In defense of Cheating
This is an interesting article written by Don Norman on the current need to
change the education system...Hope you enjoy reading it. I have pasted it
without any formatting...
Naaz.
In Defense of Cheating
Donald A. Norman
Preamble:
In a recent issue of Ubiquity, Evan Golub examined the
implications for cheating of allowing students to use
computers during examinations (Golub, E. (2005). PCs
in the classroom & open book exams. Ubiquity, 6(9).
I was disturbed by Golub's article because the
emphasis was on cheating by students and possible
counteractive measures. Never did he ask the more
fundamental questions: What is the purpose of an
examination; Why do students cheat? Instead, he
proposed that faculty become police enforcers, trying
to weed out dishonest behavior. I would prefer to turn
faculty into educators and mentors, guiding students
to use all the resources at their disposal to solve
important problems.
Golub takes as a given our current educational methods
that test by requiring students to prove that they can
regurgitate the information presented in class without
assistance from others (although, thankfully, he does
allow them to consult books, reference notes, and even
internet sources). But in real life, asking others for
help is not only permitted, it is encouraged. Why not
rethink the entire purpose of our examination system?
We should be encouraging students to learn how to use
all possible resources to come up with effective
answers to important problems. Students should be
encouraged to ask others for help, and they should
also be taught to give full credit to those others.
So, the purpose of this contribution to Ubiquity is to
offer an alternative approach: to examine the origins
of cheating, and by solving the root cause, to
simultaneously reduce or eliminate cheating while
enhancing learning. (This essay is adapted from an
unpublished posting on my website: In defense of
cheating, www.jnd.org.)
**************
No, I am not in favor of deception, trickery, fraud,
or swindle. What I wish to change are the curricula
and examination practices of our school systems that
insist on unaided work, arbitrary learning of
irrelevant and uninteresting facts. I'd like to move
them toward an emphasis on understanding, on knowing
how to get to an answer rather than knowing the
answer, and on cooperation rather than isolation.
Cheating that involves deceit is, of course wrong, but
we should exam the school practices that lead to
cheating: change the practices, and the deceit will
naturally diminish.
Students cheat. There is no way of avoiding this fact.
Students hand in homework and project assignments
copied from others, or written by their parents, or
even purchased. Students copy from one another on
examinations, and they try to discover advance
information about examinations. When cheating involves
deceit, trickery, fraud, or swindle it must be
prohibited. But the proper solution to the problem is
not through prohibition and punishment: it is through
examination of the sources. Why do even our best
students feel compelled either to cheat, or to help
other students, or to watch while others cheat,
without taking action? I believe that the root cause
of cheating in our school systems lies with
inappropriate curricula and examinations. Change the
practices and the cheating should naturally diminish.
Consider this: in many ways, the behavior we call
cheating in schools is exactly the behavior we desire
in the real world. Think about it. What behavior do we
call cheating in the school system? Asking others for
help, copying answers, copying papers.
Most of these activities are better called
ÒnetworkingÓ or Òcooperative work.Ó In the workplace
these behaviors are encouraged and rewarded. Thus,
many experts will tell you that their real expertise
lies not in what they know but rather in who they
know: that is, expertise is often knowing whom to ask
and where to look. When we have problems in the real
world, we want answers, no matter the source, which
means searching to find someone else who has
experienced the same problem, asking others for help,
and cooperating.
Cooperative Versus Individual Work
In schools we over-emphasize individual work. Perhaps
the only place where individual, isolated work is
encouraged and cooperative work punished is in the
school systems. In examinations, not only is it
prohibited to copy other's work or to ask others for
help, but it usually isn't possible to refer to books
or, oh my goodness, the Internet. Yet these are all
important skills in the world outside of schools.
Students should be taught how to work effectively in
teams, how to use reference works, how to use the
Internet effectively, and especially how to find the
significant from the non-significant, to distinguish
quality from nonsense.
Our instructional philosophies are short-sighted. This
insistence upon unaided, individual work is the result
of the long-established policy of grading: each
individual is ranked through the assignment of a
numerical or letter score that is meant to reflect
their mastery of the subject matter. But does it?
First of all, are the examinations effective? Do they
encourage understanding or do they emphasize the
arbitrary recitation of material that is examinable.
We know from our own experience, supported by numerous
formal studies, that students cram for exams,
regurgitate the material at exam time, and seldom
retain it afterwards.
How much better to reward procedures for coming up
with answers. Emphasize understanding of the issues
and knowledge of how to gain insight and resolution.
Emphasize cooperation.
Consider plagiarization. The sin of plagiarization is
not that it involves copying, but that it doesn't give
credit to the originator. Deceit is wrong: it should
be avoided. The problem is that the current system of
homework and examinations emphasize the individual
activity, oftentimes in sterile, meaningless
exercises, ones that are easy to grade. Grades have
become critical to determining the future of each
student, even though they measure only a fraction of a
person's ability and potential, and quite often do a
poor job even of the aspects they pretend to measure.
It is no wonder that students study for the exam, that
true understanding and exploration of issues is
discouraged if it will detract from time that could be
spent studying for the exam. The grading system,
moreover, is often on a curve, with a fixed percentage
of students receiving each letter grade. This means it
is a zero-sum game: a person can only get a higher
grade if someone else receives a lower grade.
No wonder the intense competition, no wonder the
cramming for exams, no wonder cheating - anything to
get ahead. No wonder copying without attribution, for
the students feel compelled to lie: the student who
finds just the perfect essay and presents it to the
instructor receives no credit if the essay was written
by someone else. But suppose the student got credit
for finding the essay, that the reward was based upon
just how relevant and insightful that essay really
was? And if both the student who presented the essay
and the originator of the essay received credit?
This is a tricky concept. Thus, if one student writes
a paper and another simply copies it, no, that's not
what we are trying to encourage, not even if full
credit is given to the original. The goal is to
support cooperative work, where everyone contributes,
each according to their abilities, but that those
abilities are recorded and become part of the student
transcript. In other words, the goal is not to rank
order the students by some arbitrary mark of
performance measure, which is what grades do, but
rather to determine a student's true attributes and
skills and to record them accurately. Some students
are scholars, others leaders. Some are team players,
others not. Some are generalists, others specialists.
The goal is accurate characterization. We do not need
value judgments among the attributes: society needs
all of them.
In a system where copying is punished, the student
feels compelled to lie. Suppose that copying were
encouraged - honest copying, where the source must be
revealed. And suppose that both the copier and the
originator of the material were rewarded, the
originator for their contribution and the copier for
knowing where to seek the information. This would
reinforce the correct behaviors, minimize deceit, and
encourage cooperativeness.
Take a tip from the recommendation sites on the
Internet, where contributors are rated on the basis of
their effectiveness and usefulness to others. We
should grade students on their effectiveness in
forming coalitions in organizing groups, and in the
nature of their contributions to the group work. Thus,
if one person is frequently copied, that person's
stature as a contributor should rise. Similarly, if a
person makes no original contribution, but is
effective at forming coalitions that solve problems,
that person's status as an organizer should rise.
We could change the educational system to make it more
relevant to the world, to teach proper social skills,
and at the same time eliminate the deceitful, hidden
acts of cheating by recognizing cheating for the good
that it brings: group activities toward a common end.
Mastery Grading
Today, the grading system fosters a competitive,
zero-sum game spirit in which if one student wins, the
others lose. I have long been bothered by the system
of grading on the curve, forcing students to compete
rather than cooperate. I favor grading to absolute
standards. Determine what is to be learned and measure
how successful each student is in their
accomplishments. If every student gets an A, hurrah!
It means every student has learned.
If every student gets an A, this does not mean that
all students are equal. Not at all: some students can
accomplish more than others, and this difference
should be noted. But suppose we replace the fixed
curriculum and its rigid grading scheme with a new
procedure in which different students would do
different work and their grade would be a list of
their accomplishments? Evaluate students on their
mastery level: mastery grading. In addition, evaluate
them on their ability to work with others, either by
being a productive team member, by organizing the
team, or by their ability to contribute toward the
solution.
Suppose the grading system measured level of
accomplishment. Suppose the school curriculum were
divided into modules of useful knowledge or skills,
each relatively small (a week or two of class, perhaps
even a few hours). Each student is mentored, and the
module is marked as complete only when the student
masters it. In other words, grade on a Pass basis. But
only use Pass - do not use a Fail or Not-Pass grade. A
student either knows the stuff or doesn't, and in the
latter case, the student is encouraged to keep
learning.
Some modules should be mandatory: some optional.
Schools could require that students complete the
mandatory modules as well as a specified number of
others, perhaps requiring a distribution across
disciplines. The major structure of a curriculum need
not change. The major point of mastery grading is that
evaluation specifies the modules completed rather than
today's attempt at measuring the quality of
accomplishment of a fixed-length course. A student
transcript would list the set of modules completed
satisfactorily.
Admission to higher grades or to universities - or
even employment - could be based upon what students
know. Schools or employers would not look at grade
point averages, rather they would judge students by
their particular skills, by their ability to work in
teams, and by the set of modules that they have
mastered.
Note that changing to modular education with mastery
grading also means changing today's system of
lock-step education. Today, if students fail at some
topic, when they are moved to the next grade, they no
longer have exposure to it, even if they wish to. In a
modular system, students could study the modules they
need or that they are interested in, regardless of
grade level.
In the end, the students possess a list of topics that
they understand. Some will have completed many
modules, some just the minimum required. Some will
have modules that reflect a broad range of topics,
some more narrow, but deeper knowledge. Instead of
arbitrary ranking through grade-point averages, each
student is characterized by their accomplishments.
Restructuring the Curriculum
In this essay, I focus upon changes to curriculum and
instruction that would change the emphasis in school
systems from that of competition to cooperation, from
arbitrary grading on the curve to mastery assessment
of a student's accomplishments. But these changes are
only part of the restructuring required of our
educational systems. Many more changes are needed.
We need to get away from the lecture-centered method
of teaching. We need to emphasize "learning," not
"teaching." Teaching is about the teacher. Learning is
about the student. The emphasis should be on doing, on
activities - learning by doing.
Yes, depth of understanding should be encouraged, but
this is best nourished when there is true interest and
excitement, which often means project-based
instruction, where teachers act as mentors and guides
to the material. None of this is particularly new:
many others have advocated this form of education,
starting with John Dewey in the early 1900s. But
changes in teaching can not take place without changes
in the curriculum and in the way we assess students.
Moreover, these changes are consistent with changes in
both Computer Science and Engineering curricula being
widely debated. They are consistent with a move toward
problem-based instruction, where students work in
teams on complex, realistic projects, with the
academic material timed to be relevant to the problems
being faced on the projects. The goal is to teach the
skills of creative problem solving, built upon
fundamental principles of the discipline, but where
the fundamentals are motivated by demonstrating their
relevance to real issues. Our courses can be made more
interesting without losing rigor or depth. Make them
relevant. Encourage teamwork and cooperation. Remember
that when our students encounter problems many years
from now, they will not remember the details of what
they were taught (assuming those details are eve still
relevant), but they will remember the fundamentals and
the skills.
We need to rethink the curriculum, for today, we try
to cram everything we think the student will ever need
to know into their heads in a relatively short period.
Instead, we need to train curiosity, self-reliance,
cooperative skills, and knowledge of how to learn on
their own, knowledge that will be of value for the 2/3
of their lives that remain after the completion of
formal schooling.
[End]
[Donald A. Norman is the author of numerous critically
acclaimed books, including "Emotional Design: Why we
love (or hate) everyday things," "The Invisible
Computer," "Things That Make us Smart: Defending Human
Attributes in the Age of the Machine," "Turn Signals
are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles," and "The
Design of Everyday Things".
Source: Ubiquity, Volume 6, Issue 11, (April 5 - 12,
2005)
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