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Cheating in the electronic age |
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Written by Eric Watt
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May 21, 2006 at 12:13 AM |
Educators speak out about new ways students are finding to cheat. Perhaps they should consider going back to basics?
Students' cheating has been a problem for as long as we have given out grades. In the past, unprepared students turned to using 'cheat sheets', whispering answers to classmates, or stealing the questions ahead of time. With the electronic age, students are now able to avoid learning in new and creative ways. A recent publication discusses some of these more recent academic dishonesty issues in the collegiate setting. One student at UCLA was caught reading class notes from a handheld email device during his exam. Journalism students at San Jose State University were caught using spell checkers during a test designed to check their ability to spell correctly. Choosing an even more complex solution, students at the University of Nevada photographed test questions using cell phone cameras, sent them to friends outside the test, and then had the answers sent back. Other examples given include formulas pre-programmed on calculators and dictated notes on an iPod (the Pepperdine University student was caught because proctors noticed the headphone wire). Educators are growing weary from the fight against these new methods of cheating. Solutions include turning off wireless access during finals, cameras in exam rooms, and monitoring software on computers. Some professors have even found low tech solutions, such as having students arrange desks so the screens can be seen by proctors during the exam. With their arsenal of electronic gadgets, students these days find it easier to cheat. College officials are struggling to outwit would-be cheaters this exam season with a range of strategies - cutting off Internet access from laptops, demanding the surrender of cellphones before tests or simply requiring that exams be taken the old-fashioned way, with pens and paper.
It seems the answer to the problem is quite clear: using pencil and paper exams. Personally, I have never had an exam on that was administered on the computer (besides standardized tests). Certainly, students should not be allowed to use their own computers. Using handheld email readers, taking pictures with cell phones, and listening to notes on iPods are so easy to catch; it's amazing that there is even an issue here. There is no need to cut off the internet access of laptops, because they shouldn't be used in the first place. Cell phones shouldn't be surrendered at the beginning of the exam, they just not be taken out during the exam. Perhaps educators are trying to find solutions that are much more complex than they need to be. Of course, many seem to be unaware of the degree to which cheating is occurring in colleges. A survey of 62,000 students across 96 U.S. colleges found that two-thirds admit to cheating in the past. Though Brian Carlisle, associate dean of students at UCLA, said most students did not cheat, he spoke wearily about cases of academic dishonesty.
It seems it's a bigger problem than even the associate dean believes it to be.
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Last Updated ( Sep 22, 2007 at 08:59 PM )
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