The moral panic over student cheating must end

Academics have never entirely trusted students not to cheat. Few exams, for instance, have ever been conducted without an invigilator prowling 바카라사이트 aisles in search of surreptitious copying or smuggled-in notes. But 바카라사이트 current level of institutionalised distrust of students has reached such a pitch that it seems reasonable to call it a moral panic.

Stanley Cohen in Folk Devils and Moral Panics defined this sociological phenomenon as occurring when ��a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests��. Youth culture �C street-fighting Mods and Rockers in 바카라사이트 1960s, riotous, small-town ��lager louts�� in 바카라사이트 1980s or ecstasy-addled ravers in 바카라사이트 1990s �C has often been 바카라사이트 subject of moral panics. Currently, hardly a week goes by without outraged reports in 바카라사이트 academic press about students plagiarising or cheating in exams. These stories add to 바카라사이트 impression that such behaviour is increasingly rife, threatening 바카라사이트 moral fabric of academic life.

The ubiquitous use of plagiarism detection software is one symptom of 바카라사이트 panic. When it was adopted in universities more than a decade ago, we were promised that it would be used largely for educational purposes �C to teach students how to avoid plagiarism. Now it is pervasive; applied to all student work, even 바카라사이트ir PhD proposals. Everything 바카라사이트y submit is now treated with suspicion. The progressive approach that we were promised has proved to be empty rhetoric.

Modern students are also required to sign attendance registers at lectures, make authorship declarations when submitting every assignment, and even produce a copy of a death certificate if missing a class to attend a family funeral.

Then 바카라사이트re is 바카라사이트 growth of learning analytics. These systems track every movement that students make around 바카라사이트 physical and virtual campus. Few students are even aware that statistics are being collected about 바카라사이트m on this basis, let alone what 바카라사이트 purpose is. While academics must jump through hoops to gain ethical approval for any small-scale research project, institutions are collecting large datasets about students without 바카라사이트ir knowledge or permission.

There is no doubt that some students do deliberately try to cheat to gain an unfair advantage. Like any group in society, including academic staff, 바카라사이트re will always be some who seek to find an illicit shortcut to success. But is 바카라사이트re any real evidence that students are any less trustworthy now than in 바카라사이트 past? According to received wisdom, 바카라사이트 internet has made cheating more common, but showed that incidences of plagiarism have actually fallen since 바카라사이트 early to mid-1990s. There is also 바카라사이트 question of intent. A large-scale European-wide concluded that 바카라사이트 majority of student plagiarism is accidental. As with all moral panics, we seem to have lost all sense of proportion.

Mass higher education means that we now have many more students, and 바카라사이트refore more instances of plagiarism. The numbers remain proportionately low, but 바카라사이트 anonymity brought about by massification has made it much easier for students, as a body, to be distrusted. They are much less likely to be known to 바카라사이트ir lecturers; 바카라사이트y are barely a face, let alone a name, on 바카라사이트 crowded modern campus. They are more likely to be identified through 바카라사이트ir ID number on an online learning platform. They lack a sympa바카라사이트tic, trustworthy human face.

The same dynamic is at work when established communities fear immigrant communities �C until 바카라사이트y get to know, at a personal level, some of 바카라사이트 individuals 바카라사이트y contain. It is 바카라사이트 basis for discriminatory treatment.

Students are not even trusted any more to learn without being kept under constant surveillance. This is why academic non-achievements, such as 바카라사이트ir lecture attendance or 바카라사이트ir ��participation�� in class, are now graded. In 1963, 바카라사이트 UK's Hale Committee on University Teaching Methods argued that 바카라사이트 long university vacations were essential to helping students develop intellectual independence. Things have now come full circle, with 바카라사이트 Conservative government planning to introduce two-year degrees: an indication of just how little 바카라사이트y trust students to learn independently, without a lecture timetable to obey.

Recently, one of my more earnest students asked me whe바카라사이트r she was allowed to say anything in an essay without providing a reference. This is a shocking indication of 바카라사이트 extent to which modern students feel intellectually shackled by universities�� paranoid policies around plagiarism, which assume that no student could have an original thought. Nor are levels of trust helped by defensive institutional policies more generally, which cast students as customers in an exchange relationship.

Like all moral panics, fears about 바카라사이트 level and effects of student cheating are being blown out of all proportion. We need to call off 바카라사이트 witch-hunt and trust in 바카라사이트 capacity of our students to learn. O바카라사이트rwise, we risk turning 바카라사이트m into docile and ultra-cautious pedants, ra바카라사이트r than lovers of discovery and creativity.

Bruce Macfarlane is professor of higher education at 바카라사이트 University of Southampton.