Cheating versus collaboration?
22 February 2010 Tweet Observing collaboration challenges in the workplace as well as watching students interacting on projects, I am reminded of the "cheating" scandal at Fuqua, Duke's school of business, a few years ago where roughly 10% of the class of 2008 were caught cheating on a final exam. At the time there was a great deal of discussion about declining morals and the natural outcome of the "Napster generation" hitting college. At the same time, there was a thoughtful opinion article -- Cheating, or Postmodern Learning? -- in Business Week that examined whether this incident reflected the type of collaboration that many businesses want to encourage in their workforce. This presents a real quandry about what is right.
The right answer probably includes a bit of both. It is important that we maintain high ethical standards, despite the desired level of collaboration. In fact, a cross-company or cross-division collaboration project likely requires greater attention to ethics and morals, because the participants may get exposed to confidential material or hear news that would normally be tightly confined.
At the same time, education institutions and corporate training centers need to devote more resources to training collaboration. This will develop the right skills in collaboration leaders and participants, improve the use of collaboration tools and processes, and reinforce a culture of collaboration.
Perhaps the best scenario would have been for Fuqua to design the final exam to reward effective collaboration, thus making the students' actions ethical and also furthering the collaborative skills.
Reader Comments (8)
This post is troubling: it's clear that in the case cited the intent of the test was to see what the INDIVIDUAL STUDENT had learned. Not whether he could collaborate, lookup via the net, read the crib notes in his hand, speak to the spirits, consult the Oracle at Delphi, or find it out by some other means, but instead whether the student himself knew the information.
This is crystal clear, so the article's seeming apologist stance of "maybe collaboration should be allowed" seems to miss the point. The test is whether the student himself knows the information and can utilize it, not whether "there exists somewhere in the examination room a student who knows the answer".
Let's imagine an alternative: you are going in for a major surgical operation. The doctor was able to pass his medical exams because someone else in the room at the time of his testing and certification had the requisite skills. Do you want to trust your life to a guy who could at one point in time under ideal circumstances "collaborate" and get a solution instead of possessing the requisite skills himself?
Geez.
I'm not surprised that the Duke business students were cheating. Their job isn't to do major surgical operations, as mentioned in the post above; Their job is to use their business skills and get things done.
I often wonder where the line is drawn between "cheating" and "innovation".
Hello!
This discussion is an interesting one. I have been through university and it was very frustrating that others were able to study less, cheat and get better grades. Also, very few people cheat on final exams. Usually cheating happens on the lower level. Such as assignments, labs, mid terms... Some developed an amazing skill of copying.
I remember on several occasions students were able to find old finals and most of the time, professors would give similar or even identical finals. Is that cheating? I do not know but it creates a situation where the student who has the old final might have an advantage over the student who does not, thus making the situation unfair. On the other hand, one can argue that the student with the old final was more resourceful.
The fact that this discussion is so polarizing is further evidence that there is likely a growing separation between our education system and the current needs in the marketplace. Let's remember that our current education system was built around the needs of newly industrializing countries over 100 years ago. Times have changed and in many ways our education has not.
I agree with anonymous coward that the actual surgeon in the room (in 2010) needs to have passed his exams all by himself, however the the question at hand here is not about doctors. Perhaps doctors and other 'solo performers' should be tested in ways that best reflect their future work environment. I parenthetically added 2010 because a doctor of the future will likely have real-time access to more information via brain implants etc . . . but that's another discussion.
I also agree that the stated point of the exam was about INDIVIDUAL achievement, but again if we read the original post more carefully, this discussion was never about granting those students a pardon, This discussion is about generating a constructive conversation about the future of education and its possible inclusion of collaboration as an actual skill.
This is a very emotional discussion for nearly all of us because we were raised in a system based almost entirely on individual achievement. My question to all of you is how soon are we going to being nurturing humans back to their natural inclination to cooperate? While capitalism has certainly created a world of opportunity, is it possible to make room within that system for collaborative behaviors? Wikipedia, Facebook, Linux and many others have proven that we are capable. Conversely the failure of GM, Enron, Congress and others would suggest that we are not.
This is a discussion about our future. The careful study and practice of Collaboration has a part in that future in the same way that the understanding of Zero, Gravity, Heliocentrism, Math, Science and Languages have made the planet a better place to live.
How young is too young to reinforce collaborative thinking as one of the many skills we teach our children? Can you imagine a world where every human spent as many years practicing (and be evaluated for) collaborative thinking as they do math, science and languages?
Cheating is much like giving a hungry man a fish. Collaboration is much like helping him to make a fishing net and teaching him how to fish or even dig a pond and populate it with fish.
Much of our evaluation systems only look at our ability to name the fish in front of us and know if it can be eaten and how to cook it. That's fine, but just a fragment of what is needed to feed yourself. I agree with the Collaborative Gene Project in that collaborative thinking (and practice, may I add) is a most valuable skill.
If we find student cheating "unethical" let's create systems where "unethical" means "unrewarded".
Cheating is cheating -- it is human nature to lie, cheat and steal. 10% sounds a bit low -- in my experience as a teacher (university upper level engineering and IT courses), I catch 10% of my students cheating. I have no clue how much I don't catch.
During my work career, I have notice that 10 - 20% of the folks that get hired are not really qualified to do their jobs. I wonder how many of them cheated to get their degrees?
I received feedback on Cheating versus Collaboration in the LinkedIn discussion group, Carnegie Mellon University Alumni.
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By William Yao, Regional Business Development Executive at L&K Engineering
Cheating certainly occurred during my days in CMU. I was probably the only 10% of the engineering students who never cheated. (consequence is a poor GPA!)
It is very interesting though, that many cheaters, esp. ones that are exceptionally good at cheating, are also smooth talkers. I am pretty sure they are now enjoying a pretty successful career--> if they are working in a team-based environment where they can continue to do zero work and behave like he/she did everything! Believe me, unless the dudes are genius or dang-lucky, they will never achieve "innovation" and become true entrepreneurs. But well, they will probably become CEOs and still enjoy the cold cash.
In the case of CMU cheaters, I believe it is because of the lack of talents in the student body itself---> In-balance between the difficulty of the course work and student IQ generates the behavior of cheating. CMU recruits many dumb ass and educates them based on MIT standards. For those who made it through without cheating, you (we) are the men! For those of you who cheated, it is perfectly understandable. Wrong situation can lead ppl. to do wrong things.
Good luck to all CMU kidz!
I received feedback on Cheating versus Collaboration in the LinkedIn discussion group, Accenture Alumni Worldwide Group.
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By Ron Lamb, Enterprise Planning & Transformational Change Leader with Global Business & IT Strategy Consulting Experience
Interesting discussion! I had an experience in university (Electrical Engineering) some years ago that hit home. The fact that it could have cost me a failure of a critical assignment has stuck with me to this day.
We had a very complex programming assignment and after a quite a few late nights of struggle with what turned out to be the core of the solution approach, I came up with the needed breakthrough. In those days you submitted a card deck and received a print out a few minutes later at a shared printer. I had a number of printouts of the final draft to make formatting improvements.
When I received my mark for the assignment I was shocked to find that I'd been given a failing mark.
In the class the professor explained to us that he had determined that a number of students had submitted what was effectively the same program. I was extremely fortunate that another student quickly owned up to the fact that a number of other struggling students, he among them, had seen that I'd solved the assignment and had been frustrated enough after several days, to have taken one of my final printouts out of the trash to see how I'd solved it. They each created some version of what I'd submitted.
What caused the professor to provide me with full marks was a tiny piece of the puzzle. I realized that what had been required was an extraordinarily high vale for a particular constant. I chose a number at random that I knew wouldn't be exceeded by any other value. The other students hadn't understood the exact need for this number, so had just copied the number that I had used. That had provided the 'fingerprint' for the professor.
No one else was able to explain why that particular number was used except for the explanation that I gave, that it just had to be higher than any likely other variable in the problem.
It was fortunate that it turned out that way, but I never held any animosity towards the others. It seemed that they had just decided that they'd done enough struggling with all the other assignments that we all had. While we essentially worked alone, there was a lot of mentoring and assistance for each other as we learned new concepts. By forth year we had small study offices and would often ask each other how to solve specific issues. I think the challenge is knowing what is help and collaboration vs what is cheating. I think if the other students had asked me how I'd solved it, it would have been collaboration. Taking my printout out of the trash I think fell on the the other side of the line as far as the professor and I think most people would believe.