No bad students
As a sector, higher education can often fall into the pattern of supporting those that need the least help, while misunderstanding those who need the most. It is not uncommon, for example, to hear a speaker during a conference panel or keynote say they look for the very best students and graduates for their endeavours. We are a sector that aims to be a meritocracy.
By their nature, however, universities are set up in a way that rewards success. Entry requirements, while important to ensure students have the requisite learning and knowledge to complete their studies, are only a measure of what has been demonstrated by a student. There is a key emphasis on “what has been demonstrated”. An alternative way of looking at entry requirements is that the most successful secondary school students are the ones permitted entry to tertiary education if they so choose to explore it.
Like all measures, grades are also blunt and don’t take into consideration other factors impacting a student’s life. We regularly speak about this in QS Insights Magazine, but ordinary academic achievement when compared to the entire student body is often extraordinary achievement for the individual. There are a myriad reasons for this, most of which are reflected in grades. While capability is one, there are invisible factors such as neurodivergence and socio-economic background. A student with caregiving responsibilities does not have the same 24 hours in the day as one without.
With this emphasis on outstanding grades and outcomes, as well as the invisible barriers students can face, it’s hardly surprising academic integrity violations occur. Good grades means a good job means a good life. If a student is unable to achieve those grades because they haven’t received the necessary academic or welfare support they need, what are their options? Or, if success is rewarded, through things such as bursaries or internship placements, it can influence students to get an edge wherever they can.
November 2022 will possibly be seen as the watershed moment for academic integrity. ChatGPT’s explosion into the popular consciousness led to concerns about academic violations, cheating and other forms of dishonesty on university campuses. But they were hardly new. Generative AI is a massification of a problem that’s existed for centuries. In just the past decade alone the sector sharpened its focus on contract cheating.
The renewed academic integrity concerns also led to questions of how and if violations could be detected. But this might be tackling the problem from the wrong angle. Rather than asking if academic violations have occurred, education institutions could ask why they occurred in the first place.
In physics, there is a concept called the “observer effect”. At a basic level, it’s the idea that in observing a system, the system is changed by the observation. For example, measuring tyre pressure requires some air to be released, thereby changing the pressure of the tyre. In a more complex way, however, the observer effect can be applied to many other areas. The parent who watches their child to ensure they behave impacts the behaviour of the child (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse!).
This is the spirit of our September edition of QS Insights Magazine. Academic integrity is serious business and trying to detect and punish it even more so. But are we asking ourselves the reasons for academic violations? And worse, are we creating a quasi-surveillance state among students that unintentionally has a negative impact on their learning outcomes?
We are strong believers that there are no bad students, just students in bad situations. Understanding those situations and creating the right environments for students will help them flourish.
Stay safe out there.
Anton John Crace
Anton is Editor in Chief of QS Insights Magazine. He also curates the Higher Ed Summits, EDS and Reimagine Education conference at QS Quacquarelli Symonds. He has been writing on the international higher ed sector for over a decade. In 2019, he was recognised as the Universities Australia Higher Education Journalist of the Year in 2019 at the National Press Club of Australia, and won the International Education Association of Australia award for Excellence in Professional Commentary in 2018.