What to do about cheating Using the student perspective to develop curriculum

1
What to do about cheating? Using the student
perspective to develop curriculum

• Martin Dick RMIT University
• Judy Sheard Monash University
• Maurie Hasen Monash University

2
Addressing Cheating

• Plenty of evidence that it is at unacceptable
  levels
• And has been for at least the last 40 years
• We believe that cheating should be addressed in
  the following three broad areas
• Pre-emption
• Cultural Change/Education/Organisational Change
• Assessment Design
• Detection
• Response
• This research is looking at Education

3
What do we need to know?

• A broad understanding of the types and prevalence
  of cheating
• A broad understanding of how acceptable students
  perceive various types of cheating to be
• An understanding of the perceptions of academics
  in relation to cheating practices
• An understanding of the academic organisation
  that the students belong to
• A detailed understanding of student beliefs,
  perceptions, motivations for and ideas in
  relation to cheating and plagiarism

4
Discovering Students Beliefs, Perceptions,
Motivations and Ideas

• 8 focus groups with a total of 72 students
• Focus groups conducted by an external facilitator
• Lasted approximately 90 minutes
• Bachelor of Computing/Bachelor of Computer
  Science
• 1st year/2nd and 3rd Year students
• 50 male, 22 female
• 33 full-fee, 39 HECS

5
Theoretical Framework
From Dick et al (2003) Based on work by Rest
(1994) and Passow (2002)
6
Personal Domain

• Laziness
• Some times people are lazy, they dont want to
  work.
• Dont care about the course
• I think it depends on the persons mind. Like if
  they think that its not really important, then
  it becomes quite easy to cheat
• Dont understand the difference between cheating
  and collaboration
• It also depends on what people classify cheating
  as. Like if you look at someone elses work
  because you dont understand something and you
  write it down and then you learn from it well
  then do you call that cheating?

7
Situational Context Results

• Ease of Cheating
• if the person want to cheat the toilet during
  exam you cant supervise them in the toilet. Some
  student maybe have some notes
• Exam Cheating Is More Serious
• but like if you go into an exam and you pull out
  cheat notes or something like that, I think
  thats much worse than just copying an assignment
  and then not referencing it properly
• Performance of Staff
• I cant understand my tutors. And my lecturers.
  Like Ive got a lecturer at the moment I cant
  understand a single thing he says.
• Cost of Course
• Yeah because I think the overseas student will
  spend a lot of money, more than the local student
  because we need to get the flight from our own
  country . And we really want to pass all the
  subjects.

8
Societal Context Results

• Helping Friends
• If my friends want to copy my work because they
  didnt understandlike their putting the effort
  but they still didnt understand and then by
  looking at my work it actually helps them
  understand well then I dont think theres
  anything wrong with that.
• Pressure From Friends
• I mean I feel bad about myself because at first
  I couldnt say no to this person because were
  friends and everything and I dont want to lose
  her friendship so I gave my work
• Not My Job
• But theres an attitude that the cheating and
  plagiarism is the problem of the lecturers and
  the people marking it rather than it being our
  problem.

9
Technology Context

• Easier to cheat
• Its pretty easy especially with IT, the
  technology, just copy and paste from other files.
  A lot easier than pen and paper where you have to
  read it and mainly copy it.
• Female No. the thing is with computers theres
  a lot of traces, when people use computers they
  leave traces
• Male Like people leave files theyve saved in
  pracs on the C drive.
• Male Or on the U drive or something.

10
Conclusions

• Data from the focus groups and earlier research
  is being used to drive the development of a
  curriculum for a compulsory workshop for all
  students
• Hopefully will run in Semester 1 next year at
  Monash
• Plan to repeat our earlier survey work to see if
  it has any long-term effect on student attitudes
  and behaviour.

11
References

• Passow, H. J. (2002). Individual and Contextual
  Factors that Affect Engineering Student's
  Decisions about Academic Integrity (Cheating)
  Technical Report ED795. Ann Arbor, USA,
  University of Michigan.
• Rest, J. R. (1994). Background Theory and
  Research. Moral Development in the professions
  Psychology and Applied Ethics. D. Narvaez.
  Hillsdale, USA, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Dick, M., Sheard, J., Bareiss, C., Carter, J.,
  Joyce, D., Harding, T. and Laxer, C. (2003)
  Addressing Student Cheating Definitions and
  Solutions. SIGCSE Bulletin Volume 34 (December)