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Which Grad Students Cheat the Most?
SpectralDesign.Net writes, "The results of a research paper released Wednesday reveal who is admitting to cheating (in North America). The study focused on 5,300 graduate students in Canada and the U.S. and concluded that the biggest cheaters were business students — 56% of them admitted to copying papers, plagiarizing, etc. The author of the study said, 'The typical comment is that what's important is getting the job done. How you get it done is less important. You'll have business students saying all I'm doing is emulating the behavior I'll need when I get out in the real world.'" Other grad-student cheaters include: engineering students, 54%; physical sciences, 50%; medical and health-care, 49%; law, 45%; liberal arts, 43%; and social science and humanities students, 39%. These numbers are close to the guesstimate of the anonymous professor.
They mean that Business students are the least dishonest.
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As a university professor, I have caught cheaters on numerous occasions (approximately one a semester, often more) -- mostly undergrad, but the occasional grad. I have heard that justification numerous times. It's an odd one to give after you got caught; obviously, failing the course and facing possible expulsion is hardly "getting the job done." But I get the sense that I am the anomaly - I think students get away with cheating in many of their courses. Most of the cheating I find is plagiarism, and there are many cases where I don't think the student really understood what they were doing. I had two very interesting cases - both grad students, bizarrely enough - where the student plagiarized work that I had written. One of them copied sentences from an article I had written that was published on the web, and used them without attribution. The other had actually plagiarized a wikipedia entry that I was an active contributor to! I caught the latter one because I recognized a quotation she used as one I had contributed to the wikipedia entry; when I went back to look at it, entire chunks of prose were being used without attribution. I do think there is another explanation for a lot of these cases than "getting the job done," however; many of the students are doing things that are so stupid that they must know (at least subconsciously) that they will get caught. I think there is a category of cheaters who are seeking attention, as bizarre as it might sound.
Enough said.
Yeah, because there's an infinite difference between business students at 56% and engineering students at 54%. That's likely within the margin of error for the poll, which means there is no real difference between the two.
But you go ahead and stay comfy wrapped in your preconceptions.
Fucktard.
Now trackback the cheating of those in Enron and MCI/Worldcom back to their cheating days at Harvard and other business schools. I bet the relation will be pretty high up there.
Interestingly, in my studies I stumbled upon 2 or 3 subjects which were plain impossible to pass without cheating. And not that "I failed", simply anybody not cheating would fail, and most of the cheaters still wouldn't make it through. The subject was too difficult for my group, for the group year before, two years before, three years before and that's where known records end. From groups of 30-50 students 2-10 most proficient at cheating would pass at the first try, the rest would get a clue and re-try while cheating (passing another 10-20 students or so), and whoever tried the honest approach, would simply fail.
Interestingly, these were informatics-related subjects.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
The fact that more than half of engineering students admit to cheating should be more than a bit disturbing, if they are cheating in their engineering classes. I don't want to go through a tunnel or over a bridge that was designed by one of these folks.
On the other hand, they weren't asked in which classes they cheated. So we could be talking about an engineering student having a friend write an english paper for him, which, while less than desirable for his education, is not a matter of safety.
A blog about stuff.
So you're disagreeing with results of a survey with 5,000 students across two large countries because you attented one school, with one group of people, and had one group of friends that didn't exhibit the behavior? Is this the type of rigor they taught you in Business school? I'd get my money back.
I want to know how they phrased the question.
As someone with an undergrad engineering degree I can confidently say that I never cheated in college. However, certain phrasings of the question could cause me to respond differently. For example, if the question was asked, "Have you every used another students work to complete your own without the instructors explicit consent." I'd have to say yes.
I spent many late nights in computer labs or study halls working with other students in an attempt to understand the material. Often times this means working homework problems together. Sometimes I'd do the problem independently and then share the results with others, other times I'd make little or no progress and have someone explain it to me. It wasn't about copying answers, it was about understanding the methodology. A poll question that understands this distinction is difficult to come up with. I don't ever remember a teacher telling us not to work together in an engineering class (aside from exams) but I don't think they all explicitly told us it was ok - mostly because it is part of the culture and it wouldn't occur to them to endorse it.