Cheating Lessons
LEARNING FROM ACADEMIC
DISHONESTY
JAMES M. LANG
@LANGONCOURSE
The Failures of Cheating
An Ethical Failure by the
Student
A Failure of Communication
A Failure in the Teaching/
Learning Transaction
Searching for Princess Alice
Thesis
Dan Ariely: the amount of dishonesty in which
people are willing to engage “depends on the
structure of our daily environment.”
The amount of cheating in which students are
willing to engage depends (in part) on the
structure of the learning environment.
Learning Environments
that Induce Cheating
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Motivation is Extrinsic
Orientation toward Performance
Infrequent, High-Stakes Assessments
Low Self-Efficacy
Cheating Perceived as Common and
Approved by Peers
The Cognitive Turn
“Much of what we’ve been doing as
teachers and students isn’t serving
us well, but some comparatively
simple changes could make a big
difference.”
Brown, Roediger, McDaniel
Make it Stick (Harvard UP, 2014)
Making the Case to Faculty
FREQUENT FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
AND
THE GROWTH MINDSET
Frequent Assessment
 “The Critical Importance of Retrieval for
Learning”
Test and Study
Test but NO Study
80%
80%
NO Test OR Study
Study but NO Test
33%
35%
Karpicke and Roediger
Science
Short Answer Questions
 30-Day Recall Test: Art History Lectures
 No
Activity
 Focused Study
 Multiple Choice
 Short Answer
20%
36%
36%
47%
Transience
 “When information has not been used for longer and
longer periods of time, it becomes less and less likely
that it will be needed in the future . . . our memory
systems have picked up on this . . . and in essence
made a bet that when we haven't used information
recently, we probably won't need it in the future.”
Daniel Schacter
The Seven Sins of Memory
Limits of Memory
 “In long-term-memory the limiting factor is not
storage capacity, but rather the ability to find what you
need when you need it. Long-term memory is rather
like having a vast amount of closet space—it is easy to
store many items, but it is difficult to retrieve the
needed item in a timely fashion.”
Michelle Miller
College Teaching
Transience Redux
 “Memories . . . are encoded by modifications in the
strengths of connections among neurons. When we
experience an event or acquire a new fact, complex
chemical changes occur at the junctions—synapses—
that connect neurons with one another. Experiments
indicate that with the passage of time, these
modifications can dissipate . . . Unless
strengthened by subsequent retrieval and
recounting, the connections become so weak that
recall is eventually precluded.
Daniel Schacter
The Seven Sins of Memory
The Minute Paper
 “When I first implemented this technique I was
surprised at how very simple questions would still
reveal misconceptions or misunderstandings in a
significant proportion of the students. Even after
classes in which I felt I had explained
something very well and thoroughly, there
were students for whom the answer to the
assessment was not obvious.”
Brian J. Rogerson
Journal of Chemical Education 80.2
The Minute Paper
 How many significant figures are there in the
following measurements?
a) 0.0560 L b) 5.5 x 104 km c) 10.0 ns d) 0.003 g
 Give two reasons why K is more reactive than Li.
 Why is it that AlCl3 is the empirical formula of the
ionic compound made up of aluminum ions and
chloride ions? Why not AlCl, AlCl5, or Al2Cl?
The Minute Paper
Course Condition
Failure/Dropout %
Control sections
Minute paper sections
34.5
16.7
“[S]ome comparatively simple changes
could make a big difference.”
Make it Stick
The Trump Card
In addition to learning, course evaluations
improved:
Course Condition Highest Course Rating %
Control Sections
“Minute Paper” sections
50
68.1
Self-Efficacy
Fixed
Growth
Mindset and Cheating
 “In one study, seventh graders told us how they
would respond to an academic failure—a poor test
grade in a new course. Those with the growth
mindset . . . said they would study harder for the next
test. But those with the fixed mindset said they
would study less . . . And, they said, they would
seriously consider cheating.”
Carol Dweck
Mindset (2006)
International Students
 Fixed: “You have a certain amount of intelligence,
and you can’t really do much to change it.”
 Growth: “You can always substantially change how
intelligent you are.”
 “Those with the fixed mindset didn’t want to expose
their deficiencies . . . to feel smart in the short run,
they were willing to put their college careers at risk.”
Mindset
Teaching for Growth
•Praise Effort
•Learning as Effortful
•Study Strategies
•Success Strategies
Final Thought
“Dishonesty reveals flaws in the very way
science is taught.”
David Pritchard
MIT