Rise of Cheating: "Systemic Failures on a Global Scale"
Plus, Chegg and the dishonest essay mill ad game. Plus, students start to struggle with in-person tests. Plus, "The Score" podcast.
Issue 66
Research: Cheating Increase Since Covid is “Dark Reality”
New research from Guzyal Hill and Jon Mason of Charles Darwin University (AUS) and Alex Dunn from University of New England (AUS) examines essay mills during the global shift to remote learning due to the pandemic.
The authors have a great deal to say so I’ll need to chop it in two, with the second segment coming Thursday.
The crux of the research is that they tracked a substantial increase in the availability of commercial essay mills, ghost writing and contract cheating sites in 2020 and into 2021. But probably their larger contribution is in understanding the reach, power, sophistication and cynicism of the cheating providers, conveying that individual instructors or even entire institutions are simply overmatched in attempting to deal with them.
That’s true and vitally important to repeat. Cheating is as highly organized as it is commonly available. Cheating providers are not just winning, they are playing a different game than educators and the academic intergrity community.
In the summary, the research says bluntly:
The dark reality is the illegal services are developing at a faster pace than the systems required to curb them, as demonstrated by the results. The all-penetrating issues indicate systemic failures on a global scale that cannot be addressed by an individual academic or university acting alone. Multi-level solutions including academics, universities and the global community are essential.
The authors say directly that:
perhaps academics and universities should be less naive about academic integrity in COVID-19-affected teaching and beyond
They urge enhanced detection and enforcements, even with their limitations and drawbacks, and write what absolutely every education leader should read over and over again:
Before undertaking this research, we were under the impression that assignment ghost-writing was not so widespread and such a mainstream service; however, we now understand that such services are readily available. The websites also used referrals, discounts, gamification, artificial intelligence and other functions that universities, in some cases, are only beginning to introduce. Further, we used to think it would be difficult for students to use these services. However, to the contrary, the service providers removed all possible friction points. They were approachable, user-friendly, included discounts and testimonials and were eager to disburse any doubts regarding the legitimacy and quality of their services.
Yes.
Educators who are not aware of these realities are leaving their vault doors open and going home - outright inviting the theft of their credentials and credibility.
More on this on Thursday.
Chegg Ad Copies Essay Mill Ad Tactics
Speaking of essay mills being “eager to disburse any doubts regarding the legitimacy and quality of their services,” Chegg, the public cheating giant has, it seems, copied essay mill advertising tactics.
In past Issues of “The Cheat Sheet” we have highlighted essay mill ads - written articles masquerading as news or commentary that downplay or dismiss cheating while highlighting how awful being a student is and how helpful “tutors” and “essay assistance” companies can be. See Issue 37 and Issue 52 for examples.
On Monday, a publication called the Deccan Chronicle - which it says is “ the largest circulated English newspaper in South India” - ran an article about Chegg. Helpfully titled, “Everything You Need to Know About Chegg,” the unattributed article begins:
A student’s life is not easy.
The post offers itself as a:
detailed guide of Chegg, its features, benefits, and what does it do to make the students’ life easier and better.
Earning points for honesty, the article says:
Basically, Chegg allows students to find a tutor who can solve their questions and provides free chegg answers instantly - whether it is a test question or homework. Students are given these tests to enhance their problem-solving skills and make them better at the subject. However, if they have tried everything only to get wrong answers, it is best to have a tutor solve the question instead.
Except for the inconvenient point that Chegg actually closed its live tutoring service, having someone “solve the question instead” on “a test question or homework” is precisely what Chegg does. To repeat their value, the article says again:
If you are unable to find answers to any question of accounting, maths, chemistry, physics, and other subjects, you can head over to Chegg - a guaranteed platform to find answers to questions of any difficulty level.
The piece has the usual disclaimers that a student should not just copy the answers and turn them in - that’s cheating. But those gentle protestations are easy to overlook since the article says repeatedly that Chegg is perfectly legal and full of awesome glitter sauce:
Millions of students are on Chegg, while hundreds of thousands of these students use this academic site on a regular basis for learning. Chegg is a legal website and it is totally safe for students of all ages and grades
It’s not clear that Chegg wrote this or paid for it, the article does not say who the sponsor is. But it’s about Chegg and it touts their services. And it’s clearly an advertisement because, buried at the end of the article is the disclaimer that “No Deccan Chronicle journalist was involved in creating this content. The group also takes no responsibility for this content.”
That’s perfect. Not taking responsibility for the content on their site seems very on brand for Chegg. And if it is a Chegg ad, it’s interesting that the company is becoming a bit less shy about who they are - scooping up the ad tactics of their cousins in the essay mill business.
“The Score” Podcast Interviews Jarret Dyer
The Score, a podcast by veteran education writer Kathryn Barron, looks at academic intergrity in depth. And though the podcast’s first interview guest - some guy who writes something called “The Cheat Sheet” - was highly suspect, their second guest - Jarret Dyer - is not. And the upcoming third guest - Dr. Tricia Bertram Gallant - definitely is not.
Episodes of “The Score” are here.
If you don’t know Jarret Dyer, he’s an academic intergrity researcher at College of DuPage and former President of the National College Testing Association. In his interview, Dyer says about some of his research:
We found that more than half of the students, so about 61% interviewed admitted to having cheating on tests. They do not do it very often and then generally do not think it's acceptable, but here comes the but, but more than three quarters, so 75% do not consider all types of cheating that we presented them with as totally unacceptable. So in other words, many students view academic integrity as conditional.
Sixty-one percent. Cheating on tests. Again, self-reported misconduct is often under-representative and test cheating is just one kind of cheating.
But the most important finding of his recent work is that students view a lack of effort to prevent cheating as permission to cheat, essentially. And that they, accordingly, blame schools and educators for allowing it. In the interview, Dyer continued:
And really from our research, what we found, that there's a lot of rationalization and that students really, they think about the cheating behavior and they state, they tell themselves that if an instructor did not want us to cheat, they would not make it so easy for us to do so. So placing the blame back on either the faculty or the institution for making it so easy.
And, he said specifically that:
Students are more likely to think that cheating is acceptable, even expected, if a test is given without a Proctor.
“The Score” is a welcome voice in this important conversation and Dyer’s points are timely. I’ll highlight future interviews as well.
Students Start to Struggle with In-Person Classes and Tests
Reporting in the Cornell Sun, the student paper at Cornell University, says students there are beginning to “grapple” with going to class and taking tests in-person again, saying that in-person tests are more difficult and more stressful for some.
One student told the paper that the online versions of tests, which were largely open-note, were easier than the tests she has now. She said,
I have to remember all the nitty gritty on top of understanding basic concepts
Still, some students prefer the in-person tests, the paper reported.
Cornell made an effort to raise awareness of potential cheating during online learning in 2020. And the presumption had been that a return to live, in-person exams may curtail misconduct. But, the article says, the cheating continues:
Though the University especially raised concerns about academic integrity violations during online semesters, Megan Jung ’23 said she has observed that cheating has continued into in-person exams.
Going into an applied economics and management prelim, Jung said she overheard a conversation behind her and realized that some students were looking at the exam questions and discussing them before the exam began.
Cornell isn’t the only school experiencing similar events.
Reporting from The Daily Pennsylvanian, the student paper at the University of Pennsylvania, cites similar student sentiments on the shift from open-note, online exams to in-person methods:
Engineering sophomore Mei Han added that she had to put in more effort this semester to make sure that she remembered certain formulas and problem-solving methods since she couldn’t depend on her notes.
The article also hits a similar note regarding online cheating, saying:
During the online semesters, many students alleged a pervasive increase in cheating among Penn students since the pandemic. The Office of Student Conduct similarly reported a 72% increase in cheating case investigations from the 2018-2019 to 2019-2020 academic year.
Yes - cheating was unquestionably up during remote learning. It remains to be seen whether a move back to in-person testing will dampen it or simply shift how cheating is done.
In the next “The Cheat Sheet” - A distinguished academic writes in the LA Times about “rampant online cheating.” Plus, more on that Australian research on essay mills. Plus, cheating as a teaching moment.
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