Professor who witnessed cheating in student chat rooms explains the reality of cheating
As school education shifts online due to the impact of COVID-19 and other factors, the issue of cheating has become a hot topic. Matthew Crump, an associate professor of psychology at the City University of New York, wrote about his experience of witnessing cheating.
My students cheated... A lot • crumplab
In August 2021, Crump was about to hold his first online lecture of the semester. Shortly after starting the lecture, one of his students posted a link to join the class's WhatsApp chat group, so Crump joined in.
Students today use a variety of methods to communicate with each other about their courses, especially while taking online classes, including WhatsApp chat groups. Crump says these group chats are completely legitimate and provide students with a wealth of course information and an active social network.
A day later, while out with friends, Crump found his phone flooded with WhatsApp chat notifications, so he muted the chat and then completely forgot about it for several months.
However, when Crump happened to open the chat, he noticed that among the healthy chatter discussing assignment deadlines and coursework, there was a photo of a 'test question' that had been shown during a lecture. Crump's weekly test questions were due on Sundays at 11:59 PM, but around 7 PM on Sundays, the chat suddenly became lively, with students who were not attending class or simply looking for answers engaging in conversations in search of answers.
'The test was a personal assignment, and I didn't expect students to consult with each other or share answers,' Crump said. Crump joined the chat room anonymously, so none of the students realized the professor was lurking in the chat room.
Using R, a programming language that Crump is good at, to investigate the tendency of students to cheat, he found that within two weeks, 70 students, or about 75% of the total, were cheating. He was able to identify 97% of the students using programs that referenced phone numbers.
There was a lot of cheating going on in the chat rooms, and while some students actively participated in the cheating and chatting, others did not. However, no students reported any cheating in the chat rooms, even though anyone would have noticed it.
Crump said, 'The rules for whether students should report cheating may be vague, but knowing about it and not reporting it can be a violation of academic integrity.' The City University of New York recommends spending about an hour talking to each student about
So Crump informed the entire class about the violation and had each student submit a separate form detailing what they had done.
Of course, some students cheated on every quiz and the first midterm, while others only cheated on some assignments. These were clear violations of academic integrity, and Crump felt that failing the class was appropriate. However, he ultimately settled on a system where one penalty was given for each misconduct, and three misconducts resulted in failure. Crump also said that some students came to apologize.
Some students also reportedly told Crump what was going on in the chat room. Because they didn't know Crump was in the chat room, they would send him chat archives, telling him that apps like this are essential for student interaction and that they could prove they weren't cheating. Crump said he didn't report the cheating because he feared retaliation from other students, which he called 'terrible.'
Crump also tried to prevent cheating by changing the format of the upcoming second midterm exam, having all students take the test at the same time and giving each student different assignments. However, during the second midterm exam, problems arose where the questions were not distributed on time, leading to a flood of text messages flying through WhatsApp chat rooms. Naturally, once the questions were distributed, screenshots of the questions and cheating messages in response to them were also circulating. However, with the volume of messages reaching 10 to 50 per minute, 'it was so fast it was impossible to keep track of what was happening,' Crump said.
However, cheating still occurred. While Crump apparently had discretion over such behavior, he chose not to fail students. Instead, he created an alternative syllabus and created new assignments for all students. Crump felt this would be fair to everyone, giving students who cheated a second chance and students who didn't cheat more interesting assignments than before.
However, there was one other requirement for students who cheated: they had to complete an 'Academic Integrity' assignment, which required them to submit a paper of at least 150 words demonstrating that they understood what it meant to be a student and to conduct themselves in accordance with high standards of personal and academic integrity. Only after completing this assignment would they be given an alternative syllabus.
Crump said, 'I knew students wanted a second chance, but I didn't know how many would accept an alternative syllabus. Completing the academic integrity assignment meant admitting to cheating, and some students seemed to be refusing to admit anything at all. So I was thrilled when the first academic integrity assignment was submitted.' However, the text had been copied and pasted from the internet. Crump gave the student a third chance and warned the entire student body not to copy and paste. As a result, some students submitted honest texts.
The next semester, Crump was teaching a new group of students, but he found signs of cheating again, but this time, a student who knew what had happened the previous semester was urging him to stop cheating through chat.
'Overall, the students were fantastic. I gave them positive marks for everything they did this semester,' Crump said, adding that he was pleased with how things had turned out. Crump remained hidden in the chat rooms for two semesters, but ultimately his presence was never revealed. Students had various theories about how Crump was notified of the cheating, including that it was the work of a disgruntled postdoc.
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