Professional cheaters - Could you spot one?

[gayle_yamazaki]

It's been quite a while since my last post. Time seems to slip away much more quickly every year.

In the Chronicles of Higher Education, they recently published an article describing a most interesting "experiment." If you teach online or hybrid, this is an article you should read and consider.

Alvin Malesky was able to work with his institution, Western Carolina University, to do something all of us have wondered about. Could he catch an online cheater? Using a research grant to fund this study, Mr. Malesky and his colleague, Robert Crow, were able to create a fake online 10-week introductory psychology course and past undergraduate students and graduate students took the class for the full 10 weeks using fake identifying information. Malesky and Crow knew that at least one student was paying a company to take the entire class.

The article describes the process the graduate student went through to hire the company to take the class for him. It might surprise you that a full service successful completion with an A in the course cost only $917. That would be a well worth the price for many students.

The real question is whether a forensic psychologist who has taught for many years and his colleague could accurately identify who was cheating and how. You'll have to read the article to find out.

Here is the direct link to the article: In a Fake Online Class With Students Paid to Cheat, Could Professors Catch the Culprits? - The Chron...