61.9% of Undergraduates Cybercheat 484
RichDiesal writes "A recent study of 1222 undergraduates found that 61.9% of them 'cybercheat,' which involves using the Internet illicitly to get higher grades. Some of the quotes from students are a bit troubling. As one 19-year-old engineering student put it, 'As more and more people are using the Internet illegally (i.e. limewire etc.), I feel that the chances of being caught or the consequences of my actions are almost insignificant. So I feel no pressure in doing what ever everybody else is doing/using the Internet for.'"
Cheating vs. Illegal Downloads? (Score:4, Interesting)
This just in from 1985 (Score:4, Interesting)
87% of students in the pre-internet age copied directly from the encyclopedia.
How is it news that kids cheat? Teachers never had it so good. Google has made it so easy to catch them it is ridiculous.
If it wasn't 99% memorization no one would cheat (Score:4, Interesting)
Guess what: we "cheat" in the real world, universities and schools. We have reference materials to give us facts and information. Our real skill comes from how we *apply* that information, and separates the merely good from the great. Schools don't teach or measure that true ability, all they "teach" is how to recall facts that we can look up in the first place.
It's pathetic. We don't actually learn anything, schools are just a training ground for trivia shows, and give unfair advantage to people that have a better memory. Has nothing to do with your actual skill.
It's time to stop this garbage and teach people real skills and test to that, instead of making schools and universities glorified "Jeopardy!" games.
What Classes Are They Cheating In? (Score:4, Interesting)
The classes that did involve report writing were things like Jazz history, Literary Analysis, Political Studies, etc. In other words, us techie majors had to write extensive reports on matters that we just didn't give a fuck about, for classes that added absolutely nothing to the skill set we would need for our careers. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the engineering and and compy sci. students that were cheating, were cheating in their GE and liberal arts classes because they just don't give a shit about those topics. Furthermore, they are probably overworked and under-rested when it comes to studying for the classes they do care about. So, rather than waste their valuable time writing a report about The Scarlet Letter (something that should have been done in HS), they say fuck it and download one. Honestly, I can't blame them for that. It's good time management and it shows they know how to budget their energy for things that matter.
I would rather see a breakdown by class type that involved cheating for each one of those field breakdowns. If my guess is correct, I say go forth and cheat my young engineers. Spend your time actually learning calculus, mathematical analysis, and designing something. That's what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life so you might as well learn it now.
Re:Cybercheat? (Score:4, Interesting)
In any event, most of the 'cheating' measures are only useful in the more vacuous subjects. In most most of the hard topics, it's easy enough to see if student know material in short form ("Finish in the following: Glucose 6-phosephate is rearranged into Fructose 6-phosphate by _____") and in long form, slightly trickier, but you can generally filter the bulk of cheats by simply asking students some intelligent questions about their papers verbally. It's just that many people have got horribly lazy, or have been forced to lecture unreasonably large classrooms, or both.
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Solution (Score:4, Interesting)
If education didn't carry such a ridiculous profit motive for everybody involved we wouldn't see:
a) situations where kids feel obliged to cheat or else their life is ruined
b) situations where the university passes you even though you know exactly nothing so that they can boast numbers
Education needs to be freely available and de-standardized. Exam grades can't and never prove anything. Like all restrictions of this kind (DRM, War on Drugs, Welfare), it just ends up alienating legitimate users, those who want to go to university to actually learn something and not practice 3-4 years of rote memorisation and regurgitation onto an exam sheet. When you think about it, the exam paradigm such an abhorrently ridiculous method of assessing people, especially in today's climate where I have a permanent connection to the internet, any time of day, anywhere I go.
We are, as a society, done with memorising trivia. The "expert" of yesterday is a relic, all you need is some logic skills and wikipedia and you can be an "expert" in something almost immediately.
I would recommend any who haven't seen to watch this video [youtube.com] by RSA Animate on Ken Livingstone's seminar on education paradigms.
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If the prof knows the student, you can't cheat (Score:4, Interesting)
The University I attended had a system with "preceptors." A course would have a lecture with all the students from full prof once or twice a week, and a few more times a week a session with a smaller group (~10-15 students). The preceptor could be a grad student, or an assistant prof, or also even the full prof. In that smaller group, the preceptor gets to know the students, which makes cheating impossible. The preceptor would know if some dumb-ass in class wrote a brilliant essay, which was way beyond his or her intellectual faculties. The preceptor also gave you your grade.
Unfortunately, this was not as extremely enforced in engineering, which was my major. But the prof would come by during the lab exercises, and grill everyone on what they were doing and why and what they thought they would learn.
I took a lot of high level literature courses as electives. After the first essay that I had to write for one course, the preceptor pulled me aside after the class. She said, "You're not a literature major, are you? I'll bet that you are an engineering student!" She told me that essays from literature majors had very good ideas, but they tended to ramble. Engineers didn't have the best ideas, but their essays were all very well structured. She knew that I didn't cheat on the essay, because she heard what I said in class.
Want to cut out cheating? Get more direct prof to student contact.
Re:Cybercheat? (Score:5, Interesting)
One of my favorite profs evar is my compsci professor. All of his exams, every single one, is open book. Bring your notes, bring your laptop, search google, he doesn't care. Just no talking to other people (the school doesn't like that). His reasoning? It represents the real world. He always says that your employer isn't going to slap you on the wrist for looking something up if you don't know it off hand. But your employer WILL slap you upside the head if you cannot implement it. So, almost all of his tests revolve around understanding concepts and not regurgitating definitions. He asks questions like "what does this function do?" or "what's wrong with this program?" In later courses our tests are more about programming on the fly (which is fucking tough), so the more you can "cheat" and swipe entire functions from class examples or labs or whatever, the better you'll do - because inevitably the test comes down to understanding how all the puzzle pieces fit together and why the fucking thing is compiling, running, and then exploding in your face. Fortunately he gives lots of part marks. Last midterm I got 84% for a program that didn't even run (thanks to a null index I forgot to initialize... ugh.)
The only downside to his approach (and he warns us of this) is that we should try very hard not to cheat outright and mass-plagiarize entire programs/assignments, because if he has to put us infront of the faculty judges - most of whom are english profs - they will nail your ass to the wall because they won't understand that programming is a cumulative process. So there's some give and take on both sides.
In any case, he's by far my favorite prof. Particularly for his little programming maxims... my recent fav: "Always code as if the person maintaining the program is a homicidal maniac... and they have your home address!"
Re:Cybercheat? (Score:4, Interesting)
You are correct that there is value in a "liberal arts" education, but you are going to find it difficult to convince people to spend more than the price of a new car every year for four or more years for one. The thing about community college is that the big schools spend a lot of time telling you how much more you can earn if you go to them rather than to a more vocational training oriented school.