200 Students Admit Cheating After Professor's Online Rant 693
Over 200 University of Central Florida students admitted to cheating on a midterm exam after their professor figured out at least a third of his class had cheated. In a lecture posted on YouTube, Professor Richard Quinn told the students that he had done a statistical analysis of the grades and was using other methods to identify the cheats, but instead of turning the list over to the university authorities he offered the following deal: "I don't want to have to explain to your parents why you didn't graduate, so I went to the Dean and I made a deal. The deal is you can either wait it out and hope that we don't identify you, or you can identify yourself to your lab instructor and you can complete the rest of the course and the grade you get in the course is the grade you earned in the course."
This happens all over the place (Score:2, Interesting)
I love it when cheaters are in my interview chair. (Score:1, Interesting)
Let's see you cheat you way through a technical interview loop, kid.
Re:Sad (Score:3, Interesting)
Sometimes, it is too easy to cheat ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of the professors at universities are extremely research focused, and do not place sufficient attention on undergraduate teaching. In one class, the teacher scheduled five midterms. After each midterm, he would hand out the answers to the midterm after the test.
Very quickly, the procedure switched to leaving the answers at the front of the class, so people could pick up their answers on the way out of class. It is a boring to invigilate a mid-term, so the professor quit showing up at the midterms. Similarly, the T.A.'s left.
By the third midterm, the answers were passed around - during the exam. Someone complained to the Dean about this, and considerable efforts were made to reform undergraduate teaching.
I used to procotor for one of my Profs. (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow, tell people to stay away from that college (Score:1, Interesting)
That college sucks. Let's see.
The college and the test bank fuck up and leak the test questions. As is to be expected, 1/3 of the students decide to cheat. I'm surprised that only 1/3 cheated, it seems that he should be happy, not disgusted. Not to mention that I wouldn't call using publicly available information to be cheating, but whatever, I wouldn't do it (in this case), so let's say that it is.
Then a person with no understanding of statistics (he gets the Monty Hall problem wrong during the lecture) tells us about statistics. And tells us how statistics will be used to catch the cheaters. Now, if he know statistics he would know that catching them is impossible. The false positives would be too many, and even one false positive is too much.
What's more, he fucks up everyone. Everyone has to redo the test, even if they didn't cheat, and there isn't any kind of compensation, and there isn't even an apology. In fact, they are forced to attend something at a specified time, whether they can or not. Not to mention the false positives who he would fuck up by destroying their academic life for no fucking reason.
So, fuck you, Richard Quinn, you're a fucktard and deserve to die, and your college sucks.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
I cheated once in undergrad.
It was on a humanities class I took in my final semester. I didn't care about the knowledge, I only needed credit for completing the class. I miscalculated the minimum amount of work I needed to do to prepare for a test, and was really freaked out I would fail the class I be forced to enroll in another semester just to complete a humanities requirement. So I tucked my textbook under my shirt and took a bathroom break.
I am a little ashamed. Mostly embarrassed that I miscalculated so poorly. Given the moral and ethical greyness that I've come to expect in the adult world though, I am not sure that I can say that I wouldn't do it again in the same situation. I can't even recall what class this was for, so I don't feel that I robbed myself of any learning. In fact I think it taught me a greater lesson about being prepared, and gives me a great story to pontificate on when I lecture my kids about academic honesty.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
This document helps the students plan their term because often they are taking 4-5 heavy workload courses. If all of your courses are backloaded with big projects or exams, you may want to replan your semester. The document also protects students from lazy profs who fall behind and would then dump 3 assignments on the students by surprise at crunch time at the end of term, or from inventing course projects at the last minute, etc. Also from shifting weight to the final exam with short notice because their students did too well on assignments, or because they bombed the assignments, etc.
If a student lives up to his/her responsibilities as outlined in the document, but the professor does not, the student has grounds to file a complaint. Extreme cases are needed for anything to come of it, but it definitely happens. More often you would talk to the dept head and he might have a chat with a rogue professor who is abusing their students.
Re:I used to procotor for one of my Profs. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nothing new here (Score:1, Interesting)
There's also a group of people who care about their education, in fact, so much, that they don't consider universities fit to deliver it. I've been teaching myself ever since I was 8 or so, and I'm currently studying an undergraduate degree at a university simply because it will provide me with the piece of paper to "prove" (pretty poorly in practice) that I know something. I've barely learned anything useful in college - almost everything useful I already knew, and the rest is just superfluous stuff that everyone forgets by the time they're done with university (though there are, of course, a few welcome exceptions).
The problem is that university exams do not measure the actual knowledge required for working. No professional can go to an undergraduate level exam and ace it. They add tons of superfluous stuff and knowledge of specifics in order to attempt to ensure that the core concepts stick, but in doing so, they ensure that you need to study for that particular course, with that particular lecturer, in order to pass the exam. And don't get me started on incompetent lecturers.
Although I am certainly no regular cheater, I have done it in the past. It is simply utterly frustrating to have to sit through lectures and memorize large amounts of what amounts to trivia and encyclopedia content just to, in the end, prove that you know the important bits, which you already do, and sometimes the frustration and temptation are great enough that you cheat. Some courses are worse in this regard than others.
Personally, I had a much better time with open-book and/or open-notes exams. Those let you prove that you know how to work the mechanics of the course content without having to memorize all of the details that you'll forget by next week, and, in my opinion, are much better at proving that students know what they're doing. The winning formula is an open-book/open-notes exam with problems that are not in the book or weren't discussed in class (or equivalent problems). This would both enable students who are bored with the class and know the core material to pass the course without spending useless hours studying the fine details, and as a bonus would also filter out the large amount of brainless idiots who get college degrees these days by memorizing everything, without actually being able to solve any problem that isn't a facsimile of something they saw in class. I remember getting a problem in a 150-person class final that only myself and two others were able to solve correctly. It was something no one had ever seen before (a clever twist on a familiar problem - in fact, it added an element bringing it closer to reality than idealized theory), and it could be solved quite easily, but 95% of the class were utterly stumped because it didn't match their mental regular expression bank of problem solutions.
Re:Ethics aside... How? (Score:5, Interesting)
Judging from what the professor said in the video its clear that this is NOT a resource available to students unless they gain access illicitly. He specifically mentions that the question bank proprietors are looking at the problem from a legal perspective. It isn't like the students just went to the site and hit print. Much more like is someone gained access by breaking in or (probably more likely) someone with legal access decided to make a quick buck and sold a copy of the database to a student and it went from there.
Frankly, the whole question bank thing just makes any argument that's remotely pro-cheating moot to me. So you're willing to memorize hundreds of questions & answers that may not be on the exam, but you're not willing to learn the material?
Re:Wow. (Score:3, Interesting)
Contracts can be verbal; contracts can be written and unsigned (when's the last time you signed an update from your credit card or cell phone company?). Legal theory often relates to offer, acceptance, and exchange of consideration. A syllabus in a course you pay tuition for fits this. I can't speak to case law, but you can probably get to trial on that.
Re:Nothing new here (Score:5, Interesting)
If the schools realized that it's 2010, not 1810, and if teachers actually were a bit more passionated about learning than a corpse i'm certain cheating would drop a fair bit.
Hah, you say that like it's easy! I highly doubt you've ever been in that position yourself -- it's easy to say "all they have to do is..." when you have no first-hand idea what that means. Let me share a bit of my experience with you.
As a CS grad student, I paid for my education working as a Teaching Assistant. After my first two semesters, the TA coordinator assigned me to be the primary instructor for a night section of CS101: Introduction to Computing. I had control over what material to teach, I made the tests, I created the assignments, etc. I thought this would be great, as it would give me the opportunity to design some creating, engaging, interesting assignments and even participatory activities to take place during lecture. (i.e. I was very passionate about my students' learning.) I went into the first class very excited -- and it didn't take me long to see I was totally failing to excite my students even slightly. Still, I kept at it, hoping that it just wasn't what they were expecting, and that it might take a bit to sink in. Toward the end of the class, a student made a comment that made me realize what was going on. This class was required for all business majors; it had the potential to be a very useful class for many of them (it covered how to use both Excel and Access, among other things), but they didn't care how useful it could be. They also had no interest in being interested in the class. It was just a class they had to take, and they were hoping ideally for an easy A, or if not that then at least for the course not to bring down their GPA too much if they only exerted the minimal energy required to coast through the semester and cram for the exams. Let me repeat that, in case that didn't sink it -- they had no desire for the class to be interesting. They were not there to have fun, or even really to learn. They were there to get a grade because it was required for their major, and they wanted to do that by expending the least amount of time and energy that would yield a reasonable grade. So tell me: how many semesters in a row could you stay passionate about what you are teaching under those circumstances?
I lost a lot of my passion and motivation for teaching the course that day. It was very disheartening to discover that 95% of my students didn't care if I spent an extra 6 hours a week to make the course interesting -- why should I spend that extra time and effort myself if it wouldn't make any difference for more than maybe 2 or 3 of my students? In the end, I still made an effort to keep things interesting, and I'd like to think my section was more interesting than the day sections which had 300+ student lectures, but I didn't put nearly as much of myself into it as I could have.
I think not, Prof (Score:3, Interesting)
1. You cannot punish a student if you have no proof they broke the rules.
2a. You cannot change the schedule of the class, especially exams, outside of what is on the syllabus.
2b. You cannot hold a student responsible for your own actions, ie changing the date of an exam and telling them they cannot miss it.
If he has PROOF of cheating, punish those responsible. However, if I was in that class, and was falsely accused of cheating or was being punished for OTHERS' cheating, HE would have a serious problem with the ethics board and the dean's office.
Re:Wow. (Score:4, Interesting)
Did you not pay attention? Almost all the people that caused the financial meltdown walked away with boats of cash, while the honest people pay the price.
Re:Wow. (Score:3, Interesting)
I've had a situation where I didn't cheat, but enough others did... The teacher's solution was to throw out all tests and -not- make us retake them.
I was -still- pissed that I put the work in, since the work then had no real point.
And before anyone argues that the point of education is supposed to be learning things, I've seldom found that to be the case. Most tests are just a way for teachers to meet the guidelines set for them. Only the really great teachers create tests that mean anything.
Re:I think not, Prof (Score:2, Interesting)
2. He has a responsibility to modify the syllabus in extreme situations (like cheating). I don't know the full details about his proposed response but just the fact that the syllabus needed to be changed does not automatically = ethics violation.
2b. The students need to retake an exam in a manner where cheating is avoided. Not sure what the best case of action is here but the change is the result of the STUDENTS' cheating, not the professor's actions.
I would agree that test banks should generally be avoided (because they are often available widely) and the professor should have been more proactive to prevent cheating, but that does not let the cheating students off the hook.
a cheatable course isn't worth taking (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:False positive (Score:3, Interesting)
From her experience, it is much more work for a prof to fail a student than to pass a student. There are usually numerous avenues for appeals and reviews. There is one particular case in which she spent god knows how many hours defending her decision to fail a student who was determined to exhaust every avenue of appeal. The student in question had done extremely poorly on the project component of his final mark (which was marked by the co-teacher) and needed a solid final exam to pass. When he failed the final, he accused her of bias (racism actually). She had to have 2 other profs independently re-mark the exam and average the 3 scores (which resulted in his mark actually being lowered). You would think that would be the end of it right? No, the faculty had to caucus and debate failing him. As it was a core course in a cohort based program, he could not progress without completing it, and as it would have been his 3rd failing mark, the school's policy was to expel him. In the process of the investigation, it was determined that he had employed a ghost writer for his admissions entrance essays; English was not his first language and his skills were rudimentary at best, so it was quite obvious that he hadn't written these essays. So now it's easy right? Toss him!
Nope. They failed him, but re-admitted him for the following term. The program has a limited enrollment with a large pool of applicants. So in order to re-admit this loser, they had to deny admission to someone who was actually qualified for admission.
The truly scary part is that It's a school of nursing. This loser is going to be responsible for patient care when he graduates as an RN.
Re:Wow, tell people to stay away from that college (Score:4, Interesting)
You may be right.
But I too catch cheaters, and let me tell you my emotions start with nervousness at explaining to the student (individually), and then run to subdued anger.
Re:False positive (Score:1, Interesting)
I agree. I took a summer math course once, with about 30 students in it. I'd say 5 of us attended almost every day, did whatever homework we felt we needed to (we were mostly re-taking the course), and were present for all of the quizzes. For the other 25 or so, however, only about 1/4 to 1/3 of them would be attending lecture at any given time, and they all were in the same summer program so they all knew one another. When exam time rolled around, the professor would inevitably leave the room to have an hour or two to himself, and the summer-program students would start cheating off one another. The flaw in their brilliantly executed plan was that they'd just cheat off of whichever person who seemed to know what they were doing, or even a person near them that seemed to be copying off someone else. As a result, much more often than not they'd be copying down wildly incorrect answers. We knew the professor couldn't possibly be missing it, but he never said a thing, and after the first exam was returned, we discovered why - the cheaters were actually dragging themselves down into a huge mass of failure, pushing the non-cheaters' grades up to the top of the curve. Yep, just showing up every day, taking every quiz, and not cheating would get you safely into the B range, and an A if you even tried...
Re:Nothing new here (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting story and you're on the path to the reason I cheated my way through about 1/2 of college: bloated requirements to graduate. Out of the 120 credits I needed to complete, I'd say about 40 had any application whatsoever to my actual major or taught any sort of lesson I could use elsewhere in life. The rest were courses tacked on to bloat out the coursework and find a way to justify the extra wasted time before I could be given that piece of paper I still have sitting in the envelope it was mailed to me in and I could finally move onto working. Just as a small sampling of what I am talking about....
I had to go through Calc 1, 2, 3, and 4. All were a bit borderline useless, but all past calc 2 were completely useless and the professors actually only really cared to talk to/take questions from/address students who they knew were math majors and were going to take even higher level classes (ya know, the ones they actually cared about).
I had one WONDERFUL business course (and side-note, the tests in that course were all completely open-book and we could even take the tests home with us if we needed, since the class had under 10 students, attendance was mandatory, and the tests were 100% essays, the professor would know right away if someone was trying to cheat, compared to how the student did in class). The rest were all an utter waste of time asking me to regurgitate definitions onto a piece of paper.
I went to college for IT. I was told I had to take 2 physics classes (each with a lab included as well). Why? Because they felt like they had to throw some kind of science class in there and couldn't come up with a better solution.
I think you get the idea. So what was the result? I cruised through college well enough, and instead of wasting my time learning crap I would NEVER use again in my life, I could spend that time learning more about what I actually wanted to do in life outside of class, was able to put more extra-curricular activities on my resume coming out of school, and compared to others in my major who did play by the rules, am generally doing better professionally than them.
If, instead of bloating out a curriculum with garbage, more schools took the approach of actually adding in more appropriate classes and maybe even work to help students get some light real-world experience while there, there would be less students just there to coast through a class and more really interested in learning what they're being taught.
Conclusion: at worst, students just want to get a piece of paper to get them a job and get the hell out. At best, they want to learn about a fairly specific topic. None want to waste their time on things they will never apply in life, personally or professionally.
Collective punishment is a war crime... (Score:3, Interesting)
in some situations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_punishment [wikipedia.org]
"Collective punishment is the punishment of a group of people as a result of the behavior of one or more other individuals or groups. The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions. In times of war and armed conflict, collective punishment has resulted in atrocities, and is a violation of the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions. Historically, occupying powers have used collective punishment to retaliate against and deter attacks on their forces by resistance movements (e.g. destroying whole towns and villages where such attacks have occurred)."
The professor is also trying to get students to mistrust each other with his whole look right, look left, one of these people cheated comment.
Of course, as a professor of management, he probably knows a lot about union busting.
While I don't condone cheating (the students are hurting themselves, to begin with), the students cooperated to do something, and that in itself is a very good thing.
In general, our whole schooling has lots of problems (see John Taylor Gatto and Jeff Schmidt/Disciplined Minds) and more and more students are realizing they are being scammed.
Just take the whole grading thing to begin with -- it is a terrible idea, as explained here by Alfie Kohn:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm [alfiekohn.org]