Cheating in School

[Mr Skeptic]

Do you think that study is cheating? after all, you are supposed to know the all stuff before the exam. If you need to study, you don't know it well enough, and if you don't know it well enough, you're going to forget it. there isn't really much point in learning the stuff if you just forget it afterwards, so I think study is sort of cheating. maybe it is merely legalised cheating. of course, I don't study myself and get high marks, so maybe that's just me descriminating against dumb people.

 

Interesting question. I used to consider cramming for a test to be borderline cheating and also a waste of time. That was in school, and my grades were generally above 95% for each exam. College is a bit harder, and now I take notes and review my notes for about half an hour to one hour immediately before the exam. I still consider it slightly cheating, but it is also a useful skill, to know how to be the best prepared you can for something. In any case, the little extra review will help me remember things ever so slightly.

 

Cramming for more than one hour or two is probably a waste of time though -- too much info to remember, and it also means you didn't study during the school year or don't know how to take note of what is important.

[CharonY]

2. Studying in this context is not just simply memorizing the relatively small amount of information that is only on any given, specific exam.

 

It is basically the same in university. The thing is that not only the system promotes it, but the students, too. Teachers that try to focus on a system in which the understanding is tested generally get low student evaluations as they consider it too hard, non-intuitive etc.

Of course it is not necessarily the case in all classes but on average as a teacher you are better off if you e.g. show when to use which equation and then simply test for their correct application rather than asking complex questions.

[DrDNA]

Like it or not America's educational system, at least k-12 education, is very much promoting the later.

 

I like it not.

[DJBruce]

It is basically the same in university. The thing is that not only the system promotes it, but the students, too. Teachers that try to focus on a system in which the understanding is tested generally get low student evaluations as they consider it too hard, non-intuitive etc.

Of course it is not necessarily the case in all classes but on average as a teacher you are better off if you e.g. show when to use which equation and then simply test for their correct application rather than asking complex questions.

 

Do student evaluations really matter that much to professors?

 

CharonY as you are part of academia, maybe you can confirm this. According to one of my biology teacher who spent a long while in school, he has his PhD. in Biology, some professors actually allow cheating. Justifying this by saying that outside of school people cheat all of the time, and if you really feel like cheating it will eventually catch up with you. Have you ever heard of such policies, and if so how prevalent are they?

[CharonY]

Depending on the type of uni and on the position to fill student evaluation can be an important factor in tenure reviews. Once tenured it is a bit different, of course. However, if one is not mainly a teaching prof it makes sense to simplify things regardless. The reasons is that many do not want to deal with complaining students in their office all the time. One has to keep in mind that especially in research unis teaching is of overall lower priority for the prof (though not necessarily for the uni).

 

I have not yet heard of profs that allow cheating. What may happen though is that they do not punish "minor" cheating attempts (or overlook them). Usually that results in less hassle to deal with. I have heard that there were lawsuits regarding possible cheating attempts and especially those on tenure tracks do not want to take any risks.

 

However many profs allow cheat sheets where one can write down equations etc. This is not too bad, as it puts less emphasis on rote learning and you test the application of the available information. But then one often cannot do too much either. If the questions do not resemble problems discussed in class the majority of the students are usually stumped, cheat sheet or not.

[Genecks]

Well, I think the need to cheat by a truly studious student would be because he/she thinks the system is cheating him/her. That's what I think.

 

The system becomes more competitive each decade. People continually need to distill and retain more knowledge.

 

Otherwise, you're getting some people who didn't study, put in effort, try their best, and so forth. And then when they cheat, and the studious students don't, well... that's just outright, lazy cheating.

 

Sometimes, however, it would appear that professors have taught certain things that are difficult with the hope that some students don't get it right, thus ensuring the professor doesn't give out all As that semester. The professor is held to a standard, and that professor must make sure it occurs: If the professor gives out all As, then that professor allowed grade inflation to occur. Maybe the professor had a good idea of how the nation teaches that subject (went to conferences, read teaching journal, etc..) and taught as such and made things harder than average... yet still everyone got an A. Doesn't matter. Administration might say he's making the university appear to have grade inflation, thus stupid students who can get easy grades...

 

It could be rationalized by the professor that the reason the material becomes harder and more difficult is because the large amount of good grades means that things are too easy... But if we consider a Hellenistic method and figure out what all the other teaching styles are and what material is learned... then we just might notice that the professor is actually making things difficult in order to keep his/her job. Of course, it's so difficult to even find ways to compile such statistics that professors are allowed to say wtfever they want about why things are the difficulty they are... If you can't prove otherwise, then professors can get away with whatever...

 

So, because maybe the Truth or even probable truth cannot easily be assumed, maybe cheating is justified... as many professors refuse to actually publicize their teaching methods, how their exams exist... and so forth... Maybe people are justified in cheating... because the system is ultimately attempting to cheat them.

 

Personally, I know better. I think the system cheats a lot of people. Professors care more about research than teaching. They are humans, they have their own life desires, so I can't blame them for trying to be individuals... But the fact is that they aren't doing their best in teaching, as they don't have the time. So, really, it's administration who is cheating the students (if not the professor and the students), thus I could see why some students (if only they think they are not truly being taught to understand/memorize/learn the material: the system is cheating them) would indeed cheat.

 

Perhaps rather than cheating, we could call this a form of economic and/or information warfare.

 

p.s.

sorry about any typos.

Edited June 25, 2010 by Genecks

[HiggsBoson]

Crime, or in this case cheating doesn't exist if you are not caught. Although if you are able to live with yourself knowing that you wrongfully acquired what you got. Then it is justifiable.

[Neco Vir]

What most people don't understand about cheating is it affects other people than the cheater. In most cases, not just the cheater, but the one being cheated off of with or without knowledge is also consider a cheater for supplying answers (in which case, if they're knowingly, they should by all means be labeled a cheater). On top of that, throughout highschool I can probably list a 6^th of my class of names of people I've seen cheating on homework, quizes, tests, and finals. (There were over 600 kids in my senior class).

 

In my senior year at highschool 3 years back going on 4, I was weak minded about cheating, in a general sense. Whenever I saw someone cheating it hurt me to an enormous extent because there were subjects that I struggled extremely hard in and still got A's because I put a great effort into it. It was always before a teacher came in someone would ask for answers to homework, and bam they'd have it done even sometimes while the teacher was looking over someone else's work. Ontop of being able to name a bunch of people that cheated, I could name about 10 that got a 4.0 GPA. The worst thing was the teachers would talk about them proudly saying something along the lines of, "Oh in class he/she is smart, but I guess he/she isn't that street smart, or maybe he/she doesn't have common sense, but he/she knows his/her subjects real well and studies hard every night!" Now I know there are kids out there that do have exceptional skills at school, but otherwise they're complete simpletons, but I hate when teachers have so much pride and the teacher says something like they're going to be great or successful. I thought at the time (and still do to some extent) that teachers could gauge facial features when talking, because everyone that knew they cheated that didn't also cheat themselves were extremely mad, especially when the teacher talked so highly about the cheater...

 

I never got any sort of comfort from not cheating, certainly I still view cheating as completely wrong (unless you're in a what-if situation in which you may be killed for not knowing the right answer), but these kids never had the nervousness I did, the worry, or the stress. And it gave them some short term happiness (3-4 years) I wish I could've had my entire high school time...