Well, they’re business students, so frankly it’s astonishing that only a third of them were fooled.
He is not punishing the non-cheating students by making them take the test again. As it stands, their scores and rankings in the class do not accurately represent how they did, to their detriment. If I had been a non-cheater, I would certainly not want my “A” to be the same as the “A” of the guy who cheated. I want that guy to get the “C” or whatever he would get if he was being tested solely on his understanding of the material rather on his test-taking technique. I would also want my school to enforce the strictest ethical guidelines, because that will increase the value of my diploma. If people from my school are passing without learning the materials, that is going to reflect poorly on me when it comes to employment. Local employers, in particular, are going to eventually notice if enough grads are coming out of a school without knowing their stuff and stop hiring people from that school It’s unfortunate that the cheaters chose to made it so that everyone has to take the test again in order to get accurate grades, but that’s how life is. You can’t just let the inflated grades stand.
I think the reason why I am so passionate about this is because I’ve recently returned from China, which IMHO is experiencing a serious ethical crisis. Academic plagiarism is routine, and it’s getting to the point where Chinese scholars are not welcome at academic conferences because too much of their data is just plain made up. American universities generally do not accept Chinese letters of recommendation, because it’s the norm for students to draft the entire letter. I had friends doing really shady stuff- a buddy of mine represented herself as a foreign expert on coal mining safety equipment, and got paid good US money to make fake, gibberish presentations to potential buyers. Of course, coal mining safety in China is not something to play around with. The sheer number of people who would gladly sacrifice any shred of integrity for the smallest short term gain was mind blowing.
We don’t want to be that society. We don’t want poison in our baby foods. We don’t want to start having to bribe our policemen and judges. We don’t want our government offices to be bought and sold. We don’t want our diplomas to become worthless. We don’t want people’s well-being to be put in the hands of shams and hucksters.
And that is, in my experience, the end result of activities like this. These kids are silly business majors now, but eventually they will be is positions of power. They will be in the position of deciding whether or not to dump the poison in the baby food. I absolutely believe that culture can play a major role in creating an ethical society, and it’s in our benefit to make sure our culture continues to reward ethical behavior. Schools, of course, a one of the perfect places to do this.
If we take the professor at his word, the non-cheating students are definitely being punished. He claimed that by analyzing the scores, he could determine who cheated and who didn’t. Okay then, kick the cheaters out and grade the remaining 400 students. Or make only the 200 cheaters take the new test (although it might be easier than the first one, so they’d get a slight advantage on their final course grade). Give the non-cheaters the option to take the second test. If you want to reward their honesty (and punish the cheaters) let them take the second test and keep the higher of the two scores.
But he didn’t come up with any of those plans. The second test is mandatory for everyone. What if they had other plans already, or if this second test cuts into the time they have to prepare and take tests in their other courses?
I agree that the part about definitively identifying the cheaters may have been a bluff to get people to come forward. If the professor could have absolutely determined who cheated, there would have been better ways to handle it.
Right. Because studying answers for a test from a test bank somebody gave you is just exactly like dumping poison into baby food. Yeah, it’s a slilppery slope.
But we’re all pretty sure that was a lie. So the rest of your logic, which springs from this flawed foundation, is also going to be flawed.
It wasn’t just one rogue asshole who dumped poison in the milk. Hundreds of people were involved. People up and down the chain knew exactly what was happening, but they were always able to shift the blame to someone else, and convince them that they were not responsible. It’s still happening today. Even years later, producers are still putting out contaminated milk products that they know will harm their customers.
That, in my opinion, is a symptom of a massive society-wide breakdown of integrity. And yeah, I do think when institutions stop expecting ethical behavior, it exacerbates the problem.
Freakonomics tackled the problem of determining teachers who cheated on the standardized tests - changing student answers - so their ranking would improve.
Of the questions asked, a certain number of them would have been identical to the test bank questions. So, exclude all other questions and focus on those. You’ll get a list of students who score consistently higher than all the others. Take that list of names and turn it over to the IT department with the URL and IP address of the test bank site. Most students, even the commuters, will use the school’s wifi network at some point, so the probability is high that they will have looked at the test bank using the school’s network. The IT guys can check the router and account logs. Bingo, you have a list of students who most assuredly cheated.
Will it catch all the cheaters? No. Will it catch a large percentage of them? Yes.
Should the professor depend on a test bank for writing his tests? No, but when teaching from a standardized curriculum, especially an upper level class of 600 students, it’s easy to see why it was the only reasonable way to put together a new test each semester.
What difference does the number of students the test is written for make?
Why do you need to get clean results? If the test was graded on a curve that was effected by the cheaters then perhaps the professor should give everyone the option of retaking the test. If there was no curve then I don’t see why there would be any need to “come up with clean results.” If they can prove that certain students cheated they should absolutely punish those students, but requiring honest students to take a previously unscheduled test unfairly penalizes them.
The professor should evaluate what happened and take steps to prevent it in the future, but there is no way he can fairly take action based on the results of the test alone. Of course by getting 200 people to admit to cheating he has effectively taken action. He should punish those who admitted to cheating, while the rest of the students keep the grades they earned on the original test.
Because grading 600xwhatever essay questions takes a while.
Because a test is supposed to reflect how well you learned the class material. This test did not reflect that. It’s unfortunate that it inconveniences some people, but I think the vast majority of people who honestly studied the course material would rather have that than the ultimate unfairness and devaluation of the degree that would come with letting a cheated test stand. In any case, university is voluntary. Sometimes there will be unscheduled things you have to deal with. I don’t see how re-taking a test is all that different than needing to stop by the financial aid office, registering during priority registration, or any of the other countless random unexpected tasks you have to do to be a student.
Maybe part of my perspective on this comes from having been a teacher. I put A LOT into my students. I spent hours every week planning my classes. If they needed my help, I would move hell and high water to give it to them. I spent endless hours in my office working with students who had things to discuss. I spent hundreds of dollars and large chunks of time getting special materials to students that wanted them. Grading took over months of my life. I did everything I could to make sure they learned.
But some of them cheated. And it was a blow. When you put so much effort into something, and you are so willing to do what it takes for the students to learn, it sucks when they don’t choose that and instead choose to just take. If they needed help, I would have done what it took to give it to them. There is no reason that they would have had to cheat. It’s a very personal kind of disrespect- like your own child stealing from you.