paper and well worth adding to the conversation. There’s also a decent summary here, if that’s easier.

Cheating Accountants Let Off the Hook

Remember the cheating scandal in Australia last September wherein more than 1,100 accountants, including 250 auditors and 18 partners, were caught cheating on certification and compliance exams?

If not, Issue 57 can catch you up.

News comes now that Australia’s regulator has decided that just 12 of them:

will be put through the professional body’s individual disciplinary process

That’s out of 422. I’m not sure where the other 700 went. But, in any event, 12 is pretty weak. The headline from the news clip above is tough to beat:

In KPMG Australia Cheating Scandal, Apparently Cheaters *Do* Win

Fast Company, Bad Company

Fast Company ran an article this week about cheating company Course Hero which is one of the biggest, craziest, least informed puff pieces you’re ever going to see.

It’s sort of about Course Hero’s effort to buy course materials from professors - items they can then sell to students. All the cheating companies are doing it now, probably in an attempt to sidestep costly and existential copyright challenges (see Issue 62) or just to be able to claim legitimacy because they work with professors (see Issue 44 or Issue 99).

The article says how bad it is that adjunct professors are paid so poorly, which it is. And how - thank goodness! - along comes this amazing company that’s figured out a way to get them money, by selling their intellectual property to a cheating company.

No, in all seriousness, Fast Company really thinks this is amazing:

But, on Course Hero, long a resource for students looking for study materials, college-level educators have gotten a chance to supplement their incomes by uploading their own course materials and learning resources

Overlooking the gag-inducing “have gotten a chance to,” it’s complete garbage.

Not only does the article never mention cheating, Fast Company apparently actually thinks that Course Hero revenue sharing instruction materials is awesome. So much so that they gave Course Hero an award for it - a 2022 “World Changing Ideas” award.

I’m not sure this is really a big deal since Fast Company gave out 1,053 of those awards - out of “nearly” 3,000 submissions, which has me dying to know what ideas they actually rejected.

I mean the whole thing is clearly a moneygrab gimmick for Fast Company; the entry fee was $445. My math is that, at that clip, the publication pocketed more than $1.3 million from submissions. And all Fast Company had to do was glorify a cheating company and pretend their idea is special.

I would say it does not matter, but it does matter. Fast Company handing an award to Course Hero - no matter how much of a joke it is - affords it credibility. It helps Course Hero confuse students about their services (see Issue 97 for an example).

Chegg Stock Rocked

Notorious cheating company Chegg, which trades shares on the New York Stock Exchange, has had a rough 15 months in the market.

Back in February of 2021, Chegg stock was trading at $113.50 a share. Investors swooned.

As of Tuesday, Chegg shares were worth $17.42.

The company lost 30% of its value on Tuesday alone - the result of an investor call in which executives were pessimistic about future earnings. According to news reports, executives blamed declining college enrollments.

I’ve written a few times about Chegg’s stock - Issue 63, Issue 68 and Issue 83. And I’ve pointed out before that putting Chegg’s misfortune on enrollment drops is nonsense.

To the ears of a cynic, I am much more inclined to believe that the pessimism around Chegg’s future has to do with the U.K. going after ads and payment systems of essay mills and contract cheating companies (see Issue 114).

I mean Chegg itself has warned investors this could happen - that it could be cut off from its ad platforms, servers and payment systems from “colleges and certain governments.” And if that happens in the United States - that is, if anyone decides to ask Google or Amazon or MasterCard to stop doing business with Chegg - the company is done.

If I were in Chegg’s offices and watching the cheating bans and ad blocking in England, Ireland, Australia and elsewhere, I’d be pessimistic too.