DUBAI // About 80 per cent of university students admit to cheating by either copying other people’s work and passing it off as their own or paying someone to sit exams for them, according to research carried out at the University of Wollongong Dubai.
Zeenath Khan, who is studying for her PhD on academic integrity, surveyed about 2,000 students from six private and public institutions. She began examining the topic while teaching in 2006 and started her PhD in 2008.
“As I was teaching it was a constant battle to teach students what was right and wrong,” said the computer science and ethics teacher. “It wasn’t just the conventional cheating on things like an exam, it was paying Dh200 for someone else to do your paper or copying from books.”
The reasons given by students why they cheated ranged from laziness to struggling to cope with parental pressure to perform well in school. Peer pressure from friends, said Ms Khan, was the most popular excuse.
“Either they see their friends cheating or there is the pressure to be a part of a group, to be socialising. Those studying and trying to do well end up struggling to make it on the social side,” she said.
Of the students surveyed, cheating was most prevalent among women, at 70 per cent versus about 50 per cent for men. This was down to the pressure from family and the wish to do well, Ms Khan said.
In the case of male students, work commitments or being too busy socialising with friends were given as reasons for resorting to cheating.
So far there has been very little research into the problem in the UAE because the issue remains taboo, said Ms Khan. Out of 15 universities approached to be a part of her research only six, including her own, accepted.
Kevin Nawn, an English teacher who has worked in the region for more than 20 years and is currently employed at a private school in Dubai, said the “culture of cheating” resulted in little value being attached to educational achievement.
The situation was made worse, he said, by students who may be living away from home for the first time and unable to deal with the responsibility.
“They come to university and think whatever is the easiest way is the best way.”
Even students who do not cheat themselves accept that others do and do nothing about it because they feel it does not affect them, said Mr Nawn, adding that teachers also accept that it happens but do not feel it is their responsibility to police it while others avoid the subject entirely because they feel it reflects badly on them.
As plagiarism-checking websites such as turnitin.com have grown in popularity, students have become more savvy, Mr Nawn said, and are resorting to other avenues such as paying companies to write papers for them.
Ms Khan, however, said turnitin.com was not able to detect plagiarism in languages other than English. The culture of cheating is so ingrained in some students that they even arrange for other people to sit key exams on their behalf, such as English-language entrance exams taken in schools before they enter university.
“Unfortunately that sets them up for failure because they begin an English degree they have virtually no chance of passing,” said Mr Nawn. “Fraudulent test scores are a major problem.”
Last year, Wollongong University began an outreach programme to more than 30 private schools to educate pupils about the realities and ethics of cheating.
“It’s an understanding that has to be developed from a young age, and even among teachers,” said Ms Khan. “Many teachers don’t even realise it’s wrong to use Wikipedia.”
Dr Gina Eichner Cinali, a board member for the International Centre for Academic Integrity and a local academic at a private institution, said parents could also become “accomplices” in the problem.
“By not encouraging them [their children] to do their own work from an early age or to the extent of paying for whatever it takes for their child to get ahead ... parents bribing their kids into schools. We are unearthing more and more cheating and if it becomes the norm, it stops being bad.”
She said that even academics were guilty of cheating and that she had carried out research into the issue in the UAE over the past year.
“Teachers are submitting bogus CVs, imposter degrees, people using a degree from someone else with the same name.
"Wasta is playing a big role. Even when a dean or academic finds a student guilty of cheating, it can still be overthrown. The whole institution needs to honour integrity. We can't penalise students when we hire faculty who shouldn't be there either."
mswan@thenational.ae
