Things you consider academic dishonesty , but people do all the time?

[JaredJames]

I do think that spotting a mistake might be worth a few points. Depending on what mistake.
I remember a test where some students were asked to prove something, but it was actually incorrect. However, constructing a counterexample (or even spotting that it was incorrect) was not trivial at all.
One or two students did manage to come up with a counterexample, and they were rewarded points for the problem. I think that's only fair.

But note, I'm not talking about typo's or trivialities here. I just think that spotting errors and being able to explain why it is an error might be worth some points...

There's a difference between rewarding someone for spotting a mistake (which I agree with so far as a few marks go) and then allowing others to continue without flagging the mistake (of course, unless as per your example the question demanded it).

 

[HeLiXe]

Thanks for explaining tedbradly, I understand your reasoning more clearly now especially given the variables you are considering.

 

[KingNothing]

I think it is fair for a teacher to announce mistakes on a test question to the whole class. The whole point of a test is to measure students' understanding. If a mistake is made in such a way that it actually hinders the ability of the test to measure students' abilities, then it should be changed.

I've had professors who offered a point or two of extra credit for finding errors.

 

[HeLiXe]

I've never had professors give me credit for finding errors, but I do think it is fair for a teacher to make all test takers aware of critical errors on the test.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

You guys are all acting like any given test should be the make or break of a student's future and those who exceed all expectation should be rewarded and those who fail to perform flawlessly are culled. Students have other courses, they have lives and are all finding their own life/academics balance. If you **** up while writing a test well then YOU ****ed up. And, again, as a TA, for whatever reason I'M always the one who spots errors, despite their being 4-5 OTHER TAs and 1-2 professors for a given course. Why? Because they don't give a ****, and if they don't give a **** it's ridiculous to expect students to take your test as if it were dictated via burning bush and handed down on stone tablet. Getting kids to understand concepts is hard enough without throwing them curveballs because you're too incompetent to proof read your own tests. I literally got into a yelling argument once with this prof over a question. Essentially the question was wrong and he admitted as much. There was no way to generate the right answer. So would he fix it? No. He merely claimed "they need to understand that life's not fair" and shrugged it off. Real story. I know it sounds like a cliche but it really happened. There are a million different things that add up to a given students performance on a given test day and you're actually only interested in a handful of them. The least you can do is remove confounding factors like "time given" and errors

 

[pergradus]

I have thought of many elaborate ways to cheat, but never ended up using them. I've earned every grade I've gotten - but I could have cheated if I had wanted to!

 

[maverick_starstrider]

I have thought of many elaborate ways to cheat, but never ended up using them. I've earned every grade I've gotten - but I could have cheated if I had wanted to!

I've taught many classes with cheaters, the worst of which being pre-med students, but the most appalling things? Most of them suck at it! They cheat through their teeth but I'm too lazy to call them on it because they STILL come out with a 65%. TAing such courses has definitely crushed what little respect I had for medical doctors. Being a cheater is one thing, being a BAD cheater? That's 10 times worse.

 

[tedbradly]

I've taught many classes with cheaters, the worst of which being pre-med students, but the most appalling things? Most of them suck at it! They cheat through their teeth but I'm too lazy to call them on it because they STILL come out with a 65%. TAing such courses has definitely crushed what little respect I had for medical doctors. Being a cheater is one thing, being a BAD cheater? That's 10 times worse.

I always want to see my doctor's grades. Who wants a pile of crap average doctor to treat you? There's no good way to request it that I know of, though.

 

[DaveC426913]

I always want to see my doctor's grades. Who wants a pile of crap average doctor to treat you? There's no good way to request it that I know of, though.

Perhaps not, but there are 'rate my doctor' sites online.

 

[tedbradly]

Perhaps not, but there are 'rate my doctor' sites online.

I can see that telling the wrong half of the story, though. Perhaps, someone incorrectly demanded something that a good doctor would correctly deny yet receive negative feedback for having done so.

If anything, I'd like to see both ratings of service (from users) and ratings of knowledge (from institutions designed for that measurement, i.e. schools and testing companies).

 

[Geezer]

I've taught many classes with cheaters, the worst of which being pre-med students, but the most appalling things? Most of them suck at it! They cheat through their teeth but I'm too lazy to call them on it because they STILL come out with a 65%. TAing such courses has definitely crushed what little respect I had for medical doctors. Being a cheater is one thing, being a BAD cheater? That's 10 times worse.

Having TAed, I've come to dread/detest pre-med students. As far as I can tell, it's a pretty universal sentiment among physics grad students.

I was talking with another physics grad student who shared this story: A pre-med came up him, wanting help with his physics homework. Pre-med says, "What's the purpose of the Atwood machine anyway?"

Grad student replies, "To keep people like you out of med school."

 

[Office_Shredder]

Who wants a pile of crap average doctor to treat you?

If you iteratively remove the doctors who are average or worse, you won't have any doctors left...

 

[tedbradly]

If you iteratively remove the doctors who are average or worse, you won't have any doctors left...

I never suggested iteratively 'removing' average and below doctors (remove from what, by the way?). I suggested adding them to a personal blacklist and only using highly qualified ones, which doesn't change the population. It only changes the portion of the population you deem worthy. So no, nothing I've said leads to the removal of all doctors.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

I always want to see my doctor's grades. Who wants a pile of crap average doctor to treat you? There's no good way to request it that I know of, though.

People in pre-med have a joke:

"What's the difference between a doctor who graduates with a 51% average and a doctor that graduates with a 90% average? Nothing. They're still a doctor"

Just a little food for thought next time you find yourself in the ER. Med students are assigned btw, via an elaborate algorithm. They're not like interviewed and only the best taken.

 

[JaredJames]

I never suggested iteratively 'removing' average and below doctors (remove from what, by the way?). I suggested adding them to a personal blacklist and only using highly qualified ones, which doesn't change the population. It only changes the portion of the population you deem worthy. So no, nothing I've said leads to the removal of all doctors.

And what about people who aren't good with tests?

There are those out there who are terrible with tests and only come out average or worse, yet when it comes to practical application they are brilliant.

Then you have people who religiously study past papers and learn only what they need to pass an exam. They appear to do fantastically in tests and yet have very limited knowledge with the rest of the subject matter.

I for one know of a number of people who were on my course in university who always did well in exams, yet when it came to using it in real life they were useless. I'm poor at exams and usually come out average, but I'm incredibly strong with practical stuff.

So then you have to question if your ideology on the matter is good or bad. You are going purely on test scores - test scores which simply mean "in those tests this person did well". It doesn't tell you how good they are in the real world. I'm not saying the results are completely useless, but you can't just go on them.

You could have a doctor who knows the subject well but doesn't get good grades due to trouble with exams, and a doctor who simply studied for the exam and only learned what they needed to whilst in training. Which do you want treating you?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

And what about people who aren't good with tests?

There are those out there who are terrible with tests and only come out average or worse, yet when it comes to practical application they are brilliant.

Then you have people who religiously study past papers and learn only what they need to pass an exam. They appear to do fantastically in tests and yet have very limited knowledge with the rest of the subject matter.

I for one know of a number of people who were on my course in university who always did well in exams, yet when it came to using it in real life they were useless. I'm poor at exams and usually come out average, but I'm incredibly strong with practical stuff.

So then you have to question if your ideology on the matter is good or bad. You are going purely on test scores - test scores which simply mean "in those tests this person did well". It doesn't tell you how good they are in the real world. I'm not saying the results are completely useless, but you can't just go on them.

You could have a doctor who knows the subject well but doesn't get good grades due to trouble with exams, and a doctor who simply studied for the exam and only learned what they needed to whilst in training. Which do you want treating you?

Totally agree with this. I'm much worse at exams than I am with anything practical. I constantly wish that I could be graded on how I did in lectures, workshops, seminars etc. There I could contribute much more than just sitting down and answering a set of questions that usually only cover a small fraction of the course.

 

[mege]

And what about people who aren't good with tests?

There are those out there who are terrible with tests and only come out average or worse, yet when it comes to practical application they are brilliant.

Then you have people who religiously study past papers and learn only what they need to pass an exam. They appear to do fantastically in tests and yet have very limited knowledge with the rest of the subject matter.

I for one know of a number of people who were on my course in university who always did well in exams, yet when it came to using it in real life they were useless. I'm poor at exams and usually come out average, but I'm incredibly strong with practical stuff.

So then you have to question if your ideology on the matter is good or bad. You are going purely on test scores - test scores which simply mean "in those tests this person did well". It doesn't tell you how good they are in the real world. I'm not saying the results are completely useless, but you can't just go on them.

You could have a doctor who knows the subject well but doesn't get good grades due to trouble with exams, and a doctor who simply studied for the exam and only learned what they needed to whilst in training. Which do you want treating you?

If you could solve this problem (evaluation without traditional testing) then it would fundamentally change (for the better imo) the educational model of the world. Unfortunately, testing is the best we have - there are some that fall through the cracks via testing (for better and worse as you've pointed out) but for most people testing is a good indicator. I think it's a matter of efficiency and consistency. Traditional testing does both very well, at the expense of some accuracy. As you increase the accuracy of evaluation by personalizing the 'real life test' - efficiency and consistency neccessarilly drop quickly. As a society, we're better off with a consistent (more fair?) result than an individuals judgement.

A flaw in your Doctor example is that MDs do have to get past both a test and a 'real life' evaluation via residency. Lucky for us they have to pass both and can't just be 'good test takers' to be doing brain surgery.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

If you could solve this problem (evaluation without traditional testing) then it would fundamentally change (for the better imo) the educational model of the world. Unfortunately, testing is the best we have - there are some that fall through the cracks via testing (for better and worse as you've pointed out) but for most people testing is a good indicator. I think it's a matter of efficiency and consistency. Traditional testing does both very well, at the expense of some accuracy. As you increase the accuracy of evaluation by personalizing the 'real life test' - efficiency and consistency neccessarilly drop quickly. As a society, we're better off with a consistent (more fair?) result than an individuals judgement.

A flaw in your Doctor example is that MDs do have to get past both a test and a 'real life' evaluation via residency. Lucky for us they have to pass both and can't just be 'good test takers' to be doing brain surgery.

I think the biggest problem is trying to devise a test that people who know the subject will pass but will catch the people that remember the subject, this will probably have to involve a change to teaching methods too.

There were some doctors on my MSc course who didn't have a clue about a huge amount of basic biology. They got by thanks to just memorising lecture slides or notes, in revision sessions they had very little capability to deal with practical scenarios where the situations they memorised were changed. For example instead of the question being "What is X" it would be "Design an efficient experiment to determine X using just A, B and C". This habit wasn't unique to the doctors but it did annoy me when people would stroll through a test purely because they had memorised the subject. When faced with a problem-type question they couldn't do it but not enough of them appeared in exams.

 

[JaredJames]

If you could solve this problem (evaluation without traditional testing) then it would fundamentally change (for the better imo) the educational model of the world. Unfortunately, testing is the best we have - there are some that fall through the cracks via testing (for better and worse as you've pointed out) but for most people testing is a good indicator. I think it's a matter of efficiency and consistency. Traditional testing does both very well, at the expense of some accuracy. As you increase the accuracy of evaluation by personalizing the 'real life test' - efficiency and consistency neccessarilly drop quickly. As a society, we're better off with a consistent (more fair?) result than an individuals judgement.

Don't get me wrong, I understand it's the only real option. The other methods I could imagine would require far too much resource use making them unfeasible.

A flaw in your Doctor example is that MDs do have to get past both a test and a 'real life' evaluation via residency. Lucky for us they have to pass both and can't just be 'good test takers' to be doing brain surgery.

Oh, of course. It's actually one of the things I like about doctor training. By including the real life aspect it really will help judge good from bad. However, when you consider an overall score, not doing so well in exams could have a large bearing on your final result even though there is little wrong with your knowledge on the subject.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Don't get me wrong, I understand it's the only real option. The other methods I could imagine would require far too much resource use making them unfeasible.


Oh, of course. It's actually one of the things I like about doctor training. By including the real life aspect it really will help judge good from bad. However, when you consider an overall score, not doing so well in exams could have a large bearing on your final result even though there is little wrong with your knowledge on the subject.

Except the difficulty of your residency (your "real life test") is entirely dependent on which hospital you're assigned to.

 

[JaredJames]

Except the difficulty of your residency (your "real life test") is entirely dependent on which hospital you're assigned to.

I don't know whether this supports my point or is meant to dispute it?

 

[tedbradly]

And what about people who aren't good with tests?

There are those out there who are terrible with tests and only come out average or worse, yet when it comes to practical application they are brilliant.

Then you have people who religiously study past papers and learn only what they need to pass an exam. They appear to do fantastically in tests and yet have very limited knowledge with the rest of the subject matter.

I for one know of a number of people who were on my course in university who always did well in exams, yet when it came to using it in real life they were useless. I'm poor at exams and usually come out average, but I'm incredibly strong with practical stuff.

So then you have to question if your ideology on the matter is good or bad. You are going purely on test scores - test scores which simply mean "in those tests this person did well". It doesn't tell you how good they are in the real world. I'm not saying the results are completely useless, but you can't just go on them.

You could have a doctor who knows the subject well but doesn't get good grades due to trouble with exams, and a doctor who simply studied for the exam and only learned what they needed to whilst in training. Which do you want treating you?

I've never heard of this problem. It sounds like a bunch of weak students got together and deluded themselves into believing their superiority regardless of the indicators of inferiority. That is, unless you're ignoring my suggestion to examine their standardized test scores and their GPA and location of graduation. The former can be misleading, but I don't see how a GPA can be misleading if it's from a good school.

 

[JaredJames]

I've never heard of this problem.

There's an entire thread on test anxiety here. Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

It sounds like a bunch of weak students got together and deluded themselves into believing their superiority regardless of the indicators of inferiority.

Weak students?

You mean students who excel at the practical applications of their course and its use in real life are deemed weak simply because they aren't good with exams and a student who learns only to answer exam questions 'parrot fashion' is considered strong even though they don't know much else?

That is, unless you're ignoring my suggestion to examine their standardized test scores and their GPA and location of graduation. The former can be misleading, but I don't see how a GPA can be misleading if it's from a good school.

Could you point out this suggestion? A quick search of this thread for "GPA" only flags your last post. Perhaps I missed something?

Regardless, that's only good if you have a GPA. I don't.

What if you can't go to a 'good school'? All of your suggestion from your previous post still requires testing as the primary component, except you add in the schools status.

 

[tedbradly]

There's an entire thread on test anxiety here. Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.Weak students?

You mean students who excel at the practical applications of their course and its use in real life are deemed weak simply because they aren't good with exams and a student who learns only to answer exam questions 'parrot fashion' is considered strong even though they don't know much else?Could you point out this suggestion? A quick search of this thread for "GPA" only flags your last post. Perhaps I missed something?

Regardless, that's only good if you have a GPA. I don't.

Sure:

If anything, I'd like to see both ratings of service (from users) and ratings of knowledge (from institutions designed for that measurement, i.e. schools and testing companies)

Both his performance from any required standardized test (from testing companies) and his performance from his school would be considered by me.

Now, are you stating your theory on bad test-takers still holds if someone is looking at this test-takers' overall performance from his school, which probably includes many real-world projects too?

 

[JaredJames]

Now, are you stating your theory on bad test-takers still holds if someone is looking at this test-takers' overall performance from his school, which probably includes many real-world projects too?

Does it really?

Regardless, yes it still holds.

As per previous posts, a doctor is slightly better off due to the residency, but there's still room for error.

Without such a real life 'experience' you are measured either on projects - which you can work with others (whether you should or not) with what ever resources you want (obvious issues there) - or via tests which face the issue I outline above. Meaning your "overall performance" could simply mean you are able to use resources and other people well enough to get you through a project and learn parrot fashion for tests. Which would look great on paper, but mean nothing in real life.

For the most part, university students are not put into a position which allows for real world application of their learning.

As someone who has done a placement for a year from university, I can tell you that working in the field was nothing like working in university.

 

[JaredJames]

Another important note: there are two doctors in my local surgery. Both are highly (the elder slightly better) qualified. One is cheery, nice and does their best to help you and the other is a bit grumpy and hates prescribing medicine unless you're crawling in dying.

I don't like going to the eldest, and most qualified doctor because of his grumpy and unhelpful attitude.

There's more to choosing a doctor than just what's on paper.

 

[tedbradly]

Does it really?

Regardless, yes it still holds.

As per previous posts, a doctor is slightly better off due to the residency, but there's still room for error.

Without such a real life 'experience' you are measured either on projects - which you can work with others (whether you should or not) with what ever resources you want (obvious issues there) - or via tests which face the issue I outline above. Meaning your "overall performance" could simply mean you are able to use resources and other people well enough to get you through a project and learn parrot fashion for tests. Which would look great on paper, but mean nothing in real life.

For the most part, university students are not put into a position which allows for real world application of their learning.

As someone who has done a placement for a year from university, I can tell you that working in the field was nothing like working in university.

It honestly sounds like you're in denial about your own inability (I saw you claim you're a hands-on guy). It's the inability of a person that creates the anxiety, not the anxiety that creates the inability. Someone confident in their ability has no reason to worry.

This entire spectrum of educational issues spawns from the world pushing their unable children toward mentally tougher, socially applauded jobs, because they cannot perceive their child to be average or even below average.

Another important note: there are two doctors in my local surgery. Both are highly (the elder slightly better) qualified. One is cheery, nice and does their best to help you and the other is a bit grumpy and hates prescribing medicine unless you're crawling in dying.

I don't like going to the eldest, and most qualified doctor because of his grumpy and unhelpful attitude.

There's more to choosing a doctor than just what's on paper.

Are you just ignoring everything I said? I just quoted my words, which included viewing the ratings of service from users. That includes (almost exclusively) customer service.

 

[micromass]

Test anxiety is a real issue. I've known brilliant students who knew everything inside out, but when the test came, they failed miserably. So I agree with Jared that tests are not good in measuring how good the student is.

But then again, I don't know much alternatives to tests. So maybe they're a necessary evil?

 

[physics girl phd]

I literally got into a yelling argument once with this prof over a question. Essentially the question was wrong and he admitted as much.

Whoa. This is off topic, but note: Anger management issues here that could seriously get you into trouble. Maybe in this case you had a point, but I HIGHLY suggest trying to keep yourself in control. I'm not sure about all schools' policies (of course), but depending on the professor's reporting to department head, etc., this could get you kicked out (of the class or institution), possibly put on probation, have a restraining order put on you, etc.

Now it's equally unprofessional if the professor was yelling in the discussion too (and if there was an error on the test he/she should have probably made some form of amends -- say a curve), but I'm not sure who the department/institution would support. I'm betting probably the professor/employee, rather than the student/consumer.

When I was in graduate school, a graduate student apparently got in a yelling match with his/her research advisor (and it may have even escalated to blows, but don't hold me to that... I wasn't present and I don't remember the many associated rumors, especially as I wasn't much interested). I do remember the graduate student left the program (whether voluntarily or via some sanctions, I'm not sure).

 

[tedbradly]

Test anxiety is a real issue. I've known brilliant students who knew everything inside out, but when the test came, they failed miserably. So I agree with Jared that tests are not good in measuring how good the student is.

But then again, I don't know much alternatives to tests. So maybe they're a necessary evil?

Their is no issue with a test weeding out the anxious.