By Johanna Weeks
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, universities have moved to learning online and the desire to cheat has increased. College students are under pressure to maintain good grades and now have the internet available to them during exams. The pandemic has presented students with many challenges and the increase in cheating displays this. However, my college English professor gave my class some advice: fail with dignity.
“It doesn't matter what you achieve if it’s all based on a false pretense,” said Chancellor Award of Student Excellence winner James Faraci from SUNY Plattsburgh.
In a 2020 survey conducted by Wiley, an education publisher, 93% of educators think that students are more likely to cheat online than in person. Only a third said they were using some method of proctoring to prevent cheating. 789 instructors in higher education participated in this survey. Students should recognize that academic integrity is beneficial for them especially in the long run. Cheating can be helpful short term, but it will impact the success of one’s future.
“I think once you get into college and your major, what you do affects someone else. Like, if you’re a nursing major and you’re cheating on your exams then you're affecting your patients and the efficiency of where you’re working,” Faraci said. “I think that as you grow in your educational journey cheating starts to directly affect other people. Therefore, cheating gets worse and more immoral.”
According to a 2020 article posted on the Washington Times by Derek Newton, the coronavirus has led to an increase in cheating during exams. ProctorU, a service that has trained proctors to watch test-takers and check IDs, has reported a 7% increase in cheating. Before the pandemic, cheating rates were fewer than 1%. Many colleges and universities moved ahead with online testing without supervision to save money. Others opted instead for less expensive, scaled-down kinds of test security, such as software that can lock a web browser while a student takes a test. According to Wiley, only 15% of instructors take that step.
“You cannot give an exam if it is not proctored,” stated Charles M. Krousgrill, a professor of engineering at Purdue University according to the Washington Post article.
The homework helping website Chegg has become popular since the pandemic. The website hasan honor code prohibiting cheating and allows users to post a question to the site and receive an answer from a Chegg-identified expert “in as little as 30 minutes.” A new study published in the International Journal for Educational Integrity by Thomas Lancaster and Codrin Cotarlan, department of computing members in the UK, found that the number of questions posted on the site in five different science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines increased by 196.25% in April to August of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. “Given the number of exam style questions, it appears highly likely that students are using this site as an easy way to breach academic integrity by obtaining outside help,” according to Lancaster and Cotarlan.
“It would seem to be quite a heavy coincidence if this was just purely a lot more students wanting to get assistance for unassessed work. It does seem to me like there are people using Chegg to cheat,” stated Lancaster in the study.
The other SUNY Plattsburgh Chancellor Award of Student Excellence winner Kassandra Doran said “cheating makes you unqualified, you can’t lie about things you’ve done.” Sometimes open book tests are allowed now that exams are online. Students continue to find ways to push the boundaries of online exam restrictions. Specifically, The College Board, which administers the AP tests, reconfigured these exams to be “open book” when they were moved online, but without proctoring. Students reportedly used private messaging apps to collaborate on answers. Even before the exams began, College Board officials tweeted about “a ring of students who were developing plans to cheat” and canceled their registrations.
“I think that for both homework and exams working with peers when you’re not supposed to is unacceptable, but internet searches or looking up things in a book is something that you’re going to have for the rest of your life, so I don’t see why we can’t do it now,” Doran said. “I think with cheating there is a line and you’re no longer earning that grade.”
Learning the material and improving is the key to success. Professors and academic advisors are reliable resources to consult with regarding concerns with workload, classes and grades.
“Nobody expects you to build Rome overnight, retake classes if you have to. In the greater scheme of things, if you are able to show that you improved from a C student to an A student that's much better than cheating your way to a B+,” Faraci said.
It has been a tough year for college students and there is pressure to do well. Owning your mistakes and failing with dignity creates academic integrity.
“I definitely think cheating has increased with online exams and Google, but at the same time it’s been a very hard semester,” Doran said. “I wanted to pick up a CSD minor, but I am terrible at English. I failed a test, I didn’t study, and I wasn’t interested in the material. I just accepted defeat.”
This year has been tough, but cheating will end up failing the student most times. It is essential to have a moral compass. A manageable workload will allow for students to be successful with the commitments they made.
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