Paraphrasing tools are getting more sophisticated

[Caracal]

So to reiterate, there are:

• Good students, who will learn enough by osmosis to get some benefit from anything.
• Focused students, who need to get knowledge specific to their goals.
• Box-checkers, who are there because they have been told to be, who are neither bright enough to learn by osmosis or motivated enough to learn specific skills, and who will get very little from the experience.

Failing to recognize these distinctions sets up individual institutions and society as a whole for a lot of wasted resources and disillusioned graduates.

I've read some research that suggests that student engagement isn't constant. So, students don't just neatly fit into these categories-they move back and forth throughout their time in college, depending on the class, and maybe even during the semester in the same class.

[quasihumanist]

So to reiterate, there are:

• Good students, who will learn enough by osmosis to get some benefit from anything.
• Focused students, who need to get knowledge specific to their goals.
• Box-checkers, who are there because they have been told to be, who are neither bright enough to learn by osmosis or motivated enough to learn specific skills, and who will get very little from the experience.

Failing to recognize these distinctions sets up individual institutions and society as a whole for a lot of wasted resources and disillusioned graduates.

The truth is that many of our universities need the box-checkers - who pay tuition and count for enrollment statistics like everyone else but take up comparatively less faculty time and other university resources - to subsidize everyone else.

[mleok]

Is cheating prevalent at universities? As far as I understand, yes.

Is cheating new? As far as I understand, no.

Is cheating more prevalent now than in the past? I have not done any research on my own, but based on a quick search of newspaper and other articles, it appears that yes, it very likely is.

If I had to speculate as to why, I would say (1) because the internet makes it easier to cheat; (2) university degrees are becoming ever more important even as many students lack either the academic skills and/or a desire to get a university degree for any other reason than as a credential; (3) many university instructors are overworked and underpaid (especially adjuncts) and have little time or incentive to crack down on cheating. Again, I freely admit this is speculative (i.e., not evidence-based). None of these trends is going away, as far as I can tell.

As an instructor, I take the serenity prayer approach to cheating.

I craft assignments that cannot just be downloaded from the internet but require more thought about the readings and the task. I try to work with my students so that I get a better sense of when they turn in work that is different than their norm. I try to scaffold the assignments so students are not stuck a week before the paper is due without having done any work. I will also google passages of a paper if it seems what it is not what I was expecting.

But I am not going to dedicate the rest of my life to cracking down on cheating.

I agree that there are students who will do the minimum required to pass a class and nothing more. While it may be too bad that most students do not seek to master maths AND science AND arts AND history AND humanities and instead do what they need to pass their required class, I am not sure this is new or runs counter to the point of requirements. I expect a business major who passes my history class to have a basic understanding of the subject. I don't expect them to like the subject or be enthusiastic about it. It would be great if they did, but the idea of general education courses is to establish a baseline for everybody.

I have to say that the issues with cheating in the last year, particularly in general education classes makes me far more inclined to advocate for removing general education requirements entirely at the college level. Like was mentioned above, the box checkers, which are the vast major of students in general education classes, do not benefit from it.

[mleok]

So to reiterate, there are:

• Good students, who will learn enough by osmosis to get some benefit from anything.
• Focused students, who need to get knowledge specific to their goals.
• Box-checkers, who are there because they have been told to be, who are neither bright enough to learn by osmosis or motivated enough to learn specific skills, and who will get very little from the experience.

Failing to recognize these distinctions sets up individual institutions and society as a whole for a lot of wasted resources and disillusioned graduates.

The truth is that many of our universities need the box-checkers - who pay tuition and count for enrollment statistics like everyone else but take up comparatively less faculty time and other university resources - to subsidize everyone else.

That's the dirty truth about general education requirements, most students don't benefit from them, do not retain anything, and are likely to be cheating as much as they can. The only reason why professors want such students in their classes is because they are a captive audience that serves as justification for their continued employment.

[Hibush]

What would be the specific benefits of introducing box checking as a discrete major?
Faculty would be motivated to do so because those students are segregated into their own classes which can be run with different expectations.
A mutual recognition of the purpoose of their education must have many more benefits.

[jerseyjay]

That's the dirty truth about general education requirements, most students don't benefit from them, do not retain anything, and are likely to be cheating as much as they can. The only reason why professors want such students in their classes is because they are a captive audience that serves as justification for their continued employment.

There is an element of truth to this. However, at least in my field at my school, there is also the truth that very few people enroll with the goal of majoring in history. A significant portion of our majors were students in a general education course who decide they like history. This was partially made me major in history as well.

[marshwiggle]

That's the dirty truth about general education requirements, most students don't benefit from them, do not retain anything, and are likely to be cheating as much as they can. The only reason why professors want such students in their classes is because they are a captive audience that serves as justification for their continued employment.

There is an element of truth to this. However, at least in my field at my school, there is also the truth that very few people enroll with the goal of majoring in history. A significant portion of our majors were students in a general education course who decide they like history. This was partially made me major in history as well.

If somebody hasn't researched this already, I'd be curious to see statistics on this; namely

• What was the original major of people who switched after encountering something else in a required course?
• What were the incoming grades of people who switched majors after encountering something in a required course?
• What were the grades in their original major of people who switched majors after encountering something in a required course?

I imagine there are some patterns that would indicate which box-checkers are most likely to benefit.

[jerseyjay]

If somebody hasn't researched this already, I'd be curious to see statistics on this; namely

• What was the original major of people who switched after encountering something else in a required course?
• What were the incoming grades of people who switched majors after encountering something in a required course?
• What were the grades in their original major of people who switched majors after encountering something in a required course?

I imagine there are some patterns that would indicate which box-checkers are most likely to benefit.

First, I assume this is very field and school specific. Based on ongoing discussions at my university, I know that some fields tend to recruit majors directly. That is, you might go to school planning to major already. But many students do not go to school having more than a general idea of what they want to study. When I got to my university as a freshman, I knew I liked to read, and did not like maths. I did not change majors but rather picked a major, sometime in my sophomore year. Had I not taken an intro U.S. history course, I might not have decided to major in history.

My current school requires students to pick an intended major (i.e., check a box), but this is often completely notional. Many students "pick" a major but never contact that department to actually declare a major, and might actually never take a class in that department.

As for the grades, I will freely admit that sometimes people switch to history because they do not have the grades to study chemistry or maths. I assume, however, that to some degree while this reflects skills, it also reflects interest.

My point is that many departments in my current school use the general ed classes as a recruiting ground for majors. I have 60 general ed students in two classes this semester. If I get two majors out of it, that'd be good. If I get four majors, I'd be chuffed. But we offer several sections.

[jerseyjay]

Back to the original subject of the thread. I just graded an exam where the student used some form of paraphrasing tool to refurbish an essay on the web into their essay exam. The only way I was able to realize it was plagiarized was because another student in another section copied and pasted the relevant passage from the same essay into their exam. So I was able to recognize that the second essay had the same structure and argument, if not the same vocabulary, as the first essay. If it had not been for this, I probably would not have noticed.

[marshwiggle]

First, I assume this is very field and school specific. Based on ongoing discussions at my university, I know that some fields tend to recruit majors directly. That is, you might go to school planning to major already. But many students do not go to school having more than a general idea of what they want to study. When I got to my university as a freshman, I knew I liked to read, and did not like maths. I did not change majors but rather picked a major.

My current school requires students to pick an intended major (i.e., check a box), but this is often completely notional. Many students "pick" a major but never contact that department to actually declare a major, and might actually never take a class in that department.

I'd guess even this varies a lot by discipline. I would imagine that in professional programs, as well as in much of STEM, (especially really math-intensive disciplines), students are much more focused on a specific program. (And those who switch programs tend to go into something related, such as a mechanical engineering student switching to robotics.)

I imagine the number of people not having any idea what they want to do, and deciding to go into physics after taking a course would be vanishingly small. (Although a chemistry or math student switching to physics would be plausible.)

[jerseyjay]

I imagine the number of people not having any idea what they want to do, and deciding to go into physics after taking a course would be vanishingly small. (Although a chemistry or math student switching to physics would be plausible.)

Yes. I would imagine that there are some STEM students who know they want to do STEM but might not know which one. But more likely are those students who go into university thinking they want to do STEM (because it pays more, because their parents pressured them to do it, because whatever) and then take some STEM courses along with a history (or literature, or philosophy) course and realize that physics (etc) is very difficult or not that interesting and that history (etc) is fun. Many of our majors are like that.

At my alma matter, the intro STEM classes were generally "weed-out" courses so it was good that students got a sense of other possibilities. My school does not really have weed-out classes, but some students do decide that they really don't want to study maths, etc., after all.

[mleok]

What would be the specific benefits of introducing box checking as a discrete major?
Faculty would be motivated to do so because those students are segregated into their own classes which can be run with different expectations.
A mutual recognition of the purpoose of their education must have many more benefits.

Well, at least in mathematics, most universities already have two tracks to the introductory calculus sequence, for example, one aimed at STEM majors who are required to take the classes as part of their major, and another aimed at students who are satisfying a general education requirement. I won't speak for other departments and other faculty, but I, for one, would be happy to get rid of the calculus general education requirement and just offer the more demanding sequence. But, that might reflect the fact that we're a STEM heavy institution, and the lower-division general education classes have only a minimal effect on our staffing levels. Getting rid of our STEM focused service classes at both the lower and upper division levels would have a much larger impact.

[mleok]

I imagine the number of people not having any idea what they want to do, and deciding to go into physics after taking a course would be vanishingly small. (Although a chemistry or math student switching to physics would be plausible.)

Yes. I would imagine that there are some STEM students who know they want to do STEM but might not know which one. But more likely are those students who go into university thinking they want to do STEM (because it pays more, because their parents pressured them to do it, because whatever) and then take some STEM courses along with a history (or literature, or philosophy) course and realize that physics (etc) is very difficult or not that interesting and that history (etc) is fun. Many of our majors are like that.

At my alma matter, the intro STEM classes were generally "weed-out" courses so it was good that students got a sense of other possibilities. My school does not really have weed-out classes, but some students do decide that they really don't want to study maths, etc., after all.

I don't really think STEM majors rely on general education classes from their recruiting, rather we tend to have weed out classes to thin the herd. It doesn't take much for students to realize that the ordering is physics, chemistry, biology in decreasing levels of math intensity. It also doesn't take much to realize that STEM, social science, and the humanities are similarly ordered in decreasing levels of math intensity.

In any case, this is a poor reason for having general education requirement, undecided students can still take classes in whatever field they are scouting out, and that would allow the introductory classes to be pitched at majors, and thereby provide a more accurate reflection about what the expectations are for students in the major.

Put another way, why can't we simply have some fraction of the degree requirement be free electives and not have a prescribed distribution requirement? I suspect that on average, the demand for our courses will be no different, except that we'll have more motivated students in our classes, because they're there out of choice and interest, as opposed to a distribution requirement which really has nothing to do with what we think every student should know (because we can't agree on that).

[Hibush]

Back to the original subject of the thread. I just graded an exam where the student used some form of paraphrasing tool to refurbish an essay on the web into their essay exam. The only way I was able to realize it was plagiarized was because another student in another section copied and pasted the relevant passage from the same essay into their exam. So I was able to recognize that the second essay had the same structure and argument, if not the same vocabulary, as the first essay. If it had not been for this, I probably would not have noticed.

Did the student who paraphrased appear to have read and understood the material they lifted, or did they have the work done my a paraphrasing bot?  The learning outcomes are a bit different, even if far short of what you'd like.

[quasihumanist]

Now I know this is unrealistic at many schools, but as an undergrad at an elite SLAC, there were very few specifically general education classes; you usually had to take the introductory courses for majors to meet the general education requirements.

Watered-down general education courses make a mockery of general education requirements.