Cheating Part 4 - Viable Solutions to the Epidemic

Are there solutions to be had to the epidemic of cheating? If they did exist, why haven't they been implemented you might ask?

In fact, there are a variety of powerful anti-cheating solutions that can be implemented and in some cases have, but for the most part there is strong institutional resistance to taking the steps that must be done, as many of them are politically difficult to implement.

I would like to identify two general classes of solutions to cheating, "intrinsic" and "extrinsic." The former type of solutions focus on altering student behavior by changing students fundamental attitudes towards education. The latter deal with creating incentive schemes in the school that discourage students from cheating.

Intrinsic Solutions: Changing the Modern Student
There are many methods and methodologies that one can implement which may have an effect on fundamentally altering students' behaviour and attitudes towards cheating. One method that is advocated is the incorporation of Ethics into the curriculum, either in other courses, or as a dedicated course (see: Ethics Education in Business School). Another method, which was used at Dartmouth College is an academic honor code, in which the moral responsibility of cheating is transferred to the students. While in my own experience, this latter method was a failure, I do feel that it can be effective when combined with extrinsic solutions. A third possible solution to change students' intrinsic beliefs about cheating is remove the focus on grades and focus on learning. This can be done either through teaching the importance of learning, which is unfortunately not stressed nearly enough in current education systems.

Extrinsic Solutions: Changing the Modern School
Extrinsic solutions are those that change the incentive structures for students, to disincentive cheating. The simplest extrinsic solution (and probably least politically favorable) is to make the consequences for cheating severe. At present, many institutions (colleges and high schools alike) have laughable penalties for cheating. In the Hanover High cheating scandal (See: Cheating part 2), the penalties were miniscule compared to the scale of the crime, which involved breaking and entering and pre-meditated theft of exams. The criminal charges on many of them were dropped, and they were not expelled. Harsh penalties such as permanent expulsion (from either the university or the high school) would make it clear that cheating is not acceptable. A second solution, less cost effective, is to reduce the ability of students to cheat. Stop giving take-home exams or open book tests, place students large distances apart when taking exam, etc. Such direct deterrents will greatly limit the ability of students to cheat. Finally, we note that students greatest incentives to cheat are when they either only care about the grade or they are being forced to take the course. To reduce the former, remove grades and instead use a short letter of recommendation from the professor. To reduce the latter, remove mandatory courses. For example, remove distributive requirements at liberal arts schools. Why force someone passionate about English to take a math course, which he or she is likely to cheat through anyway?

While there are no doubt hundreds of other solutions, I believe I’ve fleshed out the two major classes of solutions that can be applied. One group of remedies focuses on altering the way students fundamentally think, and the other focuses on modifying student behavior by altering incentivizing certain actions and disincentivizing others. I leave it you to decide which class is better, or if both should be used together.

Cheating Part 3 - A Bird's Eye View of Why

Having now spent some time describing two very different instances of cheating, which describe HOW cheating occurs, I want to take some time to mention some the WHYs of cheating. In my next post, I will discuss some solutions to these problems as well.

The most commonly cited one is the pressure to perform. Students (and in fact people of all ages) receive pressure to perform from parents, colleagues, students, the media, and friends. In the case of students, there are two particular types of students I feel are particularly likely to be targets of this sort of pressure. The first group are children of wealthy families, where the parents are in high-powered white collar careers and push their children to achieve similar professional success. The second group are Asians, where the academic pressure to succeed is incredible. Many of my Asian friends at college and high school commented how if they received a 95% on an exam, their parents would be displeased they had not received the other 5%.

A second cause that drives cheating is the innate competitiveness of certain individuals. People such as these feel that they must compare themselves to others via mediums such as grades, and must do all they can to "beat" them. This is not meant to say that there is anything wrong with competitiveness, as I myself fall into this category of type A people, but simply state that the characteristic of being competitive is a cause of cheating.

Related to competitiveness is what I called being "bottom line focused" i.e. the ends are the only thing that matters. I use this term as it is similar to terms used to describe the problem of cheating in business schools (see: article by Rutgers MBA professor). However, the term is more than just applicable to business schools. The "get the grade to get the job" (GGGJ) mentality is similarly present in colleges, where learning has taken a second place to grades. This is especially true in classes where professors grade relatively as opposed to on an absolute scale. For example, in my science classes where grading was absolute (i.e. everyone could get an A), I observed little to no cheating. In other courses (typically humanities), where grading was typically relative to some curve, cheating was rampant, as students knew that what mattered was not what they learned or demonstrated, but rather, how well the other guy or girl sitting next to them did, and that they had to beat that.

The final thing I wish to point out deals with the structure of our academic institutions, and the lack of severe penalties for cheating. In many top colleges and business schools, children of important people, or important people themselves cheat. As professors often face pressures from administration to be lenient or look the other way (reference: How far the Administration Will Go), they are unable to create enough of a threat of repercussion as to dissuade students from cheating. In other cases, the penalty for cheating is simply trivial, such as a temporary suspension with no record of it on your transcript. So, if I cheat, I go work somewhere for a couple months, come back and graduate a bit later, and suffer no long term consequences. Even with the Kids from Hanover High who cheated by breaking and entering, as mentioned in Cheating Part 2, many of the charges were eventually dropped.

While this was not an exhaustive list of causes for cheating, I've shown how there's a great carrot to encourage me to cheat, but no stick to stop me from doing it.

Cheating Part 2 - How far will they go?

While the type of cheating that I personally saw is relatively common, I also (indirectly experienced) a more severe form of cheating.

During my junior year at college, a major cheating scandal happened at the town's high school (full story: http://i.abcnews.com/US/Story?id=3629333&page=1). Several students broke into the school to steal math and chemistry exams, and several students serving as lookouts for the crime, which they then distributed to up to 60 students. The police enventually decided to charge them criminally for misdemeanor, although they could have charged them for committing a felony. I haven't been able to find out what happened

There were people saying that these kids made a mistake, and others saying that cheating (especially in the manner they did) should be severely punished.

I'm of the latter camp, as I believe that no 17 year-old can believe that it is legal to break into a school, and then steal exams. Doing something that is obviously both illegal and wrong should be punished, especially as a deterrent to future crime. Quite honestly, the police could have charged them more seriously, but they chose not to - that's leniency.

If they can't get into a great college or get that into that top medical school anymore, they made that decision consciously in knowing that they were committing a crime.