How do you feel about cheating in school?

[ZapperZ]

Smartness to me is a social interactive skill. It can also be defined as intelligence in academics, strategic planning, problem solving etc.
I don't have any evidence like your link. Everyone is actually smart to me; I don't know how smart they are and I will never know. But 49/50 gang-like students in a class say the Earth is square, the only one student who says it is not is then not qualified as smart in this particular case though he may be very good at maths and can even solve advanced complex maths problems.
I can't imagine if humans don't have an expression for the intolerance they have towards cheating; their emotion would not grow diversely; it is only a small add-on to the full blown psychological activities but somewhat tries to complete the current whole picture of what one's emotion is composed of.

You're just making things up as you go along, without even considering any evidence to support all this. I can easily do the same as well, and this will be (if it isn't already) a colossal waste of time.

Our lives are filled with politicians and talking heads in the media who simply make statements without bothering to justify and validate those statements. Being "smart" is also knowing when one is being shoved unjustified claims as if they are facts.

Zz.

 

[Medicol]

What I say is almost the common sense or common knowledge. Why don't you consider some people's idea as a product of smartness ?
Even your request to ask me to provide evidence about smartness is actually your smartness to me. Your statements are logical. Those without some smartness would not be able to conclude such a time waste of debate without evidence.

 

[ZapperZ]

What I say is almost the common sense or common knowledge. Why don't you consider some people's idea as a product of smartness ?

And this is why we often have morons elected to office, because the public simply buy something that they say that seems to make "common sense". A lot of people seem to think that simply uttering the phrase "gay marriage undermines traditional marriage" makes it true, because, hey, to them, it makes sense! This, despite the fact that the evidence of {A=gay marriage} causes {B=traditional marriage to be undermined} as not been established beyond simply just making such a statement. You are repeating the SAME practice.

You are dealing with social issues here. There is no "common sense", because what makes sense to you, doesn't makes sense to me. Your sense isn't "common"! So unless there are studies and statistics that back your claim, you are simply blowing smoke into the air, yet thinking that you have something that has been validated. That is the worst kind of self-delusion.

Zz.

 

[Doug Huffman]

The first shots in a rehash of The Science Wars are being fired; truth and knowledge as a social construct. The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.

 

[Simon Bridge]

I usually assume some students will cheat and set up the assessments accordingly.
When we work hard to stamp out cheating, we are just training more effective cheaters.

For example - I had to teach yr1 eng lit shakespear.
I relied on prev work - but I noticed that there was a lot of effort to detect plagiarism yet also a lot of plagiarism.
A typical concern was the amount of essays online.

The final assignment was to be an essay - I couldn't get out of that - but the reason people could copy so much was that the essay questions had not changed much in 70 years. Cracking down on copying just made students think up strategies to beat the plagiarism detectors.

I set them the task of finding two essays on the topic online from any source they liked which disagreed with each other, they had to explain each position and the disagreement and how the authors supported their positions, then decide what the best position is and defend it using the text as a reference.

This was difficult to cheat on because the usual method of cheating was part of the assignment - they hated it.

In future years the same question could be reused - except that now people can copy the earlier ones ... they'd only get away with it, though, if the cited essays were still available online. If the marker cannot access the citation, that's a fail.

There is still copying off someone else - or is that collaboration?
But there was only 20 people in the course.

So the answer kinda depends: what kind of cheating are we talking about?

If the class was on how to cheat - would it be cheating to complete the class honestly?

 

[ZapperZ]

The first shots in a rehash of The Science Wars are being fired; truth and knowledge as a social construct. The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.

Actually, we're not even there yet. This is not about those issues, but rather the methodology in how one arrives at a conclusion or accept something to be valid. Some social scientists may argue that truth and knowledge are social constructs, but they certainly didn't just say that and then walked away without making arguments on why they concluded that. They may say "The Sky Is Falling", but they don't just stop there. They may argue, incorrectly or not, that the reason they say that is because they keep seeing water coming down from the sky, and that they've seen debris falling from the sky, etc. One may then start arguing on the validity of those supporting evidence, but at least, there are attempts at justifying the statement "The Sky Is Falling".

Here, it is not even to that stage! I see statements upon statements being made, and yet, there have been very scant attempts at supporting such statements. I see this being done in political debate all the time ("I will cut taxes and create jobs!"). Forget about trying to debate about the validity of these evidence, because none are usually offered. As Peter Woit would say, these statements are Not Even Wrong!

Many years ago, there were arguments being made that violent video games causes violent children. A lot of people seem to accept that because to them, that statement "makes sense". Yet, at that time, there were hardly any studies being done on this issue, and so, that statement was made without any valid evidence to support it. Yet, there was a groundswell of support for legislation against such type of video games.

It turned out that subsequent studies started to question whether "A = violent video games" is the cause of "B = violent children", or were they simply nothing more than correlations that are consequences of a common cause. Could it be that children who spent the most time playing video games were also tend to be neglected the most by their parents, and that this neglect is the cause of them to be violent? A law to prevent children from access to such games would not solve anything, because the cause of these two have been neglected and is still present.

This is just an example of what would happen if we lower our standards and simply accept something without demanding any evidence to support such a statement. This is not a Science Wars.

Zz.

 

[Medicol]

...because the public simply buy something that they say that seems to make "common sense". A lot of people seem to think that simply uttering the phrase "gay marriage undermines traditional marriage" makes it true, because, hey, to them, it makes sense! This, despite the fact that the evidence of {A=gay marriage} causes {B=traditional marriage to be undermined} as not been established beyond simply just making such a statement. You are repeating the SAME practice.
You are dealing with social issues here. There is no "common sense", because what makes sense to you, doesn't makes sense to me. Your sense isn't "common"! So unless there are studies and statistics that back your claim, you are simply blowing smoke into the air, yet thinking that you have something that has been validated. That is the worst kind of self-delusion.

I used to be kind of a day-dreamer always thinking that what I said or wrote up was worthiest being listened to by others. So I felt ashamed when some ignored or even joked back with (un)constructive remarks which I thought was to mainly shame me or doubt my skills. I was afraid to lose my credits, my voice, my significant self especially when I had to make a speech. I was so serious and strict that I ignored relativism to polish absolutism. I fought hard with people around to be on the top list. Every time I tried to rise up, I soon had to take care of the fact that some had been ready to shoot me down. Insulting words were my daily food I had to chew or offer others. Years later while jogging up a local hill (50ft high), it suddenly started to rain and I slipped on the cliff edge and fell (rolled) downhill hitting my head against a big rock. I then was taken to a nearby hospital and got my forehead sutured and was diagnosed with a minor head injury but I lost my vision temporarily. During the time I lived in the dark, I realized I needed to forgive me to understand me and others, I needed to help myself to help people around. So I learned to walk around without any help from others. 3 weeks later after the last change of my eye bandage, I finally could view the world again. Even up to now I still haven't known what drugs or medication I took during my sick days but I don't even bother to look them up not because I am not curious about truth or physicians' skills but because I believe in the medical protocol they have applied to medicate my injury.

 

[BobG]

I usually assume some students will cheat and set up the assessments accordingly.
When we work hard to stamp out cheating, we are just training more effective cheaters.

For example - I had to teach yr1 eng lit shakespear.
I relied on prev work - but I noticed that there was a lot of effort to detect plagiarism yet also a lot of plagiarism.
A typical concern was the amount of essays online.

The final assignment was to be an essay - I couldn't get out of that - but the reason people could copy so much was that the essay questions had not changed much in 70 years. Cracking down on copying just made students think up strategies to beat the plagiarism detectors.

I set them the task of finding two essays on the topic online from any source they liked which disagreed with each other, they had to explain each position and the disagreement and how the authors supported their positions, then decide what the best position is and defend it using the text as a reference.

This was difficult to cheat on because the usual method of cheating was part of the assignment - they hated it.

In future years the same question could be reused - except that now people can copy the earlier ones ... they'd only get away with it, though, if the cited essays were still available online. If the marker cannot access the citation, that's a fail.

There is still copying off someone else - or is that collaboration?
But there was only 20 people in the course.

So the answer kinda depends: what kind of cheating are we talking about?

If the class was on how to cheat - would it be cheating to complete the class honestly?

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?

It's also a very common flaw in multiple choice tests. Many teachers couldn't have done a better job of handing the test answers to you if they tried. I'm thinking it would be very hard for a teacher to consider that method of test taking to be cheating since, in a way, they'd be complicit in it.

And, all in all, it's not a technique that would get you through with no knowledge at all. But if you did learn a lot of the material, it's not hard to turn what you do know into an 'A' even when you didn't learn all of the material.

I do think the number of people participating in something would also have to be considered when deciding whether it's cheating or not. Professional cycling would be the perfect example. Riders nearly went on strike when cycling imposed rules about performance enhancing drugs. It initially wasn't perceived as a situation where a rider using drugs would gain an unfair advantage. It was perceived as a decision about risking being the first rider to actually comply with new rules. And, obviously, that reluctance to be the first to give up using performance enhancing drugs resulted in drugs still being a huge problem decades later. Although, the puny time penalties imposed in the early days of having rules against drugs probably contributed. The penalties weren't nearly as severe as the disadvantage of being the only drug free rider in races.

It's a lot harder to eradicate an established behavior than to prevent the behavior from becoming established in the first place.

 

[johnqwertyful]

Yes we need to deal with cheating, but honestly stressing over it is a waste of time. Spend at most 5 minutes of your life on a cheater, don't waste your time with cheaters when you could spend it on the students who actually deserve it. Everything will catch up to them someday.

 

[ZapperZ]

Yes we need to deal with cheating, but honestly stressing over it is a waste of time. Spend at most 5 minutes of your life on a cheater, don't waste your time with cheaters when you could spend it on the students who actually deserve it. Everything will catch up to them someday.

I would love to just ignore them. However, as a physics instructor, the problem with this is that it often penalize those students who do work really hard. Think about it. Students who tend to cheat, especially on HW and Lab reports, will score higher because they are copying the correct solutions. So already they are skewing the scores. Secondly, once the honest students sees this, what is the incentive to not copy or cheat? They work their rear ends off, and yet, they do not attain the high scores. The temptation will be just too great for many.

It takes a lot more work, as a physics instructor, to ensure that (i) no one is cheating and (ii) those who do cheat do not get rewarded ahead of those who don't! Many of the things I do isn't to stop people from cheating, but rather, to make sure those who did an honest work do not get penalized or be at a disadvantaged.

So no, ignoring it won't make it go away or won't make it "harmless".

Zz.

 

[johnqwertyful]

Never said it was harmless, and I did say to deal with them. I'm just saying that some people tend to obsess and spend a lot of time/effort on it. It's just time gone. Yes, you need to deal with cheaters. Absolutely. But don't spend any more time than necessary.

 

[BobG]

... Many of the things I do isn't to stop people from cheating, but rather, to make sure those who did an honest work do not get penalized or be at a disadvantaged...Zz.

The "identify the element" part brought back memories of Chemistry class where we had to identify the mystery chemical... and from our tests and calculations the mystery chemical must be liquid hydrogen! Even being us, we could recognize a problem with that and all we could do is look at each other and go, "Oh maaan. How the heck did that happen?"

At least we got enough credit for the things we did right that coming up with a totally outrageous answer didn't kill us. Plus, we at least tried to identify where we went wrong, since there was really no way to just start over in the lab time available.

It's still humiliating when you're turning in a paper that any sane person would have to laugh at.

 

[symbolipoint]

A Basic Mathematics student once turned in a class exercise assignment in which some of the student's answer responses were nothing more than, "Answers may vary."

 

[johnqwertyful]

A Basic Mathematics student once turned in a class exercise assignment in which some of the student's answer responses were nothing more than, "Answers may vary."

I was grading for integral calculus. Two students turned in an integral, as well as a taylor expansion, as it does on wolfram alpha. The problem did not call for that, obviously.

 

[gfd43tg]

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

 

[ZapperZ]

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.

Nope. You are forgetting that we were once students as well. As much as technology has changed, many of the ways that students do cheat are not that new. There are always simple ways to penalize those who do cheat. The question is does an instructor want to spend his/her time preventing it. It does take a lot of effort and time.

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

I never make my exams harder just to catch cheaters, or people who never did their HW. I simply change the way the question is asked and what parameters are given. There is almost an infinite variety to ask the same type of question. And look at what I did when I ran the labs. It took almost no effort to change the spectroscope lab and already they simply can't copy off some "database" of lab reports.

Zz.

 

[Mark44]

Would you say that posting a question in PF's HW section that we're supposed to solve and turn in is cheating?

Is the assumption here that the work is supposed to be done with no outside help?

If between posting the question and getting the answer the poster succeedes in gaining understanding of the thing the problem was supposed to teach, then it isn't. If all they do is get an answer, without following through with the learning process, then they've cheated - they've claimed to know something they don't know by submitting the answer they don't understand.

I disagree, Bandersnatch, and whether the poster gets something out of it is irrelevant. If a take-home test is supposed to be done with no outside help, then posting the problem here on PF or elsewhere is cheating, plain and simple.

And that's not just me - it's written into the Homework Guidelines (https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/physics-forums-global-guidelines.414380/) for this forum:

Cheating
We do not support cheating in any form: Do not ask for solution manuals, answers to exams, or instructor's manuals. Every school and instructor has their own policies or honor codes on what constitutes cheating, and it is up to the individual student to adhere to those policies when seeking help here. If you are in doubt as to whether you are permitted to seek help, consider erring on the side of caution and not asking for help.[/quote]

 

[Bandersnatch]

Is the assumption here that the work is supposed to be done with no outside help?
I disagree, Bandersnatch, and whether the poster gets something out of it is irrelevant. If a take-home test is supposed to be done with no outside help, then posting the problem here on PF or elsewhere is cheating, plain and simple.

And that's not just me - it's written into the Homework Guidelines (https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/physics-forums-global-guidelines.414380/) for this forum:

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, or misunderstood DataGG's question. I never meant exam questions - these are meant to test the previously-acquired knowledge. However, seeking help with any other kind of question that is supposed to teach the student cannot be considered a breach of the guidelines, as that would be such a broad application of the rules as to include any and all HW questions.

 

[Mark44]

I interpreted DataGG's question as "Would you say that posting a question in PF's HW section that we're supposed to solve on our own and turn in is cheating?"
My comments apply to that interpretation.

 

[Bandersnatch]

Hmm. I think my understanding was that all HW tasks are meant to be "solved on our own". As in, not just copying a ready-made aswer.
But I can appreciate how it could be interpreted differently, so let me repeat that I don't condone seeking help with exam questions. The time for learning is long past by then.

 

[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.