Cheating is a part of every education system and the reason for this act varies from wanting to be cool or to get a good grade without the effort of studying. This habit is usually cultivated from middle school and is defined as “copying material without proper citation, padding bibliographies, getting exam questions in advance, collaborative homework, turning in paper done by others, and using notes during exams”.
However, cheating has evolved along with technology and has become far more sophisticated than copying answers from scribbled notes. Gadgets that rival an American spy movie are becoming progressively common. In Thailand, medical students were caught transmitting footage of their exam questions through a webcam hooked onto their eyeglasses and receiving the answers via their smartwatches.
Watches seem to be a popular option for creative entrepreneurs who have decided to meet the demands of those adamant on achieving a good grade without putting in the work. Cheating Watch is a product that does exactly what it is named to do. It allows users to save PDFs and other documents with an emergency button that puts everything in shut down in the event a suspecting examiner wants to take a second look at it.
There is also another watch on the market called Invisible Watch that looks like a decorative watch that does not even tell the time to everyone else but those wearing a special pair of glasses. The glasses allows the wearer to see what had been uploaded onto the watch. Another gadget on the rise in the cheating scene is the smartring.
Perhaps the most obvious solution is to place a band on all jewellery and gadgets or update the definition of cheating. According to a study done on 35% of twenty three thousand high school students, many do not understand what constitutes as academic dishonesty. They see storing notes on their phones, texting each other answers, ordering essays from ‘do my essay‘ services and other digital forms of dishonesty as a given and not dishonest at all.
However, there are educators who claim that cheating is merely a by product of an even bigger problem in education and society. The latter was addressed by Carol Baker, a curriculum director for science and music schools. She stated that there are vast differences in perspective. Where previous generations of students see information as something to be stored in their minds, current generations are too used to obtaining information online and seeing as to how accessible it is, it has lost its value and the students, respect for it.
In light of the rampant cheating culture, academies have imposed stricter policies on misconduct such as severe punishments and even expulsion.
Conversely, an Ohio State researcher uncovered that for cheating to disappear altogether, it is rather simple. Instead of emphasizing on grades, have teachers emphasize learning. An opinion piece on Harvard explored the possibilities of an ethical school community. A student hailing from Texas wrote that education should be focused on helping students understand concepts rather than expecting them to in a given time frame. Another student from Texas agreed, writing that learning should be highly personalized rather than competitive, with attentive teachers who actually care about their students education. Both of them are a part of the Ethical Collaboration movement.
Furthermore, psychologists suggest that parents play a role in assuring their children do not become cheaters by being ideal role models. This means no stretching the truth and saying their kids are younger than they are in order to gain perks or such little acts of dishonesty to achieve certain benefits. Smoking where is not allowed or even speeding might be the kind of behaviour children model themselves after.
Cheating should also be tackled head on, with cooperation from both faculty and parents. By reminding students of ethics, such as signing an honour code or copying the ten commandments prior to an exam reduced the statistics of cheating. However, a more intimate course of action might prove more useful in the long run. Rather than having students becoming used to the feeling of committing an unethical act despite feeling guilty, have them understand on a fundamental level why cheating is wrong by talking about it openly.
All in all, technology has allowed cheating to become more rampant than it was. Teachers and examiners also employ the use of technology to track cheating, such as by running essays through plagiarism websites or something as drastic as flying a drone over an examination hall to intercept radio transmissions. However, it should also be recognised that technology is not the root of the problem. Before the invention of smart devices, students have long taken to taking notes into an exam with them via innovative methods. What the internet has done, is to make those methods known with step by step instructions.
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