I agree, Derek, that students using so-called paper mills and cheat
sites are a minority and the gossip about Ms Hall's service varies
widely with some saying she's doing fine, others that she is doing very
little business. I don't know which is closer to the truth. There are
some figures about - Don McCabe who runs the US Centre for Academic
Integrity has conducted surveys by a variety of methods over many years
with tens of thousands of students. He reported in November 2003 that
the percentage of students using such services had dropped from 7% in
1999/2000 to 5% in 2001/2 to 2% in Canada in 2002/3 and 4% in the US in
2002/3. This might be because he was largely using electronic replies
in the later surveys and students might be less secure to answer.....
but the trend is clear and interesting. Anyone I talk with agree that
less happens here in the UK compared to the US with such services but
who knows? For secondary students, sites like CourseworkBank.co.uk must
have some customers - though their products are pretty darn bad!
The thing that strikes me is that there is no Don McCabe type national
attempts to find out who is doing what in the UK. I wish there was.
Certainly, I do a fair bit of collecting stories and eavesdropping on
students during my many (!) intersite rides on the university bus. They
say it happens and they don’t like it. 87% of the students responding
to McCabe said that buying essays was "modest or serious cheating". We
now have a large and growing number of students paying International
Student fees plus living costs so what's a few more hundred to increase
their chances? Last week, I overheard two UK students talk about how
one got ahold of a free essay, re-wrote it in his own words and
submitted it. Yes, it happens.
I still say deterrence and designing out is the best way. I heard a
good story about that this week - a colleague who was sick to death of
reading text book re-hashing of fetal endocrinology set them the task of
deciding what would be a characteristics they valued and then designing
a baby to be like that - hey, it's hypothetical, not real! - so what
would the baby need when to encourage that trait? Voila, fetal
endocrinology but not in any text book..... I suppose E Hall's chaps
could do it but then, the teacher who set the task will viva 10% at
random and the students know that ... Last month, an academic teaching
forensic science brought in a crashed car and got the students to write
up reports from that data..... not on the web! When I asked, How do you
know it's their work?", he looked stunned. They love doing it, he
said.... end of story.
Jude
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