Exam questions that address cheating: primer or ethics reminder
Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University and visiting professor at MIT's Media Laboratory. I found an interesting and timely post that he wrote on his blog the other day, which is short enough to share in full:
Do you think this is a primer for students to cheat, or a gentle reminder to do the ethical thing? I'm inclined to believe that for most students, it is the latter (at least I hope so).
What are your thoughts?
Here are the first two question of the exam I just gave:
1) My parents and grandparents would be most proud of me if:
a. I did not cheat on this exam and got the score I deserve
b. I cheated on this exam and got a score higher than the score I deserve
2) While taking this exam, I intend to:
a. cheat (e.g., by looking at other people’s answers, or showing my answers to others)
b. not cheat
I think it was effective...
Do you think this is a primer for students to cheat, or a gentle reminder to do the ethical thing? I'm inclined to believe that for most students, it is the latter (at least I hope so).
What are your thoughts?
Labels: cheating, ethics, exams, finals, psychology
posted by _ at
9:03 AM
9 Comments:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_(psychology)
Ingenious!
I wonder if that makes a difference.
So what were the correct answers?
I wish all professors asked these questions. There would be much less cheating, I think.
I see so many people cheat on exams and it really upsets me. I study very hard for exams and work very hard to get decent grades. To see more than half the class cheat breaks my heart. These are the people going off to work with our futures. I see them plan cheating, whisper to one another, sit next to each other purposly, and switch exam forms in order to get the same exam next to each other. I've really had a hard time excepting this. Grades are everything in my major and the people cheating push the average up. So when I'm stuck with a B instead of a B+, this hurts me. They don't deserve the score they receive. The professors know about this, but do not do anything. It is rampant in my major and questions like this in the beginning of a test certainly does NOT deter this crafty bunch.
I'd recommend bringing these concerns to your department director. They may be able to help those administering exams to make them more cheat proof.
neat. while cheating is a sad fact of life and unfair and annoying to both students and instructors, I suspect that the incidence is low, 2-5% at a guess on a decently proctored exam.
i went through college majoring in bio, the percentage for students that cheated was more around 25% That is my underestimate, because many groups of friends would perfect cheating with one another. It really is an art and watching them was amazing. Needless to say most of them advanced onward so i guess it must have worked out for them.
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