If you read the local papers you may have already heard about the cheating scandal at Harvard. While you know I take any opportunity to make fun of Harvard (simply because my husband went there for his MBA), this story made my stomach hurt. According to the investigation, Harvard suspects that as many as 125 students may have cheated on a take-home exam by collaborating. Truly every teacher’s worst nightmare. The students accused have responded by saying the rules were not clear and they had been allowed to collaborate before. My LA346 students will learn next week about pitfalls that prevent us from acting ethically. Two key pitfalls here: 1. rationalization and 2. “everybody is doing it.” I think the students are simply rationalizing their unethical behavior by pointing out the lack of clarity in the rules. If they were really confused, they would have asked the professor (or TA, who is really who you deal with as a Harvard undergrad in many cases. Hurray for SMG and your ability to talk to me personally!). They didn’t ask because the students didn’t want to hear the answer. Those students knew that they should feel uneasy about collaboration, but did it anyway. Why? As Warren Buffet has said, “‘Everyone else is doing it.’ These are the five most dangerous words in business.” I would add “and in education.”
Now, with all my ranting here you might mistakenly believe I think these Harvard students are bad people. Actually, quite to the contrary. These students are like every other student I have ever caught cheating: smart, motivated, under pressure, and in a panic. Ripe for ethical pitfalls. If you asked these students during a calm moment when a take-home exam was not due whether they would cheat, they would all say no. And mean it. But research shows that our brains play tricks on us in certain circumstances, allowing us to make choices that are not in alignment with our values.
It raises the question: does everyone cheat? And if so, how do we stop it? Certainly having clear rules and open communication between students and professors would help. I try to live these ideals and still catch students cheating. Dan Ariely, a professor at Duke University, thinks reminders of our moral code helps prevent small scale cheating and lying. His research found that having people swear on the Bible reducing lying significantly, even among people that don’t believe in God. Harvard has no academic equivalent of the Bible — an honor code — but is reconsidering whether it should implement one. Do you think this would help? Why do you think students cheat?
One Comment
Scott Pheifer posted on September 12, 2012 at 9:59 am
Not only do people try to rationalize and say everyone else is doing it, but the nature of exams goes against almost everything we are taught at smg. Especially looking at core and other smg classes collaboration and teamwork are preached as the most efficient way to accomplish tasks. Good team skills are also what employers look for when actually trying to find a job after school and I dont believe any employer would punish you because you didnt come to the right solution to a companies problem by yourself, teamwork and collaboration are expected and advocated. So what i believe is it is not as clear cut as cheating is bad, which we’ve been taught growing up and generally accepted, but when you get older and you realize that you dont have all the answers, but neither does anyone else, but you might understand one aspect of a problem and someone else understands another and they can explain it to you. I believe that people cheat because they strive to learn new knowledge to actually get things right.