I can understand (in a way) where this guy is coming from. Why would you bust your butt to get the same grade as someone else that just downloaded their work and the TA's / profs just turned a blind eye to? (This is leaving out the argument about personal pride, learning skills, etc. This is just about rules and the enforcement of them). Shouldn't you get busted right away? I've seen profs turn a blind eye to cheating and it pissed me off. And I know that I am not the only one. In other things in life, if you don't enforce things all the time, you loose the right to enforce the rule at all (Trademark violation comes to mind). Is it the same with cheating? I don't really think so, but it's an interesting argument.
It reminds me of a joke where a guy was speeding on the highway with a bunch of other cars and this one guy gets pulled over. He asks the cop why he was singled out? The cop asks if the guy has ever gone fishing to which the guy replies yes. Then the cop asks "Have you ever caught all the fish?" Sort of like one of my favourite posters...
Not everyone gets caught when breaking the rules. But as long as someone is enforcing them, no matter how small a percentage of people that they are catching, this still means that you can get caught. So don't cry about it. Take it like an adult.
Listening to: Ian Pooley - rock da disco (Daft Punk Mix)
It's impossible to catch everyone. But, they really should try harder to catch people. The ratio of people caught to people cheating is way too low. If only .5% of people who cheat get caught, then a lot of people will be willing to take the risk.
ReplyDeleteAlso the fact that they don't really enforce the penalties to the full extent doesn't help. Most of the time you'll get a Zero on the assignment. Most people don't care, cause if they wouldn't have cheated, they would have gotten a zero anyway, they don't really lose.
Maybe we should create a three strikes system. When someone is caught cheating on something minor like an assignment, their get a strike against their name. When they get three throughout their university career, they're out. Cheating on exams and such should be automatic expulsion, since they are usually such a high percentage of the grade.
Of course, they have to prove you being guilty, this can be hard in some situations, especially with such dire consequences. It would really suck to have false positives on this one.
I think that people will only take the risk of cheating if the potential harm isn't great. Like you said, if they cheat and get zero on the assignment, then most likely they'll cheat. If it's put into their record or they face getting booted out of school, then not as likely.
ReplyDeleteWould you cheat on an assignment (that's not worth much) if you have a 0.5% chance of getting caught and then booted out of school? Probably not.
I think that at our school they had a good enough system (when it was enforced). I just don't think that it was enforced enough. I think that if the profs have a "I'll kick your ass if I catch you cheating" attitude, that will go a long way. And of course you actually have to follow through on a few cases so people know you mean business.
I would blame a cavalier attitude toward cheating on the students more than the professors or TAs. Like it has been said, it's impossible to enforce when the ratio of students to teachers is so high.
ReplyDeleteSo it comes down to the personal ethics of the students. Would you personally cheat on an assignment or test? That question is a little more cut and dry, right? But what if you saw someone else cheat, would you tell the prof/TA because it gave them an unfair advantage over you? If the answer is no, then you THE STUDENT is tacitly approving the behaviour of the cheating student.
Whether and when you get caught is pretty irrelevent. It would come down to the "talent" of the cheater and a large degree of luck. Either way you are still cheating. If your personal ethics can handle that, well ... then you'll have to deal with the consequences of it.
I do agree that in a program like engineering cheating should be taken more seriously, especially with the ethics involved in the engineering profession. By tacitly approving of cheating in the program, the school is producing engineers with questionable morals -- not good!
Engineers in the real world enforce ethics amongst themselves, and that's keeps the profession strong. Engineering students should be held to the same level of accountability.
I think the problem lies with the professors and TA's not enforcing it correctly. I don't think i've ever heard of a professor kicking someone out of a course, or getting them kicked out of the university for cheating on an assignment. If this was the consequence, there would be a lot less people doing it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, telling a professor about cheating doesn't really help. We once noticed some people cheating on an exam, and emailed the prof afterwards, because it happened at the end, in the big hussle to get them all collected, it was a multiple choice test, these can be filled out pretty quickly. There was basically no proof, and since false positives can really ruin somebody's life, they don't really want to take any chances.