A new study contradicts the perception that cheating is more widespread in online classes, finding that students in virtual courses were less likely to cheat than their face-to-face peers.
You can’t make any sweeping generalizations based on the results, since the study only looked at 225 students at Friends University, a private, mid-sized, Christian-based institution in Wichita, Kan.
But the study, “Point, Click, and Cheat: Frequency and Type of Academic Dishonesty in the Virtual Classroom,” adds fresh data to the continuing debate about academic integrity online. The issue is on the minds of many in the distance-education world because the recently reauthorized Higher Education Opportunity Act requires accreditors to monitor steps that colleges take to verify that an enrolled student is the same person who does the course work.
For the new study, researchers surveyed undergraduate students about seven types of academic misconduct. These included cheating on tests, plagiarism, and aiding and abetting (letting a classmate copy a paper, for example). In both traditional and online classes, aiding and abetting was found to be the cheating method of choice.
Asked about the results, Donna Stuber-McEwen, an author of the study, suggested that age may be one factor.
“Research has shown that older students tend to cheat less frequently than younger students,” Stuber-McEwen, a psychology professor, told The Chronicle. “And our sample tended to have a greater percentage of nontraditional students in the online classes.”
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19 Responses to Do Students Cheat More in Online Classes? Maybe Not
blue_state_academic - September 16, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Hello????? Of course this would help drive the differences in cheating rates. I haven’t read the study yet, but from what is reported here, sounds like you can’t draw any inferences whatsoever about on-line versus face-to-face classes from what these researchers found.
zhasx - September 16, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I don’t think this study is reliable based on the fact that it uses survey to collect sensitive information from students. Come on…Who would say “Hey, I cheated in my online exams” in a survey that who knows the instructor may or may not have access?
cwinton - September 16, 2009 at 4:56 pm
If the on-line students were surveyed on-line (which I would presume), then zhasx has it right.
jsalmons - September 16, 2009 at 5:10 pm
If you are interested in this topic, look for the interesting edited book called Student Plagiarism in an Online World: http://www.igi-global.com/reference/details.asp?ID=7031&v=tableOfContentsI wrote a chapter called, “Expect Originality! Using Taxonomies to Structure Assignments that Support Original Work.” In it I discuss the complexities of plagiarism in the context of a digital culture of sharing and suggest that it is rarely black and white. I propose a continuum with intentional academic dishonesty on one end and original work on the other, with gradations in between. Based on my own research and teaching experience, I believe the instructional design and style of teaching can either make it easy– or very difficult– to cheat.
chamblan - September 16, 2009 at 6:30 pm
It also clearly depends on course design. Poor course designers who offer point and click quizzes/tests corrected by the LMS instead of project-based authentic tasks corrected by the course instructor invite cheating.
allbright1 - September 16, 2009 at 8:09 pm
I am an online nontraditional student in my doctoral degree program and I would be scared to death to cheat or plagiarize anything. I have earned my Bachelor and Master degrees online through UOP and have never even considered cheating or plagiarizing on an assignment. Our facilitators have a tremendous plagiarism checker that is used to check for that exact problem. I am in my late 40′s, have a very strong work ethic and I have a Type “A” personality to go with all of that, so “NO” I have never considered cheating nor have any of my classmates ever approached me about borrowing information from me.
grannelle - September 17, 2009 at 3:03 am
I also am an online student. As a disabled person, going to a traditional class is a hardship for me. As far as cheating is concerned, I find it hard to do when I am sitting by myself in my home “attending” class! Since my aim is to re-enter the job market, I am hard pressed to understand why I would want someone else to do my studies for me, as I would think I will be expected to know the material when the time comes. Perhaps I am limited in my thinking, but I am wondering why this would be considered an issue. I have little if any opportunity to physically interact with fellow classmates, which severely curtails the convenience to cheat in the first place. It would seem that one day in the not-so-distant future, virtual learning will be the norm, and attendance at conventional classroom a luxury few can afford, secondary to time and scheduling considerations. Since there are many benefits to such a shift in the current pardigm, not the least of which is decreased contingency to cheat (to say nothing of the increased economic considerations) I am surprised why the studies are focused on what are basically non-issues like cheating, and not on improvement of online learning techniques, i.e. video-enabled chat rooms wherein students and instructors could interact on a scheduled basis. Oh, the woes of being a first adopter…
mbelvadi - September 17, 2009 at 7:19 am
The fact that “aiding and abetting” was the “cheating method of choice” seems to me to highlight the methodological problem that zhasx points out. For every abetter, there must be an abettee, so if the data shows more people admitting to helping than accepting help, there’s something wrong with the data. It’s likely that students don’t think that being on the abetting side is cheating on their part (and why should it be – they’re not claiming to know something that they don’t), so they’re more willing to admit to it in a survey.
mistyhanks - September 17, 2009 at 8:21 am
There is a twist to this that I don’t feel this study addressed. It has been my experience that some online students do not consider plagiarism to be cheating. Several online students I’ve encountered do not think there is anything wrong with copying directly from the Internet, textbook, or any other source. It is maddening that I have to say, “answers must be in your own words” or actually state that “copying from the textbook or Internet is not acceptable for this activity.” Yes, there are times when using these types of resources might be appropriate if properly cited but not exams or quizzes. In short, several online students do not see copying from other sources as cheating and would not have responded to the survey in a way that would accurately reflect the problem (or lack thereof). I should say that I don’t think cheating is rampant in online classes but that I strongly support instructional design that helps thwart it.
bb5lax - September 17, 2009 at 10:02 am
These surveys are essentially useless. Like zhasx said if I was cheating in my online class (or traditional for that matter) I certainly wouldn’t admit to it on a survey. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if 90% of online students say they are cheating that the administration is going to crack down on it.Those of you that don’t think cheating is more rampant in an unsecured, unmonitored environment are completely naive.
mwil7353 - September 17, 2009 at 10:40 am
I’ve heard from many colleagues over the years who are “sure” that cheating in online learning environments is rampant, yet they have never been able to provide any data (not even any convincing anecdotal evidence) to support their assertion, and many of those naysayers have little or even no online teaching experience. Apparently, many in academia assume that online students are completely unmonitored and that in such an environment students will just naturally cheat. Baloney! Yes, online students sometimes cheat, but I haven’t observed an online rate of dishonesty any higher than in my F2F classes. In fact, my anecdotal experience leads me to say the rate is less for online students. After teaching online and F2F sections of the same courses each semester for several years, I compared the success rates and grade distributions between my online and F2F sections. Guess what? They’re about the same, with the online sections’ rates and grades falling slightly below those of the F2F sections. If my online students have been cheating “rampantly” in their environment (which, by the way, I don’t consider “unsecured” or “unmonitored”), they’re certainly doing a rotten job of it. I agree with mistyhanks; I believe strong instructional design that considers academic integrity is the key.
deliajones - September 17, 2009 at 11:47 am
Design tests that require critical thinking, synthesis and analysis. Pair up people, works, ideas in unusual and creative ways to reduce the possiblility that students will find material to plagiarize in the first place. My recent online test for 20th century American literature asked students to compare/contrast Kate chopin to Edith Wharton, and to trace the specific lines in the play “Trifles” that show that the author is trying to elicit a particular reader response. The only plagiarized essays were two that tried to list a bunch of facts about Chopin, and a bunch of facts about Wharton, with no attempt at a comparison. I could give zero credit for not completing th question correctly, rather than have to prove plagiarism.
eelalien - September 17, 2009 at 12:30 pm
There are several very valid points made in this thread, and I was pleased to see comments from students. Aside from some quite obvious flaws in the methodology for gathering “data”, Chamblan hits it squarely on the head with this: “Poor course designers who offer point and click quizzes/tests…instead of project-based authentic tasks corrected by the course instructor invite cheating.” There it is – it always comes back to the instructor. A lazy instructor will rely on canned online tests and quizzes while a more dedicated educator will rely on authentic assessment of learning products. By the way, I was surprised to see that no one has mentioned plagiarism-detecting websites such as TurnItIn or MyDropBox to weed out the cheaters. I have “busted” several students by using such sites, and I have to wonder if a f2f instructor who accepts ONLY paper copies of research papers (I have witnessed it at my university) are missing a whole lot of plagiarism…
bertw - September 17, 2009 at 2:41 pm
zhasx raises an interesting point … except, why would a person responding to a survey online be any more likely to answer falsely than respondents in any other survey format? My assumption would favor a perception of greater–not lesser–anonymity online.But I’m curious whether any work has been done on that question. Of courses, I guess it wouldn’t matter, if we cannot trust the research results.
pwherry - September 17, 2009 at 5:26 pm
See “Academic Honesty and Online Courses,” by Grijalva, Nowell and Kerkvliet in _College Student Journal_, March 2006 (Vol 40, No 1). They used a randomized response methodology that deals with the problem zhasx raises, and they came to the same conclusion: the estimated rate of cheating is about the same in online and traditional courses. (I believe they have published one or more additional studies on this topic.) They note that it’s possible that cheating due to panic during an exam is less common in online courses because there are fewer opportunities for unpremeditated cheating. These authors also point out that “because faculty may be more aware of cheating in the online setting, they may design assignments and exams to reduce the likelihood of cheating.” I agree with the author cited at the end of the article above who speculated that age differences between the traditional and online cohorts may also be a factor. While there may be limitations to the study reported here, it is good to see that efforts are being made to move away from anecdote and speculation.
jsalmons - September 17, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Response to bb5lax: As noted by a number of folks here–an online course with attentive, creative instructor, good design and access to tools like turnitin.com is NOT an “unsecured, unmonitored environment.”
katie222 - September 17, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Sounds like we have a lot of opinions going on here! I am most suprised that plagarism was not more common than aiding and abetting. I agree with bb5lax. Cheating, by far, would seem to be more rampant in an unmonitored environment. For most, if you know it’s less likely for you to be caught cheating, you’re probably going to do it. It doesn’t sounds as though enough research has been done to make a valid assumption on either end. Once researchers have colleceted data from undergrad and grad students from sveeral colleges, then we might have a better answer. For now, it’s safe to assume that everybody is probably scamming the system in some way.
triumphus - September 17, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Truth by survey? Sure.
laoshi - September 18, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Has the Higher Education Opportunity Act also addressed verification of those who attend physical classes?I once took an evening class at UC Santa Cruz Extension. Halfway through the semester, we discovered that an international student had been staying home whilst her better-educated husband sat in class pretending to be her. Because their names were exotic, the professor and us were none the wiser; we couldn’t tell a man’s name from a woman’s name. He slipped up by bragging on a break, by the snack machine, and was promptly snitched upon by yours truly. Never saw him again.It makes no difference if the class is physical or virtual; incentives to cheat inspire incidents of cheating. So having a verification process in place is sensible.