Professors know that many students will cheat to get better grades on tests and papers if they can. They also know that it’s much easier to look the other way. Trying to stop cheating has no benefits and considerable downside.
In today’s Martin Center article, Professor Loretta Breuning discusses this problem.
She writes, “I was naive to the culture of cheating when I was a student, so I was naive as a professor. My odyssey into the cheating world began when a student complained after an exam. She’d witnessed many infractions while I just sat there reading a book—everything from whispering to passing notes to passing a whole scantron test. I was tempted to dismiss her the way ‘tattlers’ are often dismissed on the playground, but then she said the words I cannot forget: ‘It’s unfair to students who study.’”
She was shocked to find that her fellow faculty members often made excuses for the cheaters, such as saying that they just regard it as a form of cooperation. Cooperation is a good thing, right?
Breuning came to the conclusion that the incentives in college were wrong.
What to do? Breuning writes, “So it is ultimately up to the taxpaying public. The taxpayer must look beneath the fine words that academics generate to see the real incentive structures. Public policymakers must design an incentive structure that rewards learning rather than statistical outcomes.”