Re footnote 3: My guesses were 95% and 50%. I accept the figure for shop-lifting but I’m still completely sure one third of students never cheating is untrue.
It’s funny that you asked an inside view question. It was a Polish high school of the supposedly very good kind.
From the outside view, why wouldn’t they? Students care about grades, risk of getting caught is tiny, and respect for school among them is really really low.
The only student who wouldn’t cheat would be one that: doesn’t care about grades/passing at all (but student like that would just fail the school), or is naturally great at everything (but many subjects require plenty of rote memorization, won’t work), has unusually high level of respect for the school system (I don’t find it terribly likely), or has unusually high level of fear of getting caught.
OK, perhaps more than 5% then, I can see many kids being unreasonably afraid of getting caught.
The only student who wouldn’t cheat would be one that:
The reason I never cheated was because I thought it was wrong. This has nothing to do with respect for the school system.
The other reason was because I knew it wouldn’t help me learn anything. This has more to do with respect for the school system than my previous reason.
I’ve found that learning how to cheat was one of the more valuable skills I gained from school. Admittedly I work in reverse engineering, so my mindset isn’t necessarily entirely standard :)
I agree that 1⁄3 is too low a number that has never cheated. I’d say that of the people I study with, and we are at a remarkably high level of education in a profession with a fiduciary role, about 90+% of them cheat.
I’m one of those who don’t cheat, for the reason you gave that I don’t care about grades. However, I study in order to improve myself to be better at fulfilling my chosen role in society and for the knowledge’s sake. Cheating in no way improves understanding or knowledge, and is thusly completely useless to me. However, I not only do not fail school, but conversely am one of the top scorers in the school (and by extension because of the school’s position, one of the top students in the nation), because I achieve higher levels of understanding than almost everyone else, who use rote learning instead, as it is effective enough for examinations’ purposes.
I take opposition to your assertion that one must care about grades to get good grades.
For what it’s worth, at my high school the incidence of (recurrent and/or obvious) cheating was closer to 50%, and even then the majority of the cheating was on homework, where some of it may not technically have been cheating at all.
This may have been due to an unusually high probability of getting caught (private school, small classes, and engaged teachers) and unusually strong punishments, up to and including expulsion.
Maybe at a more difficult highschool, cheating will be more prevalent. I bet that at average schools, though, it’s just as easy to coast without cheating.
I’m confused—all schools in large geographical areas tend to have pretty much the same curricula and standards, so what are “easy” and “difficult” schools?
[Public] Schools in my metropolitan area vary wildly—typically the quality (and difficulty) of a school varies directly with the socioeconomic status of the neighborhood where it’s located.
I think of myself as someone who “never cheated.” But I did. I was always in the smart kid gifted classes with the other smart kids. We had an 8th grade social studies teacher who almost seemed to want us to cheat: he would set very difficult essay tests and then leave the room for nearly the entire class period. People discussed the answers. 10th grade french, I remember some people suggesting cheating on a test because it would be easy and at the time I went along. Also I remember someone suggesting I read “L’etranger” in English translation and I did that, it was way easier.
My point: if 1⁄3 I believe it more likely that people will mistakenly report they didn’t cheat when they did than vice versa. And I believe it is easy for people to “forget” they cheated.
We had an 8th grade social studies teacher who almost seemed to want us to cheat: he would set very difficult essay tests and then leave the room for nearly the entire class period. People discussed the answers.
I don’t call that cheating. I call it ‘cooperation’. Calling it cheating would be an insult to the term.
10th grade french, I remember some people suggesting cheating on a test because it would be easy and at the time I went along.
Yes, cheating.
Also I remember someone suggesting I read “L’etranger” in English translation and I did that, it was way easier.
Mere common sense. If a test in no way distinguishes between knowledge gained by different methods it has no right to call one method ‘cheating’, no matter what it may claim.
My point: if 1⁄3 I believe it more likely that people will mistakenly report they didn’t cheat when they did than vice versa. And I believe it is easy for people to “forget” they cheated.
Absolutely. This particularly applies to sexual ‘cheating’. I am referring explicitly to reports that are genuinely mistaken, not deliberate lies. This is having sex with someone who is not your partner. That’s not something that isn’t a big enough deal to remember. But people can compartmentalize this knowledge. There are also people that “don’t count”. When talking to friends who have their confidence it is not unheard for people to say “I’ve never cheated”. When prompted with the example the genuine response is a double take and the impulse to say “Oh, but he doesn’t count!”
If a test in no way distinguishes between knowledge gained by different methods it has no right to call one method ‘cheating’, no matter what it may claim.
Surely by that argument there is no such thing as cheating. If I gained the knowledge necessary to pass the test by brekaing into the headmaster’s office and taking a photocopy of the questions and their answers before the exam, by your criterion that isn’t cheating.
If a test in no way distinguishes between knowledge gained by different methods it has no right to call one method ‘cheating’, no matter what it may claim.
Surely by that argument there is no such thing as cheating. If I gained the knowledge necessary to pass the test by brekaing into the headmaster’s office and taking a photocopy of the questions and their answers before the exam, by your criterion that isn’t cheating.
I would agree that the wording is not robust against hostile interpretation, but not much more than that. While “breaking into the headmaster’s office and stealing the questions and answers” and “reading the English translation of a book” are both methods of gaining “knowledge” most people would consider the kind of ‘knowledge’ gained to be sufficiently different that they would not equivocate between the two.
Or alternatively self-reporters have overly narrow definition of cheating.
By the way I don’t remember a single case where I cheated, but from my clear memory of my total lack of concern for “academic integrity” in high school, I infer that I’m extremely likely to have done so. It might sound weird, applying an outside view to own past, but my memory of things like that is extremely bad.
I considered the confusion to be one of frequency: “Do you cheat” vs “Have you ever cheated” vs “Did you cheat within the last year”. I find 2/3rds suspiciously low for the latter. Then again, my friends in school wouldn’t believe me that I’d really never shoplifted :)
Re footnote 3: My guesses were 95% and 50%. I accept the figure for shop-lifting but I’m still completely sure one third of students never cheating is untrue.
95%? That boggles my mind. Where did you go to school?
Just 1⁄3 of students never cheating seems low to me.
It’s funny that you asked an inside view question. It was a Polish high school of the supposedly very good kind.
From the outside view, why wouldn’t they? Students care about grades, risk of getting caught is tiny, and respect for school among them is really really low.
The only student who wouldn’t cheat would be one that: doesn’t care about grades/passing at all (but student like that would just fail the school), or is naturally great at everything (but many subjects require plenty of rote memorization, won’t work), has unusually high level of respect for the school system (I don’t find it terribly likely), or has unusually high level of fear of getting caught.
OK, perhaps more than 5% then, I can see many kids being unreasonably afraid of getting caught.
The reason I never cheated was because I thought it was wrong. This has nothing to do with respect for the school system.
The other reason was because I knew it wouldn’t help me learn anything. This has more to do with respect for the school system than my previous reason.
I’ve found that learning how to cheat was one of the more valuable skills I gained from school. Admittedly I work in reverse engineering, so my mindset isn’t necessarily entirely standard :)
I agree that 1⁄3 is too low a number that has never cheated. I’d say that of the people I study with, and we are at a remarkably high level of education in a profession with a fiduciary role, about 90+% of them cheat.
I’m one of those who don’t cheat, for the reason you gave that I don’t care about grades. However, I study in order to improve myself to be better at fulfilling my chosen role in society and for the knowledge’s sake. Cheating in no way improves understanding or knowledge, and is thusly completely useless to me. However, I not only do not fail school, but conversely am one of the top scorers in the school (and by extension because of the school’s position, one of the top students in the nation), because I achieve higher levels of understanding than almost everyone else, who use rote learning instead, as it is effective enough for examinations’ purposes.
I take opposition to your assertion that one must care about grades to get good grades.
For what it’s worth, at my high school the incidence of (recurrent and/or obvious) cheating was closer to 50%, and even then the majority of the cheating was on homework, where some of it may not technically have been cheating at all.
This may have been due to an unusually high probability of getting caught (private school, small classes, and engaged teachers) and unusually strong punishments, up to and including expulsion.
Maybe at a more difficult highschool, cheating will be more prevalent. I bet that at average schools, though, it’s just as easy to coast without cheating.
I’m confused—all schools in large geographical areas tend to have pretty much the same curricula and standards, so what are “easy” and “difficult” schools?
[Public] Schools in my metropolitan area vary wildly—typically the quality (and difficulty) of a school varies directly with the socioeconomic status of the neighborhood where it’s located.
I think of myself as someone who “never cheated.” But I did. I was always in the smart kid gifted classes with the other smart kids. We had an 8th grade social studies teacher who almost seemed to want us to cheat: he would set very difficult essay tests and then leave the room for nearly the entire class period. People discussed the answers. 10th grade french, I remember some people suggesting cheating on a test because it would be easy and at the time I went along. Also I remember someone suggesting I read “L’etranger” in English translation and I did that, it was way easier.
My point: if 1⁄3 I believe it more likely that people will mistakenly report they didn’t cheat when they did than vice versa. And I believe it is easy for people to “forget” they cheated.
I don’t call that cheating. I call it ‘cooperation’. Calling it cheating would be an insult to the term.
Yes, cheating.
Mere common sense. If a test in no way distinguishes between knowledge gained by different methods it has no right to call one method ‘cheating’, no matter what it may claim.
Absolutely. This particularly applies to sexual ‘cheating’. I am referring explicitly to reports that are genuinely mistaken, not deliberate lies. This is having sex with someone who is not your partner. That’s not something that isn’t a big enough deal to remember. But people can compartmentalize this knowledge. There are also people that “don’t count”. When talking to friends who have their confidence it is not unheard for people to say “I’ve never cheated”. When prompted with the example the genuine response is a double take and the impulse to say “Oh, but he doesn’t count!”
and
I am amused :)
Surely by that argument there is no such thing as cheating. If I gained the knowledge necessary to pass the test by brekaing into the headmaster’s office and taking a photocopy of the questions and their answers before the exam, by your criterion that isn’t cheating.
I would agree that the wording is not robust against hostile interpretation, but not much more than that. While “breaking into the headmaster’s office and stealing the questions and answers” and “reading the English translation of a book” are both methods of gaining “knowledge” most people would consider the kind of ‘knowledge’ gained to be sufficiently different that they would not equivocate between the two.
Is it possible you have an overly broad definition of cheating?
Or alternatively self-reporters have overly narrow definition of cheating.
By the way I don’t remember a single case where I cheated, but from my clear memory of my total lack of concern for “academic integrity” in high school, I infer that I’m extremely likely to have done so. It might sound weird, applying an outside view to own past, but my memory of things like that is extremely bad.
I considered the confusion to be one of frequency: “Do you cheat” vs “Have you ever cheated” vs “Did you cheat within the last year”. I find 2/3rds suspiciously low for the latter. Then again, my friends in school wouldn’t believe me that I’d really never shoplifted :)