The Dispatch
Deception: It's in humanity's DNA
The raging debates about AI and its role in student conduct, namely cheating, continue. A deep dive into the history of academic misconduct reveals the real crux of the problem.
By Prisha Dandwani
“The problem of academic misconduct is an ancient one - it’s natural and normal.”
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Academic misconduct is a complex issue that traverses borders and cultures and includes behaviour such as plagiarism, sabotage, falsification and impersonation.
Donald McCabe, the Founder of the Center for Academic Integrity and a Professor at Rutgers University, conducted extensive research from the 1990s into academic misconduct at institutions. His early research and subsequent studies reveal that more than 60 percent of university students cheated in some form.
Academic misconduct is not a recent serious issue - it has been around for centuries.
“The problem of academic misconduct is an ancient one - it’s natural and normal,” says Jason Stephens, Associate Professor in the School of Learning, Development and Professional Practice in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at The University of Auckland in New Zealand.
“Ever since researchers have been doing large scale studies of it (starting with Bower’s seminal study in 1964), it’s been clear that a majority of students cheat [at least once, in one way or another] every year,” he explains in an interview with QS Insights Magazine.
The reason why Stephens refers to academic misconduct as being "natural and normal" is because of his astute explanation of the function of deception. He elaborates in his research by highlighting that deception is a part of nature and that the ability to deceive exists in natural selection.
“As I have described elsewhere, from plants posing as inviting insects to snakes wearing a sleeve of collars to masquerade as poisonous, the use of deception has proved advantageous to the survival and reproduction of numerous species.
“Deception is also normal. It emerges in early childhood and develops in complexity. However, academic dishonesty is unethical: it is morally wrong because it is dishonest, unfair and harmful, undercutting the achievement and prospects of honest students.”
An objective understanding of deception in the human condition, as well as academia, helps explain why student misconduct has been so pervasive.
Under pressure
Deception in higher education is evidently not a contemporary phenomenon. Early accounts of academic cheating can be traced back to the Sui Dynasty (581-618 CE). For many years, Chinese scholars who aspired to attain positions in government service would be required to take a significant imperial exam, Keju 科举.
Susan D. Blum, a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame in the US, expands on academic misconduct occurrences in China’s 400-year history.
She describes the empire at the time as being overseen with the utmost integrity by selected bureaucrats through an imperial examination system - which serves as the foundation for many examination systems today.
"It seems that if the incentives are high and the possibility of getting away with it is strong, most students are willing to engage in some form of academic misconduct."
The purpose of the assessments were to filter out the most talented candidates. The better the results, the higher the stature. Many invested large amounts of time out of their lives preparing for these exams. Candidates who were successful would receive a number of benefits. Besides prosperity and power, some were also exempt from conscription and taxes. The temptation to cheat may have laid in these perks.
Though candidates were searched before exams, some would “copy classics on their underwear in invisible ink. Some people - up to 30 or 40 percent - hired substitutes to take the test. Bribery of officials was common,” Blum points out.
In her book, My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture, she expands on the various methods of misconduct, including the ways in which candidates would try to conceal notes inside clothing or food upon entering the examination booths.
Entitlement
Prestigious universities in the US have also seen their share of cheating students throughout history. Blum points out that during the 1860s at Yale University, there was a huge cheating scandal that involved half the student body.
“Since grades had no import, and since privileged students had no aim beyond simply being there, the details of what occurred within the walls were irrelevant,” she states.
She refers to diary entries in the late 1860s from a Yale student, Lyman Bagg, which revealed that some students even concealed their texts in holes they dug up in the floor or near the windows, and also found ways to stuff notes in their clothing.
Not a lot has changed since then.
In September 2013, Harvard University’s campus newspaper released a survey conducted with incoming prospective students. The Harvard Crimson reported that “10 percent of responders admitted to having cheated on an exam, and 17 percent said they had cheated on a paper or a take-home assignment”.
This was the situation even a year after half of a government class in Harvard, consisting of about 250 students, were suspected of cheating on the take-home final.
It seems that if the incentives are high, and the possibility of getting away with it is strong, most students are willing to engage in some form of academic misconduct.
"While academic misconduct has clearly always been an issue, the growth of technology is making it more challenging for educators to find evergreen solutions."
Educators can be more proactive and should see themselves more as "choice architects that are responsible for creating cultures of integrity”.
The dark web
One of the biggest contributing factors that compound the challenge of academic misconduct in the past century is evolving technology.
Take Wikipedia, which is basically an online encyclopedia, for example. In an environment of instant gratification, knowing the original author or respecting their work is generally unheard of. Dr Sam Pryke, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Wolverhampton, UK, explains the danger of anonymity in Wikipedia.
“The non-proprietary nature of Wikipedia cuts against an academic culture which valorises the rights of the author and publisher. The anonymity of Wikipedia articles is alien to the cache of the named writer of the journal article or book.”
In his case study with Chris Knight, it is further demonstrated how websites like Wikipedia undermine academic customs and procedures.
While academic misconduct has clearly always been an issue, the growth of technology is making it more challenging for educators to find evergreen solutions. Furthermore, even in general society, the internet blurs issues when it comes to original work and intellectual property. A plethora of online information is shared and exchanged, millions of times a day.
Enter AI
ChatGPT is academic misconduct’s newest enemy - or at least that is the picture a wide number of media sources have been painting.
Many higher education institutions are conducting research into AI to determine how to shift their codes of academic conduct so student integrity is maintained in spite of growing tech resources. Stephens explains that the increase of AI related tools is revolutionary.
“The emergence of Gen-AI in the form of ChatGPT and related tools over the past year arguably presents the greatest potential benefits and challenges to learning assessment.
“The full scale of both [benefits and challenges] has yet to be realised or even properly envisioned. It [Gen-AI] is not unlike other tools in that it will be used and misused by humans to optimise productivity and to perpetrate misconduct. The challenges are made greater when the culture milieu is characterised technology-economic imperative to optimise speed and convenience - misuse and misconduct are more likely to occur when one is embedded in a culture that prizes efficiency over ethics and productivity over integrity.”
Same problems, incognito
If we take the earliest example of academic misconduct we have, it’s clear that pressure to perform and a sense of overwhelm are some of the reasons why students cheat. Fear of failure is another. The consequences of failure, or the desire to attain the fruits that success brings can be intense. Failure or success is quite often deeply personal, tied into one’s sense of self-worth.
Stephens helps summarise this old-age problem: “I don’t think there is one 'core reason' for engagement in academic misconduct. In an article I wrote many years ago, we identified four patterns of pathways to cheating: unable, under pressure, under-interested or unrepentant."
The ability of educators to completely question and reframe teaching methods and assessment requires slightly more revolutionary thinking and is already underway in some areas.
Stephens suggests that educators can be more proactive and should see themselves more as “choice architects that are responsible for creating cultures of integrity”.
At the same time, students, too, carry the weight of responsibility and need to be guided. This is pertinent when it comes to addressing their goals realistically and with a sense of maturity, involving necessary reflection on who they are, who they want to be and where they can achieve their aspirations with integrity.