How do you feel about cheating in school?

[DataGG]

I didn't mean exam questions. There is HW that one is suppose to do and turn in that counts for one's grade. Obviously we're supposed to do said HW "on our own", else we'd be allowed to turn in by pairs or something.

I don't think it would not be allowed to do the HW in a study-session with a study group. If that is the case, asking PF should be allowed as well.

 

[ZapperZ]

Unless otherwise noted by the instructor, one may typically seek assistance in solving a HW problem, but not have someone solve it for you. It is why PF has such a rule in place for HW help. Having someone else solve the HW problem provides the opportunity for someone to copy it off and submit it. Now THAT is cheating.

 

[Mark44]

I didn't mean exam questions. There is HW that one is suppose to do and turn in that counts for one's grade. Obviously we're supposed to do said HW "on our own", else we'd be allowed to turn in by pairs or something.

When I was teaching college mathematics, some instructors encouraged group work in which the students in the group were graded on the basis of one submitted item. So it wasn't obvious to me from what you wrote that homework needed to be done by the individuals alone. That's why I added the bolded "on our own" for clarification.

I don't think it would not be allowed to do the HW in a study-session with a study group. If that is the case, asking PF should be allowed as well.

We don't have any problem with that.

 

[BobG]

I was going to say something like you said. The smarter employers will test the applicant through a spoken/oral quiz. This will show the candidate's competence related to the questions. The testing conditions are excellent and the candidate will have no opportunity to cheat. Sometimes the employer will also test the candidates in a written form of testing. This also is a situation in which cheating is extremely unlikely.

Actually, this isn't always even feasible. If you're hiring for a brand new position created because none of your current employees have any expertise in what the person in this new position will be required to do, the employers are in a very tough situation when it comes to figuring out the qualifications of the person they're hiring.

They're relying solely on the applicant's resume being accurate and hoping they can tell the difference between truth and fiction during the interview. The latter isn't quite as difficult as one might think because the applicant probably doesn't know the expertise level of the interviewers, making him at least a little apprehensive about throwing out total nonsense.

The big problem with that approach is that a person good at job interviews can steer the discussion into an area that both the interviewers and interviewee feel more comfortable about. Sometimes the interview barely touches on the technical skills necessary.

I actually got a very good job this way. I had a very good overall knowledge of the field the job was in, but almost no knowledge of that particular job. A crash course on the internet over a couple days before the interview put me on an equal footing knowledge-wise with the interviewers (shockingly, but this was a new position that they knew little about, either). And then I talked about things I'd done in the past that were both relevant to the job (even if not the core requirement) and, more importantly, something the interviewers could actually understand and evaluate.

Fortunately, one of the things a person learns over their career is how to learn the things know when they need to know it - and very quickly at that. In fact, the reason I got the interview is that one of the interviewers knew me by reputation. I tended to wind up assigned everything no one knew how to do, just counting on the hope I'd figure it out. But the first few months on that job were pretty intense.

They were lucky. Out of six people hired, I worked out very well and two others at least worked out. Three of their hires were disasters. You know the type - "I remember Calculus! Thank god I never have to deal with that ever again!" The type that survived classes, but didn't actually learn anything from them and didn't even think there was reason a person should learn from them. College was a piece of paper that gets them a job and nothing else.

 

[Medicol]

... Having someone else solve the HW problem provides the opportunity for someone to copy it off and submit it. Now THAT is cheating.

But how do you distinguish it from reusability ? I think part or whole of the solution can be copied and reused.
You can't say all your students copied each other's solution to the problem e.g x²-2x+1=0 because all of them produce x=1.

 

[symbolipoint]

The problem with not cheating is that it puts you at a serious disadvantage to those who do cheat.

As much as some people in this thread who are professors think they prevent cheating, students are very tricky in the way they cheat and probably the professor would never be able to find.

And what if you have a professor that doesn't crack down on cheaters? It's definitely a big problem.

When I see professors who make extremely difficult exams, it encourages students to cheat in response, and the professor responds by making the exam even harder, it's a vicious cycle.

I think the issue is nowadays all these companies want superstar students with high GPAs that wasn't needed back in the days. Students with lower GPAs back in the decades past are as good as students with higher GPAs now.

Probably too much emphasis on having a high GPA

Interesting to think about grading and testing that way. A couple of the courses that I learned the most from were ones in which I earned only C's.

 

[Mark44]

... Having someone else solve the HW problem provides the opportunity for someone to copy it off and submit it. Now THAT is cheating.

But how do you distinguish it from reusability ? I think part or whole of the solution can be copied and reused.
You can't say all your students copied each other's solution to the problem e.g x²-2x+1=0 because all of them produce x=1.

Speaking for myself when I was teaching math classes in a college, I didn't just look at the "answer" to a problem. I looked at the work they showed in getting to the answer, both in graded homework assignments and in exams. In some cases, I gave partial credit to a wrong answer where the work was mostly correct, and no credit for a correct answer where the work had no relation to the stated answer.

I don't understand what you're saying about "reusability." If we're talkinng about programming in general, then reusable code is a good thing, but if we're talking about academic courses, I don't see that this attribute is applicable.

 

[symbolipoint]

Speaking for myself when I was teaching math classes in a college, I didn't just look at the "answer" to a problem. I looked at the work they showed in getting to the answer, both in graded homework assignments and in exams. In some cases, I gave partial credit to a wrong answer where the work was mostly correct, and no credit for a correct answer where the work had no relation to the stated answer.

...

That is the preferable (proper?) way.

 

[ZapperZ]

But how do you distinguish it from reusability ? I think part or whole of the solution can be copied and reused.
You can't say all your students copied each other's solution to the problem e.g x²-2x+1=0 because all of them produce x=1.

The WORKING of the problem is seldom identical!

When I get lab reports or homework solutions, I am MORE interested in how the student get the answer, rather than the answer itself! And it is highly unlikely that two students would submit an identical approach, word for word, in arriving at the answer. For many of us who have done this for any considerable period of time, we can smell when something doesn't look right.

Zz.

 

[symbolipoint]

The WORKING of the problem is seldom identical!

When I get lab reports or homework solutions, I am MORE interested in how the student get the answer, rather than the answer itself! And it is highly unlikely that two students would submit an identical approach, word for word, in arriving at the answer. For many of us who have done this for any considerable period of time, we can smell when something doesn't look right.

Zz.

Yes. Some people can smell using their eyes. Special lenses not needed unless you are far-sighted.

 

[gfd43tg]

Interesting to think about grading and testing that way. A couple of the courses that I learned the most from were ones in which I earned only C's.

That's what I'm saying. You got a C and learned a lot, but that's a sub 3.0 GPA which means your resume is thrown into the trash as soon as it's seen by HR

 

[symbolipoint]

That's what I'm saying. You got a C and learned a lot, but that's a sub 3.0 GPA which means your resume is thrown into the trash as soon as it's seen by HR

The chief's discarding a résumé depends on who is the organization. Some employers (you used "HR" in your post) care very much about GPA, and many do not. Also, much may depend on how the courses for your C's relate to the position that human resourcers are trying to fill. Someone with related experience for an open job position would likely be judged more by his experience and any grades from school could be unimportant.

 

[BobG]

That's what I'm saying. You got a C and learned a lot, but that's a sub 3.0 GPA which means your resume is thrown into the trash as soon as it's seen by HR

Possibly. If you're talking about a person fresh out of college with no job experience, GPA might be the only thing that separates him from another person fresh out college with no job experience. I'm not sure how many HR departments actually review transcripts (since they're not the people actually making the hiring decisions - they're the people screening out clearly unqualified candidates to at least make the pool of applicants small enough to be manageable). I think most are only concerned with proof an applicant actually has the degree they're saying they have - and given the scandals that can occur when a person lies on an early resume about a degree and somehow gets locked into repeating that lie over and over until they're a finally caught in the lie years later, I'm not sure how many HR departments do a good job of even verifying a person actually has a degree.

You've got to love HR people. At many companies, they'll willingly tell you that the only information they can give out about employees is whether they were actually employed there or not. They can't give out information on a past employee's performance. And then they'll also tell you that they diligently call all of applicant's past employers and ask about that applicant's job performance. When you ask them if they really expect more than verification that the applicant was employed there, they just frown and say "We might get more information".

 

[1MileCrash]

How is this even up for discussion?

 

[JonDE]

By time I was in high school, I realized that the best way to take tests was just to skip the questions I didn't know and move on to the next question. Then, having read the entire test, I'd go back to the questions I hadn't answered yet. The answers to many of those questions tended to be in other questions later in the test - or subsequent questions at least eliminated some of the choices on multiple choice questions to the point where at least I had a 50/50 chance of getting the question right.

Is it cheating to use the test as your source of answers? Or is that just lousy test writing?

I've actually been taught that this is the proper way to take test. When it comes to multiple choice, always eliminate as many answer as you can. In fact, in one of my current classes, after the first quiz, the professor went over the quiz and pointed out that many of the names he inserted were former football players, so were obviously not the correct answer. While this is not exactly the same as using the test for answers, in this class at least, the professor was acknowledging that using other knowledge to eliminate answers was acceptable, maybe even encouraged (which does seem strange).

 

[Medicol]

...
You've got to love HR people. At many companies, they'll willingly tell you that the only information they can give out about employees is whether they were actually employed there or not. They can't give out information on a past employee's performance. And then they'll also tell you that they diligently call all of applicant's past employers and ask about that applicant's job performance. When you ask them if they really expect more than verification that the applicant was employed there, they just frown and say "We might get more information".

I think it depends, if you take the whole country's companies, then it'll be too many for HRers to be "connected". But in a city, the probability for HRers of one company to be friends or past colleagues of those of another is much higher. Private information about the employee in question being spread via skype or any type or messengers isn't uncommon. So it'll become harder for a candidate to lie about his qualifications. :(

 

[BobG]

I think it depends, if you take the whole country's companies, then it'll be too many for HRers to be "connected". But in a city, the probability for HRers of one company to be friends or past colleagues of those of another is much higher. Private information about the employee in question being spread via skype or any type or messengers isn't uncommon. So it'll become harder for a candidate to lie about his qualifications. :(

More likely, it will be people in the actual work area that are "connected" - hence the good old boy network. Since HR is so often such little help, the first thing you do with an applicant you don't know is start checking with other people you do know that worked in the same company.

If HR can't give out information, then other people in work center certainly can't give out info. But that doesn't carry much weight if you're talking about friends that have worked together in the past. They'll share a lot of information about people they've worked with because they're going to be in the same position you are sometime in the future - and you've got to get information from somewhere.

My favorite was a guy I used to work with. When he worked with us, he would sometimes log onto his work e-mail from home and pretend to be at work when he was actually at home. And then there came a time when he just stopped showing up for work at all. And stopped answering any calls from work. Our boss tried to fire him, but that was impossible when the guy wasn't coming into work and wasn't answering any calls from work. Our boss finally had the police show up at his door just to make sure he was still alive, seeing as how it was possible the reason he stopped showing up for work and answering calls was because he was lying dead on the kitchen floor.

After the visit from the police, the guy decided he better go to work. Except his badge had already been deactivated. He calls his work center, the boss isn't around, and no one in the work center wants to be the guy that goes out and tells him he's fired. They left him out there until the boss finally got back.

Fast forward ten years later. The company we worked for had been bumped off the contract and, as often happens, most of the workers just got hired by the new company that bumped the old company off the contract.

That guy that just stopped showing up for work? He applies for a job with the new company not realizing that he's actually applying for the same job he had ten years ago with quite a few of same employees still around, but now working for the new company. We had fist fights over who would get to do the job interview (only for our manager to cancel the job interview completely once he realized we were vying for cruel entertainment on company time).

HR may have rules about the info they give out. But somebody, somewhere remembers you and all the stuff you did at your old job(s) and they'll talk to their friends even if no one else.

 

[vela]

The WORKING of the problem is seldom identical!

Unless they cheated. ;)

 

[BobG]

I've actually been taught that this is the proper way to take test. When it comes to multiple choice, always eliminate as many answer as you can. In fact, in one of my current classes, after the first quiz, the professor went over the quiz and pointed out that many of the names he inserted were former football players, so were obviously not the correct answer. While this is not exactly the same as using the test for answers, in this class at least, the professor was acknowledging that using other knowledge to eliminate answers was acceptable, maybe even encouraged (which does seem strange).

This is the problem with college professors. Many of them have no training on how to teach or how to design instructional courses. High school teachers (and below) have to be certified as teachers. By time you get to upper level college courses, the material is so difficult that colleges just hope to find someone that understands the material. Finding a person that both understands the material and knows how to teach is a lot to ask.

What was the point of the quiz if the professor was using former football players for the "distractors"? This is the sort of practice that makes the quizzes seem pointless. It encourages cheating. Why should the students care any more about the quiz than the professor?

 

[symbolipoint]

This is the problem with college professors. Many of them have no training on how to teach or how to design instructional courses. High school teachers (and below) have to be certified as teachers. By time you get to upper level college courses, the material is so difficult that colleges just hope to find someone that understands the material. Finding a person that both understands the material and knows how to teach is a lot to ask.

What was the point of the quiz if the professor was using former football players for the "distractors"? This is the sort of practice that makes the quizzes seem pointless. It encourages cheating. Why should the students care any more about the quiz than the professor?

First paragraph is a good explanation.

Second paragraph we can't be sure about unless we know more details.

Professors who teach at universities and colleges can teach well if they want to. They should have no trouble understanding the meaning of and how to make a lesson plan, choose objectives, and design the lessons to reach those objectives, and to create good assessments. That is their job (some uncertainty here); that is why they are in a teaching position (which again has some uncertainty).

 

[symbolipoint]

Obviously no reasonable person approves of academic cheating, especially bold or devious, greedy cheating. What do you want be done? Stop all cheating? Punish cheaters?

Think of a way to give tests or quizes so that the students cannot cheat. Ideas?

Put individual different test items onto paper tickets and put into a baffled basket. Each student one by one, takes a ticket, not knowing what is on it until he pulls it from the basket. And then, the student responds and answers the test item as a live presentation. This take-a-ticket, student think, student respond as presentation, cycles through the class during testing period until sufficient. The method would work better in a small class than a large class. Much time, maybe, but not an opportunity for cheating.

 

[ChiralWaltz]

I do not endorse cheating. I turned in some incomplete homework today despite having access to copy the material.

It would not have felt right if I did. It could get me into the habit of not finishing my work and relying copying the solutions. It is frustrating to have classmates who turn in copied work when I'm busting my butt.

As for the Kobayashi Maru, I side with the Captian.

 

[vela]

Professors who teach at universities and colleges can teach well if they want to. They should have no trouble understanding the meaning of and how to make a lesson plan, choose objectives, and design the lessons to reach those objectives, and to create good assessments. That is their job (some uncertainty here); that is why they are in a teaching position (which again has some uncertainty).

At research universities, teaching may be part of their job, but I'd guess some see it as a nuisance and don't put much effort into learning how to teach effectively. Even if they want to, the university/department may discourage them spending time on teaching in lieu of doing research.

Another problem is that some faculty see teaching as trivial. In their view, they covered the material and presented it in a clear and organized way, and if the students don't get it, it's because they lack the ability or just don't work hard enough. As long as a professor doesn't recognize that he or she is part of the problem, there's not likely to be much improvement.

 

[Medicol]

...
Think of a way to give tests or quizes so that the students cannot cheat. Ideas?
Put individual different test items onto paper tickets and put into a baffled basket. Each student one by one, takes a ticket, not knowing what is on it until he pulls it from the basket. And then, the student responds and answers the test item as a live presentation. This take-a-ticket, student think, student respond as presentation, cycles through the class during testing period until sufficient. The method would work better in a small class than a large class. Much time, maybe, but not an opportunity for cheating.

I think it's time constraint that will almost reduce or limit their chances to cheat. I used to take tests that my teacher allowed us to bring all materials into the test room to look up details while writing the answers in the answer sheet. There was no need for cheating of course but those without regular class attendance would fail. Even the hard-working ones could hardly complete all the answers correctly.
Copycatting can be prevented by randomizing the test items for the five students sitting next to each other (square block) to not be able to share the same (ordered) questions.

 

[Entanglement]

Getting As or A+ by cheating is really disgusting.