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As others have noted, this is unlikely to explain it. I'm a professor at Carnegie Mellon. In the most recent semester, I taught a large undergraduate intro to
by dgacmu 9y ago
As others have noted, this is unlikely to explain it.
I'm a professor at Carnegie Mellon. In the most recent semester, I taught a large undergraduate intro to programming course (CMU 15-112 is similar in audience to CS50 at Harvard. Our cheating ratio - about 10% - was similar this year, and was also higher than normal). The course is taken by almost all first-year students at Carnegie Mellon - it has about a 50/50 gender ratio. Out of curiosity, I examined the stats for our cheating cases - briefly, so I may have made some errors. But males accounted for about 2/3rds of the cheating cases. It's not clear that that is statistically significant, or if it boils down to "about the same."
Unlike your hypothesis, this is based upon the actual cheating statistics from a class of about 450 people. :-)
Some time over drinks, remind me to tell you the story of the guy who asked his g/f to go get him a snack from the vending machine, stuck a USB drive in her computer, and stole her homework to hand in as his own.
Cheating happens across genders and nationalities. We look hard to identify trends, because we try hard to find ways to intervene before the cheating happens. Most cheating comes from poorly-managed stress. A smaller, regrettable subset comes from people who actively seek to cheat their way through something -- but most of it is simply a bad decision under time pressure.
The NYT article's hypothesis that people are putting more hopes on CS classes for their future careers rings true to me. We see a lot of people who are (a) not doing very well in the class; and (b) (probably mistakenly) believe they need an A or a B in the class in order to succeed in <thing they want to do>. This creates a stressful situation for them, and some respond in a way that bites them in the long run: they cheat. And, because this is CS and we have MOSS and other tools, they get caught.
- b0rsuk 9y agoI'm not pretending to explain why all cheating occurs, or who cheats more. Only what makes the problem worse. In any case I don't know enough woman programmers to make a statistically significant argument. I just described what I encountered while earning my own degree. It could be that those girls just had a cheaty nature and would cheat one way or another. On the other hand, there's a saying "Opportunity makes a thief". It's why during a war looters and marauders become a problem. In other words, some people cheat because an opportunity presents itself. Some horny guys essentially offer to cheat for you, and you have to actively resist.
- d3ad1ysp0rk 9y agoIf you're not pretending to explain why all cheating occurs, and we're talking about all cheating based on the article, it really just makes you sound like you have a bone to pick with women. When confronted with the statistics that someone else is seeing more MEN cheat, even with this supposed "situation" you describe, you don't react by thinking "Hmm maybe my anecdotal idea is wrong" but by explaining how it's still relevant. You seem strongly biased here.
- b0rsuk 9y agoYou are welcome to spin strawman arguments like the "statistics" above that men cheat as much or more as women. But don't expect me trying to prove what wasn't my point in the first place. That's misrepresenting my original post and I won't fall for that. And I'm not even saying "my anecdotal idea is wrong", because it is not. I've seen it happen that way, it doesn't matter if scale is smaller or larger. I just highlighted another motivation / mechanic of cheating. And it happens the other way too, with men manipulating women. In my first job (not programming) there was a handsome guy pretty adept at this. He would say things like "(Stretching) It would be so nice if someone opened the window." --- 3 girls rush to open the window before they realize they're being manipulated. I wanted to add to the full picture of why people cheat. But I'll show you how my original post in this thread can be generalized: Some people cheat not because of peer pressure, time constraints, inability to understand, "because everyone does", collaborative ethos among computer programmers... but because other people spoil them, and offer to "help" them in exchange for perceived favors. It doesn't even have to be a sexual attraction thing, it can be "helping this guy because his father owns half the town". If you learn you have some perk that really makes other want do favors for you, you're tempted to abuse it more. Sometimes being good at flattery is enough! Another explanation of this phenomenon is: people are more likely to cheat if opportunities are very easily available. But that facet is already mentioned in the article.