Preventing classroom cheating?

Is social epidemics possible? In Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell cited scenarios that show the sudden increase in demand of Hush Puppies and Airwalk and dramatic decrease of crime rate in New York. All social epidemics can reach its tipping point – the critical point that can bring positive changes in our society.

After reading the book, I thought examples of bad practices like classroom cheating and “under-the-table” operations could also be reduced and reach its tipping point. Is it really possible?

In terms of classroom cheating, DLSU before applied the Honor System in which students are left by professors while taking the exams. Full trust is given to them.. But the idea was forgotten by the University, since most students seemed to be naturally dishonest. Instead for the system to uphold honesty, students may view it as a tempting environment to cheat. The “Big brother” view was still the most effective way to fight academic cheating. In this manner, the professor acts like a police officers who monitors all the examinees during the course of the exam. Major sanctions can be imposed to the student who may be caught cheating. But this one makes the lives of professors inconvenient. The problem is that most of them don’t care whether their students are cheating or not.

In combating cheating, professors must take the full responsibility of considering the way they give exams that can discourage students to cheat. As Gladwell pointed out, Epidemics are sensitive to the circumstances and conditions of the time and places in which they occur. This is the power of understanding the context.

Because of tolerant environment to cheat, more and more students are attracted to find answers left and right and even receive different hand gestures from others. If the professor will focus on the context, he must make an environment in which students cannot be able to see the papers of others. For instance, multiple choice exams can be categorized into two to four different sets. The questions may not be different for all students, but they can be jumbled for the different rows. The student will find it inconvenient to cheat, or if he cheats he may get wrong answers because he/she may look to the wrong item based on the reshuffled questions. The professor will find it hassle-free to spot cheaters too. After finishing the exam, students will no longer prioritize strategies for cheating but instead focus on studying the lessons. The cheating epidemics is then prevented.