Patterns, correlates, and reduction of homework copying

Abstract

Submissions to an online homework tutor were analyzed to determine whether they were copied. The fraction of copied submissions increased rapidly over the semester, as each weekly deadline approached and for problems later in each assignment. The majority of students, who copied less than 10% of their problems, worked steadily over the three days prior to the deadline, whereas repetitive copiers (those who copied >30% of their submitted problems) exerted little effort early. Importantly, copying homework problems that require an analytic answer correlates with a 2(σ) decline over the semester in relative score for similar problems on exams but does not significantly correlate with the amount of conceptual learning as measured by pretesting and post-testing. An anonymous survey containing questions used in many previous studies of self-reported academic dishonesty showed ∼1/3 less copying than actually was detected. The observed patterns of copying, free response questions on the survey, and interview data suggest that time pressure on students who do not start their homework in a timely fashion is the proximate cause of copying. Several measures of initial ability in math or physics correlated with copying weakly or not at all. Changes in course format and instructional practices that previous self-reported academic dishonesty surveys and/or the observed copying patterns suggested would reduce copying have been accompanied by more than a factor of 4 reduction of copying from ∼11% of all electronic problems to less than 3%. As expected (since repetitive copiers have approximately three times the chance of failing), this was accompanied by a reduction in the overall course failure rate. Survey results indicate that students copy almost twice as much written homework as online homework and show that students nationally admit to more academic dishonesty than MIT students

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“…These results are intuitive and hardly surprising. However, it is rather surprising and even disheartening to discover that dishonest students are comfortable with the fact that cheating hurts them (Palazzo et al, 2010). In their study, students were shown a graph at the beginning of the term clearly demonstrating a decline in performance with increased cheating behaviour, but no decline in the prevalence of cheating in the course was observed when compared with previous sessions of the course.…”

“…Some students will elect to cheat even in classes where all students begin the course with roughly equivalent skill sets (Palazzo, Lee, Warnakulasooriya, & Pritchard, 2010). This leads to poorer learning amongst the cheaters, and subsequently higher rates of attrition.…”

“…Palazzo et al (2010) observed the performance of students with regard to their rates of cheating in a course as the term progressed. Students who were the worst offenders on the assignments performed the poorest on their exams.…”

“…Some students who cheated on assignments rationalize their actions by claiming that the assignment is a waste of their time or that they are not motivated to complete the task (Howard, 2001;Palazzo et al, 2010). To mitigate this, Palazzo et al (2010) suggested that a course design which involves more teacher interaction results in students believing that the instructor is more concerned with their learning (rather than simply assigning a grade based on their performance).…”

“…To mitigate this, Palazzo et al (2010) suggested that a course design which involves more teacher interaction results in students believing that the instructor is more concerned with their learning (rather than simply assigning a grade based on their performance). They assert that such modifications to the physics courses at MIT is a primary factor in the roughly 75% reduction in cheating that they have observed since implementing the changes.…”