Do top contributors care about academic dishonesty?
It's come time for school and we can all tell by the amount of homework questions so blatantly post here.
There are many top contributors here in the Astronomy/Space who claim to be in academia and I should assume would thus care about academic dishonesty. Yet these users continue to answer questions that they know will just be used to cheat on assignments. This is wrong. Academic dishonesty degrades the hard work of children who put forth the time and effort to do well.
My question is why do so many of the top contributors so blatantly help others cheat?
2012-08-30T14:46:43Z
@Kenny This IS cheating. This is NOT asking for and providing help.
I know this because people dont ask questions then proide answers in multiple choice. The mere act of asking a question shows you do not have enough understanding to know the answer, yet they have it right there in one of four options....and this doesn't seem odd?
2012-08-30T14:55:51Z
I know there are people who genuinely are interested and wondering, these are the people I want to help. The people I am talking about are the ones with blatantly copied questions in multiple choice, with five questions asked in a matter of minutes. These are the questions that are obviously being used to cheat. These are the questions I am suggesting not answering.
Midnite Rambler2012-08-30T11:41:39Z
Favorite Answer
This 'Top Contributor' certainly does.
My Y!A profiles states:-
If you expect me to do your homework for you then at the very least I will expect you to do your fair share of thinking- that's what homework is for. My children do their homework on their own- why should they be made to look less capable because others cheat and get help?
Favourite game: Encouraging answerers to give incorrect answers to homework questions so that lazy cheating students have to check which answers are correct i.e. do the work they're supposed to do.
I used to think that Google was a lazy way of finding out something - but now I realise that the *really* lazy people ask questions on Y!A so that others look up the answers on Google for them.
Cheating science students become cheating scientists. Cheating scientists invent results. Invented results cost lives
I encourage other answerers to also stop spoon-feeding lazy students with answers and make them use their own brains. Remember that in a few years time one of these cheats might be responsible for testing the safety of a drug you might be prescribed...
As another TC - here and in Mathematics, I see a lot of lazy cheating. Wholesale cut-and-pasted questions. Sometimes these appear to have been sent *during* a child's class - possibly even during a test! In these cases, I encourage lazy answers. Deliberate wrong answers. Answers that send the child to a wikipedia article or a website where they can read it for themselves!!!
And sometimes it is blatent - where the child copies the whole @#$% question - including the teacher's admonition to ''show all work''. Errrmmm... no. Its not *my* homework.
However... When its the rare, or occasional question, even obviously homework, it can be nearly irresistable to show how to work the problem, and it is usually easier to just give the answer at the end,, rather than remember to add some rejoinder as : ''And you can do the calculation now for yourself'' or some such. And 1/100th of a sec after I submit my response, I realize that the child will very likely just take the final answer, copy that, and ignore the rest.
And sometimes, you see the same username post 4, 5 7, 10 questions in a row - and all basic, simple questions - - the science questions frequently of a nature that you recognize after 2 or 3 that these are going to be answered by just reading their textbook. It will probably be in the latest chapter - word-for-word. I tell the child so - and encourage them to crack their book and read it.
And sometimes... its a plea for help - the child just seriously does not understand. While I am a huge advocate of public schools - I also am a realist - and I recognize that there are teachers that... do not inspire... do not make clear... do not teach. And in some cases, I do make an effort to explain the step-by-step method to arrive at the solution. I've not had many notes of thanks from these questioners - but I've had a few - and each is a heart-warming event.
You sort of need to determine for yourself where you stand - what you feel is ''helping'' too much - or what constitutes cheating. You have to live with yourself. For the most part - I would submit that you will see the majority of the TCs here definitely encourage students to use their own resources first.
If someone asks me: How do I tackle this problem? f(x) = (2x - 3)... blah blah blah
I have the choice of explain to them how to tackle the problem or... ignoring the question. What I do not do is give a one-line:
"The answer is 42"
(unless, of course, the question is about a certain book by Douglas Adams)
Having been a professional, a teacher and a dean, I know that kids are often overwhelmed by problems for which they have not been given the proper tools in class, by teachers who are given too many hours of teaching or too many students per class (or who are stuck teaching a topic that they are not prepared for -- it happens).
Also, most kids on this continent have not even been taught how to write properly, so that even through the formulation of their questions here, you can't tell if they are trying to cheat, or if they simply do not know how to ask for help.
If you see a question like:
"Using the Rational Root Theorem, find the solution to..."
is the question from a kid who is lazy and wants us to do the problem? or is the question from a kid who, after a boring day with a teacher who does not understand the theory, would like someone to finally explain what the heck is this theorem about?
If it is the former, then there is nothing I can do to keep this kid from cheating all his life. It is not as if Yahoo!Answers is the ONLY way to cheat (it is still better than the way that was used in my time: find the class nerd and beat the answers out of him). In this case, giving the answer will probably help some poor nerd to not get beat up... today. If it is the latter, then I might as well give it a try, in the (sometimes vain) hope that at least one more kid will finally understand the Rational Root theorem.
In any case, with a well-prepared homework, a good teacher can (usually) tell who is cheating and who is not.
I totally agree with an acception. Caution should sent to those who use any information from this blog. In the end they are asking for the Best Answer, not the Correct Answer. Asking a question whether from here or any place else is called research. Learning how to find an answer is fundementally more important then remembering one. Most test are memory driven. In the real world though one has to know how to find the answer and then validate the answer in their own head and work the problem to see if it's plausable. One of my biggest concerns is people just parroting statements they heard or learned from a book. It may very well be just an opinion, not a fact. Just because a statement was made from a well known author doesn't make it so or scientific.
This has occurred to me too. Whenever I answer one of these questions, I do my best to point the person in the general direction of the answer without doing the work for them yet often somebody will just give them the answer. With equations, I provide another example to show the method. Answering the entire thing is doing the student no favours - they are not learning the thinking skills involved and giving their teacher a false impression of what they know. I have even seen multiple choice questions offered up, questions which, with just a tiny application of thought, were easily answered. I do not answer questions which some lazy kid could just Google or those requiring an essay to be written as an answer. Sometimes I thin it is a misguided attempt to help, others, a wish to show off or collect points. Whatever the reason, contributors generally should not help the skivers!