

Visualization of cheating in education - rafaelc
http://www.learnboost.com/cheating-lessons/

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csallen
_> > We all know the old adage about cheaters only cheating themselves.
Unfortunately, the reality is that leaving academic dishonesty unchecked
creates a pattern of abuse, hurting the credibility of the entire
institution._

Students cheat because we have academic systems that reward those who cheat
without getting caught. Instead of asking how we can catch people, maybe we
should be asking _why_ students cheat in the first place. I mean these aren't
just unmotivated high school dropouts -- they're honor students, college
students, etc. By the articles own admission, 80% of high achieving students
_admit_ to cheating. Hell, I went to MIT and cheating was even rampant there.

Why aren't students motivated to _learn_? Why is it that even good students
don't feel short-changed when they cheat for the answers instead of learning
the material? When you try to answer questions like that, you'll think less
about catching cheaters, and more about reforming our ineffective, outdated,
traditionalist educational systems.

~~~
spamizbad
Culturally, the United States does not value education. It values the
_prestige_ of education, and what it can do for your career, but the idea of
reducing ones ignorance isn't considered a terribly noble pursuit. Winning and
obtaining valuable things is what counts - who cares how you get there - so
long as nobody can take it away from you after the fact.

~~~
gauthr
I think you've made an important observation about true education versus the
prestige of education, and the valuing of the prestige and little else is
certainly not confined to the United States. It is the dominant attitude
towards education in East and South Asia, for example, even though those
societies are perceived as having greater respect for education than the USA.

------
TGJ
I cheated once on a Spanish test in 8th grade. I was kicked out of basketball
for the next rest of the year. When I look back at why I cheated the simplest
reason was that I did not study for the test. The reason that I did not study
was because I was being forced to take the class. If I had wanted to take the
class, I would have never cheated because I would have wanted to learn.

I think people want the rewards for accomplishments but not the accomplishment
itself. That's why people cheat.

~~~
chrischen
Students cheat because the institution doesn't tell them to learn.
Institutions tell them to get high grades. And students, being cunning
smartasses they are, say "fine, I will get high grades," and thus they proceed
to cheat because it is the easier way to get high grades and/or pass tests.

If instead schools simply said you're here to learn, and God (aka the natural
laws of the universe which are unbreakable) will determine whether or not you
"pass" in life, then no one would cheat (or can cheat, for that matter).

~~~
rick888
"Students cheat because the institution doesn't tell them to learn.
Institutions tell them to get high grades. And students, being cunning
smartasses they are, say "fine, I will get high grades," and thus they proceed
to cheat because it is the easier way to get high grades and/or pass tests."

Those students are lazy and they will most likely bring that laziness to their
job. Yes, it's easy to just cheat and get good grades, but the grades are
supposed to be the result of your hard work. I know people in high school that
loved to cheat and find the easiest way to pass whatever test they were
taking. 10 years later, many of them have low-paying factory jobs and are
still living with mom and dad.

If I hacked into my school's computer system and gave myself all A's, it
doesn't make me any smarter in Calculus (one of the subjects where I changed
my grade).

You could go out and buy a trophy that says that you made MVP of your softball
league, but isn't the point to earn it?

Students being smartasses only proves that humans will take the past of least
resistance.

"If instead schools simply said you're here to learn, and God (aka the natural
laws of the universe which are unbreakable) will determine whether or not you
"pass" in life, then no one would cheat (or can cheat, for that matter)."

That's like saying: If we stop arresting people, we won't have any more
criminals.

How are we going to judge people on how much they have learned if not on
concepts and material from their lessons?

~~~
chrischen
> That's like saying: If we stop arresting people, we won't have any more
> criminals.

It's actually more like saying we should take away all laws.

> How are we going to judge people on how much they have learned if not on
> concepts and material from their lessons?

Well, without laws, whoever is still alive at the end of the day has made it.

> Those students are lazy and they will most likely bring that laziness to
> their job. I think it's naive to think all the people who cheat all get what
> they deserve. I honestly can't say what % of them do get what they deserve,
> but I'm sure it's not all of them. Yes, given time = infinity, they will all
> get what they deserve. It's also an uphill battle to not get what you
> deserve and cheat, but I think a lot of people can get away with cheating
> before they die. And also it does not mean they are lazy. It simply means
> they are more practical. For example if a child is told to do task B, but
> aren't given a satisfactory reason for doing it, then they are highly
> compelled to cheat, lazy or not, if completion of the task gets them
> something of understandable value.

> If I hacked into my school's computer system and gave myself all A's, it
> doesn't make me any smarter in Calculus (one of the subjects where I changed
> my grade).

Why would you do this? I'm guessing you would do this if A's could get you a
better job right/more opportunities? So getting the As has understandable
value to you. So that means you have two possible opinions regarding the
actual learning part: 1 - You do not understand why you have to learn it, so
the least path of resistance for you is to cheat (You're not necessarily lazy,
you just don't want to do unnecessary work), 2 - You understand the value of
the learning but you're a lazy and you just try to cheat to get the grades for
free.

> You could go out and buy a trophy that says that you made MVP of your
> softball league, but isn't the point to earn it? The point is to earn it,
> but lots of students don't immediately see that point. They're just told
> that you have to do learn this and that it will one day be important. When
> students get to college many more of them see this, but still a lot don't
> understand the full importance of actually learning.

It's why people pad or lie on resumes. Some people do it 'cause they're lazy,
but some do it because they believe the end justifies the means. The
unfortunate part is that a lot of these students can continue doing this and
get a job at a big company because a big company doesn't care so much about
actual performance, so as long as you have the credentials.

Disclaimer: I cheated once on a spelling test in 5th grade, apart from that, I
do not remember ever cheating again.

~~~
rick888
"It's why people pad or lie on resumes. Some people do it 'cause they're lazy,
but some do it because they believe the end justifies the means. The
unfortunate part is that a lot of these students can continue doing this and
get a job at a big company because a big company doesn't care so much about
actual performance, so as long as you have the credentials."

Most big companies don't care about grades either. If you pad your resume with
lies, you might be able to slide by some of the time, but it will eventually
catch up with you.

"Disclaimer: I cheated once on a spelling test in 5th grade, apart from that,
I do not remember ever cheating again."

I cheated once in elementary school also (I think it was on a history test).
But I learned that cheating is wrong and I haven't done it since.

"Well, without laws, whoever is still alive at the end of the day has made
it."

School is a step above the anarchy that was the earth before modern times, not
a step below.

"For example if a child is told to do task B, but aren't given a satisfactory
reason for doing it, then they are highly compelled to cheat, lazy or not, if
completion of the task gets them something of understandable value."

"Cheating" for some tasks are just another word for getting it done more
efficiently.

"When students get to college many more of them see this, but still a lot
don't understand the full importance of actually learning."

Some students don't learn because it's something they just don't want to do.
When you have a choice between hanging out with your friends and partying all
night and studying for a test/learning something new, the activity that is
more "fun" trumps all.

When the student that is partying all the time starts failing (IE: bad
grades), they will then be forced to either start studying or leave. Without
grades, they would just continue partying.

I still don't really see your point.

~~~
chrischen
The point of contention here is that you think cheating will always catch up
to you.

I'm saying that the world is not so liquid and ideal. Someone cheating,
assuming they do it right (and don't over do it), will probably get more than
they deserve (in an idea world) before they die, if they did everything 100%
by the book. Simple karmic forces (the cause-effect force) dictate that if you
cheat constantly, you will increase your chances of being caught and punished.
However people don't live forever, so it's highly possible they will get more
than they deserve in their lifetime if they cheat.

I think if you look at it from afar, you may not notice the inequity caused by
cheating. I really can't really say how much cheating impacts society, but I
definitely disagree with you on your claim that cheating is always (or at
least to a point of insignificancy) caught/punished accordingly.

~~~
rick888
"The point of contention here is that you think cheating will always catch up
to you."

so taking away grades will get rid of cheating? People that have the cheating
mindset will just find some other way to shortcut success.

"I'm saying that the world is not so liquid and ideal. Someone cheating,
assuming they do it right (and don't over do it), will probably get more than
they deserve (in an idea world) before they die, if they did everything 100%
by the book. Simple karmic forces (the cause-effect force) dictate that if you
cheat constantly, you will increase your chances of being caught and punished.
However people don't live forever, so it's highly possible they will get more
than they deserve in their lifetime if they cheat."

This is true, but there is usually more effort (or just as much) with cheating
than doing it right. It's also not a long-term solution. As an example, I go
to the blackhatseo forum from time to time. The people there do anything they
possibly can to cheat people out of money and game as many systems as they
can. What I've noticed is that most people get caught (and kicked out of
wherever they were trying to make money) or their reputation gets tarnished
every couple of months and they need to start over.

If they just put that same effort into a legitimate business, they could
slowly build a client base over time and if it's successful (which has just as
much of a chance as the illegitimate methods), they won't have to hide or move
every few months.

Cheaters, like these people are only focusing on short-term gains..which is
foolish. Will they get ahead or make money? To some degree, yes, but it will
almost always catch up with them.

"I think if you look at it from afar, you may not notice the inequity caused
by cheating. I really can't really say how much cheating impacts society, but
I definitely disagree with you on your claim that cheating is always (or at
least to a point of insignificancy) caught/punished accordingly."

It seems like this is a personal issue for you. Is there someone ahead of you
at work that you feel shouldn't be there because they cheated?

I'm looking at it closely, and I still really don't see all of these cheaters
you are talking about. Do you have some examples?

~~~
chrischen
You're right, cheating is not something to live by as an absolute philosophy.
But no doubt people lie or cheat often and many may get away with it.

> I'm looking at it closely, and I still really don't see all of these
> cheaters you are talking about. Do you have some examples?

Nope. In fact, I don't even have anecdotal evidence. But my belief is that
many people will get away with one or two instances of cheating here and
there. Sure cheating will catch up to people, but it does so slowly (unless
you constantly cheat). Not everyone does it because they are sociopathic. Some
people do it because they think the end justifies the means. And because I
think a lot of people believe (or at least tolerate it) in that mantra, I
think a lot of them will justify cheating to get ahead slightly (perhaps to
get what they think they deserve). Plus, I'm hearing all the time about how
kids at MIT and what not cheat. Do I think they will get screwed in life for
doing it once in a while? No, because they probably don't believe it's a good
way of life. Do I care? No. Why do I not care? Well I'd only care if I can
prove that someone's cheating directly adversely affected me. Otherwise, they
can do whatever they want and the natural forces of cause and effect will
balance it all out. That is, if it affects someone else directly, it's up to
them to decide to care or not.

But I absolutely agree with you that constant cheating is not sustainable. In
fact, in general, any actions which might piss other people off is not
sustainable and takes more effort to maintain. But I think there's a lot of
people doing occasional cheating/lying, mainly justified because they believe
the end justifies the means. And these instances of cheating and lying may not
in the end matter because "catching up" takes a long time, or because whatever
they did just happened to be practically justified by the end result.

I personally don't believe in the end justifying the means, which is why I
refuse to cheat or lie. If I can't get good grades then either something is
wrong with the education system or I'm retarded. I'd rather believe the
former. But the last thing I'd do is to pretend there is not problem with the
education system (hypothetically speaking).

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alanh
The graphics are stolen without credit to the sources. For example, the
calculator is the iOS v2 calculator icon:
[http://www.macenstein.com/images/2010/iphone_calculator_icon...](http://www.macenstein.com/images/2010/iphone_calculator_icon.jpg)

Where I come from, that’s plagiarism.

Edit: Why would you downvote this comment? It’s hard to gloss over an
“oversight” of plagiarism _on an article about plagiarism._

~~~
rafaelc
Sean's adding graphic citations in addition to the data references already
there. Thanks for the heads up.

~~~
rafaelc
Those citations are up there now. Thanks again for the heads up.

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pgbovine
haha i LOVE the upper-right reason (storing answers on calculator) ... kids
learn the benefits of caching early-on! why re-compute when it's much more
efficient to do a cache lookup?

~~~
earcar
Recomputing (formulas) is actually a pretty useful skill to have in almost all
science classes, so you can store the least possible amount of formulas in
your head and still do very good at exams, unless they have very short time
limits. And it's way more fun than cheating.

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shelfu
My question is why do we treat students differently in exams than we do in
classes?

When I was going through K-12, there was no collaborative work, we sat at our
own desks, did our own work, and although cheating was there, there was a
significant portion of students that did not cheat. The people that struggled
were quickly noticed, and either given extra help or told that they need to
work harder etc.

Fast forward to today. My daughter, Grade 7, sits in a "pod" instead of in a
row. Essentially _all_ work is either collaborative or copied from the one
person that knows what's going on. The people that don't know what's going on
can coast.

Quizzes are in the pods. non-final/midterm exams are in the pods. Why, given
the level of cooperation that we've drilled into them since Grade 1, are
people surprised that students copy off each other, use other peoples homework
to get their answers, etc etc.

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klochner
did i miss the visualization?

