By Cyan Thomas
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
The Problem
In the age of technology, cheating has never been easier. Students can easily sneak a phone into class and look up the answers they need. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, however, cheating was much easier to monitor. In-person tests allowed professors to watch over students to ensure integrity.
Now that many universities are conducting learning remotely, cheating has become very difficult to contain because teachers are unable to watch their students work or even verify their identity when they submit work. At Towson University, cheating has spiked ever since classes went online, according to Danielle Woody, the assistant director of the Office of Student Conduct and Civility Education.
“Pre-COVID, we were in the 160, maybe 170 range for a calendar year,” Woody said. “Post-COVID, we’re now in the 300s.”
ProctorU, a company that sends proctors to monitor tests, had their services requested for approximately 340,000 tests from January-March 2020, and cheating was caught on less than 1 percent of tests. In April, however, ProctorU requests skyrocketed to more than 1 million tests, and cheating was caught on around 8 percent of the tests, according to the Hechinger Report.
So why has cheating skyrocketed so much? One student blames the pandemic.
“People are going through a lot and I feel like adding that extra stress really hurts some people,” said Malik Pate, a senior at Towson University. “It’s okay to relax some stuff.”
Julian McCauley, a Towson University sophomore, said looking up answers should be allowed because in the real world, that’s what people do to find answers.
All of this begs the question: What can be done to reduce cheating? Some professors have resorted to lockdown browsers, downloadable programs that secure a student’s computer — and sometimes his or her room — to ensure academic integrity.
Typically, these lockdown programs serve to ensure that students do not open another browser on their computer or look away from your screen. In extreme cases, students must take a video of their room to ensure they do not have notes posted anywhere.
Many students are against lockdown browsers because they are invasive and feel like an invasion of privacy.
“A lot of them are kind of ableist in the sense that a lot of them track eye movements and they flag something when you look around the room too much,” said Lauren Terry, a senior at Towson University. “Some people just do that naturally especially during tests because they’re hyperactive.”
If lockdown browsers aren’t viable, what’s the solution?
The Solution
Cheating is a difficult problem to solve, but Woody and the SCCE office are hoping to tackle it with academic integrity workshops, which are still in development.
The idea is to connect integrity to student life and demonstrate the negative consequences of academic dishonesty in the real world. It will include a review of the student policy, avoiding violations and student resources.
Because the workshop is not yet complete, Woody has given some thought as to what can be done in the meantime. A study done by the Wiley Network suggested that setting clear goals and objectives for students in the beginning will curb cheating. Woody supported this solution.
“When you’re in a classroom, you’re given a syllabus,” Woody said. “They tell you what the expectations are. Most of the time, they tell you when and when not to use notes. I tell students if you ever get a syllabus and you feel like the expectations are not clear, that’s the time to do a little digging.”
As for a more permanent solution, this workshop will hopefully be a preventative measure instead of relying on penalizing students once it’s too late. Although it is still in development, Woody is hopeful that the message of integrity will make a genuine difference in the increasing cheating rates at Towson.
The SCCE already has academic integrity workshops, but those are reserved for students who have already been caught cheating. However, this alternate version is for student groups, athletic groups, Greek life-based students and other groups who may request it.
“I think what I am trying to create connects people with their values system and then trying to connect those values to avoiding pitfalls of common violations and the reasons those violations occur,” Woody said.
Insights
The workshop must acknowledge the shift to remote learning. People were caught off guard by the pandemic, and the sudden shift in the modality of learning was hard for students to adjust to, according to Woody.
Additionally, students who didn’t cheat during in-person classes may have felt emboldened to cheat by the pandemic because the chances of them getting caught had dramatically decreased; after all, there’s nobody there to watch them.
First-time cheaters reported to the SCCE office have increased since classes went online but repeat offenders have increased also. The lack of accountability could play a big part in that.
However, some students see it differently. Kameryn Atkinson, a senior at Johns Hopkins University, believes that the influx in cheating comes from student desperation.
“Some of us simply aren’t getting what we need from teachers, so we feel like we have to take matters into our own hands,” Atkinson said. “It’s unfortunate, but we get desperate. I’ve been teaching myself all of my material, and that’s not OK.”
Upon hearing about the plan to introduce academic integrity workshops, some students were willing to try, but skeptical.
“It could definitely maybe work if it gave real, helpful resources to students, but I don’t know what that would even be,” Pate said. “I mean, a lot of students will probably still cheat. It depends on the teacher more than they realize.”
Woody is taking into account that student stress may lead to cheating, and is incorporating that into her workshop.
Evidence of Effectiveness
What makes finding a truly effective solution for this so difficult is that there is no quantifiable evidence of efficacy. In theory, the workshop is viable, but there’s no way to know for sure until it is implemented.
Even Woody can’t verify that her plan will have its desired effect.
“I am not sure of how effective it will be,” Woody said. “Nothing is a guarantee to work because it ultimately depends upon the actions of the students.”
The workshops Woody’s office offers are typically only reserved for students who have already been accused of cheating, but this new one is meant to be a preventative measure.
Woody suggested a solution that could be currently implemented, which would require teachers to ensure their students have a clear understanding of the syllabus and the class objectives.
But this also is only effective in theory. It’s possible that students will not cheat if they understand the class goals. However, there are many reasons for cheating, so a one-size-fits-all approach may not work. Because of this, a solution directed towards a lack of comprehension may lower the cheating rate slightly, but it is unlikely to solve the entire issue.
Limitations
First, since the workshop is still in development, it’s hard to rely on it as a solution at all when it hasn’t been tested yet. Though Woody has high hopes for the workshop, it’s still an idea, and not yet a solution.
Secondly, as the targeted audience for the workshop, student opinion matters greatly. One student didn’t have much faith in the workshop.
“Honestly it’s not going to work,” Terry said. “If a student wants to cheat, realistically, there’s nothing you can do to stop them. You can tell them cheating is wrong. Okay? I’m sure they know that, and they’ll still do it.”
The skepticism that students have surrounding the workshop before it’s even been released are a massive limitation because for the workshop to be effective, students must be willing to listen.
Though students weren’t sure about the workshop as an effective solution, one student recommended a way to guarantee the workshop makes a difference.
“Show it to teachers, too,” Atkinson said. “They need to realize how often students cheat because they aren’t learning from their teacher, so teachers need this education too. Teachers see a bad grade as a reflection on the student when often, it should be a reflection on the teacher.”