Just to put my two-cents worth into the discussion - Mary Logan is the
person in Student Affairs that deals with matters of academic honesty.
It is really important to report instances of academic dishonesty
("cheating") to her with whatever proof is available. Several students
whom I have reported have claimed that "this is the way I always do this
and no one else has reported me". Since they tend to be juniors and
seniors, I tend to believe them when they say that other teachers have
not reported their plagiarism. Mary does a good job in "explaining"
things to them and emphasizing the importance of academic honesty. Just
because it is the first time you have caught a particular student
cheating, doesn't mean that it is the first time they have cheated.
On a more positive note, it was suggested to me last year by the
Learning Center that a referral to the Writing Center can also help the
students who quite honestly don't seem to know when and how to cite
references. Now whenever I have a student with that type of plagiarism
problem, I send a note with the original of the paper to Mary, but also
do a Writing Center referral for the student. It seems to be more of a
positive way to help the student learn how to avoid the situation the
next time around.
Mary Ann
-----Original Message-----
From: Teaching Breakfast List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Jagels, Fredric ([log in to unmask])
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 11:45 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Justice or Just Us: What to do About Cheating - Posted to
Teaching Breakfast List by Jim Greenberg
I found the description of classes that experience the least amount of
cheating revealing "... The best ways to reduce cheating
are all about good teaching." and "somewhat surprisingly, it is
not the difficulty of the course that predicts in which classes they are
more likely to cheat. Instead, I found that high school students cheat
more
when they see the teacher as less fair and caring and when their
motivation
in the course is more focused on grades and less on learning and
understanding.
I'm also suprised at how cavalier "cheaters" can be. I always thought
of plagerism and other cheatings as mortal academic sins- I've overheard
student discussions about cheating behavior that makes it sound
perfectly normal. Of course these may be the students to whom the GOOD
teacher is the one who is easy, "doesn't care" (actual quote) gives no
work and has low expectations of the students...
-----Original Message-----
From: Teaching Breakfast List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Nepkie, Janet ([log in to unmask])
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 11:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Justice or Just Us: What to do About Cheating - Posted to
Teaching Breakfast List by Jim Greenberg
For very practical reasons (and others, I'm sure) Paul is
absolutely correct in saying we need to report the cheating student to
Student Affairs. But let me also put in a strong plug for calling Mary
Logan when you detect cheating. She's the Director of our Office of
Judicial Affairs and she has good advice for ways of dealing with all
sorts of student problems. Her email is [log in to unmask]
Janet
----------
From: Teaching Breakfast List on behalf of Conway, Paul
([log in to unmask])
Reply To: Teaching Breakfast List
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 8:27 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Justice or Just Us: What to do About
Cheating - Posted to Teaching Breakfast List by Jim Greenberg
Jim -
Thanks for sharing this. One additional thought relates to
deterrence: When we find that one of our students has cheated we really
have a responsibility to turn the student's name in to the Student
Affairs office. If the offender is aware that we have done that, it is
less likely that students will continue to cheat in other classes. Of
course, we determine the consequences if the student has not previously
been reported for cheating but for students who are reported more than
once, the administration - with faculty input - gets involved in
deciding what kind of more serious punishment might be appropriate.
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Teaching Breakfast List on behalf of Greenberg, James
([log in to unmask])
Sent: Fri 8/20/2004 7:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc:
Subject: Justice or Just Us: What to do About Cheating - Posted
to Teaching Breakfast List by Jim Greenberg
This issue has be discussed so many times in past TBs.
Reprinted with permission.
JUSTICE OR JUST US? WHAT TO DO ABOUT CHEATING
May 2004
By Jason Stephens
Earlier this year, local papers were full of horrified reports
of cheating
in an affluent Silicon Valley high school. Stories like this are
a regular
occurrence. Last year cheating at the University of Virginia
made headlines,
and before that, it was the military academies.
Adults always seem shocked and surprised to learn of cheating,
especially in
high-achieving and high-socioeconomic settings. They shouldn't
be so
surprised. Research on cheating has shown over and over that
most students
do cheat, at least some of the time. Research in high schools
shows that two
thirds of students cheat on tests, and 90 percent cheat on
homework. The
figures are almost as high among college students. Furthermore,
it is clear
that rates of cheating have gone up over the past three decades.
Why? Do students fail to understand that cheating is wrong?
Well, yes and
no. In a recent study of high school students that I conducted,
many
students acknowledged that cheating is wrong but admitted they
do it anyway,
seemingly without much remorse. Jane, a tenth-grade honors
student, is
typical of these students:
Like people have morals, they don't always go by them. ... So I
mean, even
if you get that test and you're like, "Oh yeah, I cheated on
this test," it
doesn't lessen that grade. It says an A on the paper and you
don't go, "Oh,
but I cheated." You're just kind of like, "Hey, I got that A."
So it doesn't
really matter necessarily, if it has to do with your morals or
anything, you
just kind of do it.
Like Jane, other students in the study said that they cheat for
simple,
pragmatic reasons-to get high grades and because they don't have
time to do
the work carefully. Especially for college-bound students, the
pressure for
grades is real. According to the Higher Education Research
Institute's
annual survey, 47 percent of incoming college freshmen in 2003
reported
having earned an A average in high school. As Jane put it:
It's not always necessary (to cheat). I guess if you already
have straight
A's, then why cheat? But yet, we still seem to do it. It's kind
of like
insurance, like you feel better, you feel safer, if you do it.
... Then I
will have that 95 instead of like the 90, because that's almost
like a B or
something.
But despite the pressure for consistently high grades, students
don't
generally cheat in all of their classes. And somewhat
surprisingly, it is
not the difficulty of the course that predicts in which classes
they are
more likely to cheat. Instead, I found that high school students
cheat more
when they see the teacher as less fair and caring and when their
motivation
in the course is more focused on grades and less on learning and
understanding. At least in these classes, they can justify
cheating. They
don't claim it is morally acceptable, but they don't seem to
feel that it
really matters if they cheat under these circumstances.
In most studies of cheating, the researcher decides which
behaviors
constitute cheating, and students are only asked to report how
often they
engage in those behaviors. In my survey of high school students,
I asked
them to report both their level of engagement in a set of 12
"academic
behaviors," as well as their beliefs concerning whether or not
those
behaviors were "cheating." Not surprisingly, the vast majority
(85 percent
or more) indicated that behaviors such as "copying from another
student
during a test" and "using banned crib notes or cheat sheets
during a test"
were cheating. However, only 18 percent believed that "working
on an
assignment with other students when the teacher asked for
individual work"
was cheating. Subsequent interviews with a small sub-sample of
these
students revealed that students regarded this forbidden
collaboration as
furthering their knowledge and understanding, and therefore saw
it as an act
of learning rather than a form of cheating. These!
findings suggest that students make a distinction between
behaviors that
are overtly dishonest (such as copying the work of another,
which
effectively serves to misrepresent one's state of knowledge) and
behaviors
that are not inherently dishonest (such as working with others,
which can
serve to enrich one's interpersonal skills and academic
learning).
Educators, too, should be cognizant of this distinction and be
judicious in
prohibiting collaboration.
With this pervasiveness of acceptance by students, is it
acceptable to us as
a society to tacitly accept cheating as a fact of life and not
be so shocked
when it comes to light? I don't think so. Cutting corners and
compromising
principles are habit-forming. They don't stop at graduation, as
we have seen
in recent scandals in business and journalism. And cheating or
cutting
corners in one's professional or personal life can cause real
damage-both to
oneself and to others. We need to care about it.
And I believe we can do something about it. The best ways to
reduce cheating
are all about good teaching. In fact, if efforts to deal with
cheating don't
emerge from efforts to educate, they won't work-at least not
when vigilance
is reduced. These suggestions are easier said than done, but I
believe they
point in the right direction, both for academic integrity and
for learning
more generally.
* Help students understand the value of what they're being
asked to
learn by creating learning experiences that connect with their
interests and
have real-world relevance.
* Consider whether some of the rules that are frequently
broken are
arbitrary or unnecessarily constraining. For example, is
individual effort
on homework always so important? Given the evidence that
collaboration in
doing homework supports learning, it doesn't seem so.
* As much as possible, connect assessment integrally with
learning.
Create assessments that are fair and meaningful representations
of what
students should have learned. Make sure assessments provide
informative
feedback and thus contribute to improved performance. When
possible,
individualize evaluations of students' progress and offer them
privately.
Avoid practices that invite social comparisons of performance.
* Give students images of people who don't cut corners:
scientists who
discover things they don't expect because they approach their
work with an
impeccable respect for truth and a genuinely open mind; business
people who
exemplify integrity even when it seems like it might cost them
something.
But don't preach. Take seriously the fact that, in some
contexts, being
consistently honest can be hard.
Finally, as educators, we must do our best to exemplify
intellectual
integrity ourselves-in everything from how we treat students and
each other
to how we approach the subject matter, to how we approach
mandatory high
stakes testing to how we think and talk about politics. We need
to look for
ways to make deep and searching honesty both palpable and
attractive.
About the Author
Jason M. Stephens has been a research assistant at The Carnegie
Foundation
for the Advancement of Teaching since 1998, where he has worked
on the
Political Engagement Project and the Project on Higher Education
and the
Development of Moral and Civic Responsibility. He will receive
his Ph.D. in
educational psychology from Stanford University this June and
join the
faculty in the Department of Educational Psychology at the
University of
Connecticut in August 2004.
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