The Daily Dot - Why the hottest trend in online education already has a cheating problem - 0 views
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students in a non-credit bearing MOOC (massive open online course) were cheating on the written assignments.
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Terry Elliott on 23 Apr 14The assumption is that people cheat to get the best grade in order to succeed on the cheap with the least amount of effort. this is the rational actor theory in action. We cheat for a discrete reason or reasons.
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Why would a student cheat in a course in which they voluntarily enrolled, and for which they earn no tangible rewards?
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We should not jump too hastily to the conclusion that MOOCs carry no real stakes.
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plagiarism researcher Rebecca Moore Howard
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There actually are stakes for students in non-credit-bearing MOOCs, in that Coursera and other proprietors actually connect successful students with prospective employers.”
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A student who cheats his way to a Harvard degree has earned a Harvard degree, one which will improve his career prospects immensely. A student who cheats his way to a MOOC certificate earns nothing of the sort (for the time being). So why are they doing it?
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Analyzing the demographics of the cheating students and seeking to understand whether certain types of students are more likely to cheat than others (like in the work of Donald L. McCabe)
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oesn’t help in understanding cheating in MOOCs, since both the “massive” and “open” nature of the courses makes it difficult, if not impossible, to gain a clear picture of a typical MOOC student.
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plagiarism theorists, such as Susan Blum, consider how contemporary cultural practices of sampling and borrowing are challenging our traditional definitions of plagiarism—and how they are confusing to students who must abandon their normal habits of Facebook sharing or re-Tweeting in order to conform to the complex rules of scholarly citation. This may have some bearing on the case of cheating in MOOCs, especially when the students hail from different countries, where the rules of academic citation might differ from those in the home country of the faculty member.
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But my own research on cheating in higher education suggests that the most critical factor we must consider in our understanding of the problem is the course itself.
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Examined through this lens, cheating in MOOCs becomes more understandable.
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or example, the question of learning orientation. Educational theorists like to distinguish between two orientations that students have towards learning: mastery or performance.
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Performance oriented learners are more likely to cheat. Make sense. An athlete who is going for a personal best isn't going to cheat. She would just be in a state of denial. But if you wanted to appeal to someone other than yourself, then cheating might be a happy strategy.
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What is your learners learning orientation--mastery or performance? intrinsit or extrinsic?
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the very design of a course’s assessment system (i.e., its specific package of assignments and exams) can nudge students towards mastery or performance orientations. This means that certain types of assessment systems will also push students towards or away from cheating.
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The key way in which a course’s assessment system helps establish a mastery or performance-oriented classroom environment is through its use of—or lack of—choice and control.
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Poorly designed assignments, like poorly designed classes, will engender dishonest work in any environment, from traditional to online.
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But the best defense we have against cheating is excellence in course design and teaching.