A few years ago I did some research on the predominance of cheating in higher education. I don’t remember all of the statistics, but the one piece of information that stood out to me was that more than 75% of all college students cheat (75-98% of College Students, 2011). Wait, what?! Yes, you read that right. As a college instructor, this number is startling. Maybe there needs to be a study on the correlation between cheating college students in the medical field and the number of medical mistakes they make.
As many of us in the education field know, cheating comes in all sizes and types. As online education grows, there are added concerns about cheating and ways to prevent academic dishonesty. In the traditional setting, examples of cheating include, cheat sheets on paper, hands, wrists, arms and/or inner thighs. Some simply resort to writing the answers on the desk. According to Zach Oldham of the Campus Chronicle, students also cheat by plagiarizing. Examples of plagiarism include, “buying, stealing, or borrowing a paper, copying from another source without citing (intentionally or by accident), cutting or pasting text or graphics from Internet sources without proper citation, or hiring or asking someone to complete coursework or take a test” (Oldman, 2015, para 30). Over the years, I have heard stories about filing cabinets full of tests in fraternities, stealing tests, and making copies of exams. In modern times, students try to get away with a cell phone in their lap during the exam or listening to audio files with the answers through earbuds while taking the exam. I am sure I haven’t seen a fraction of how resourceful students can be when they are in a program that has competitive enrollment and need an A to get in.
Since distance learning is becoming more and more popular, instructors are faced with the challenge of creating course content that assesses the student in ways that make it difficult for them cheat. To help with this obstacle, tech companies have developed anti-cheating software that is meant to reduce or even eliminate the opportunity to cheat when taking exams online. Before the test date, students are required to download special anti-cheating software. At the start of the test, students verify their identity through webcams and are watched through the live video for the duration of the test. The “live image...in miniature” is present on the computer screen to remind students they are being monitored (Singer, 2015, para 3). There are complaints that these types of safeguards are intrusive and distracting (Singer, 2015). One example is called Proctortrack. The technology is similar to airport security scanning. Algorithms are used to determine if the behavior or movements of the student taking the exam is suspect. If the system recognizes abnormal behavior, it will flag the exam. Proctortrack is referred to as the “world’s first automated remote proctoring solution” (Singer, 2015, para 12).
I have taken many online courses and 90% of the coursework I completed was done at 10:00 at night in my pajamas. The thought of being watched closeup on camera is unsettling to me. I certainly understand the need to police exams and prevent academic dishonesty, but I would rather go to a testing site than be watched on my computer.
The process of relying on a computer to determine if my sneeze or yawn during an exam indicates that I have low integrity is scary to me. I tend to shift my body frequently while taking an exam because I have lower back problems and my legs fall asleep. These programs give the student virtually no freedom during the exam. They can’t look away from the computer, they can’t change facial expressions, they can’t stand up, and they can’t pick up a pencil that rolls off the desk. All of these things will flag the student as having possibly cheated (Singer, 2015). The argument from the universities is that they need to verify the integrity of the program, the degree, and the college brand (Singer, 2015). However, I think the solution would be to allow students to utilize testing sites that don’t want the stress of the computer monitored exam.
In addition to exam monitoring software, colleges also utilize programs that check written papers for plagiarism, such as SafeAssign and Turnitin. This type of software “scans students’ papers for copied passages” (Singer, 2015, para 11). From personal experience, using a system like this is a great help. For all the papers I have written, my top priority has been to not plagiarize. SafeAssign gives the student immediate feedback on what percentage of the paper might be copied. Students can check their paper before submitting it for grading to be sure they are within the college guidelines on plagiarism.
Without a doubt, cheating is a serious problem in colleges. Students are on a quest for the grade and not the knowledge. This fact scares me and it should scare the readers of this blog as well. Having worked in the medical field, I know how important it is to be well educated. Graduates, specifically ones entering the medical field, need to be able to solve complex problems while sleep deprived and stressed. I believe academic dishonesty is just the beginning of a domino effect. If students aren’t prepared for their job, they will make mistakes and in the medical field, that means life or death.
References:
75 to 98 Percent of College Students Have Cheated. (2011, June 29). Retrieved from
http://study.com/articles/75_to_98_Percent_of_College_Students_Have_Cheated.html
Oldham, Z. (2015, December 2). Online learning presents new opportunities for cheating. The
Campus Chronicle. Retrieved from http://www.campuschroniclenews.com/?p=1747
Singer, N. (2015). Online Test-Takers Feel Anti-Cheating Software’s Uneasy Glare. Retrieved from
easy-glare.html
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