Caveon's Cheating in the News roundup is back, though I can't seem to find the link to the most recent version. You can also see the whole Caveon crew here at the 2005 Association of Test Publishers conference; Don Sorensen (who alerted me to Caveon's existence) is the gentleman in the blue shirt, front right.
The CITN copy in my inbox contains a link to a Yale Herald article calling for a better policy on academic honesty:
Three students approached their professor after they witnessed a student copying from their tests on multiple occasions. The professor said he didn't want to know the student's name; rather than investigate the situation or hand the case over to the Yale Executive Committee, the professor simply moved subsequent exams to a larger room without addressing the specific allegations of cheating. A senior in the class said that he wasn't offended that a peer was cheating and didn't care that his professor did not punish the student. "All people have the same motive," he said. "The people who cheat and the people who study all just want good grades. Cheating is just a more efficient way of doing it, and no one's against efficiency."
Uh, really? Those who really study aren't actually pursuing knowledge, but just good grades? Cheating is just a "more efficient" way of getting good grades, and isn't shortchanging cheater, other students, and professor in the process? What are these students planning to know, and do, after they graduate college, I wonder? And could a more explicit honesty policy really help someone who is this thoroughly jaded of, and disgusted with, the quest for knowledge?
Or someone who has professors like this one?
Professor of Psychology and Linguistics Paul Bloom, this year's ExComm chair, agreed that faculty should not tempt students, but still feels strongly that cheating is a person's own choice. "You don't want to put [people] in a situation in which a student has to force him or herself not to look at another paper," he said. "On the other hand, you wouldn't take that excuse seriously if it were raised as an excuse for sexual assault, or arson, or anything like that."
Why mention the student having to "force" himself not to cheat if you're not considering it as any excuse? And why, exactly, is it a bad thing to put a student in a situation in which they are expected to, no matter what, keep their eyes to themselves and do their own work? Is that sort of stressful situation too much for Yale undergrads?
For that matter, having to put all personal items aside during an exam, and having to mark a page to show the blue book is new, has no relation to "police state" conditions. The article's author should be embarassed to use that phrase, even in double-quotes.
Posted by kswygert at March 8, 2005 07:07 PM