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It’s funny how afraid people are about tiptoeing around this issue. Cheating among chinese students is widespread and blatant, and they do not even pretend to c

It’s funny how afraid people are about tiptoeing around this issue. Cheating among chinese students is widespread and blatant, and they do not even pretend to care. They are completely shameless about it. Everyone with Chinese students knows it, but it’s politically incorrect to call it out. Which they are also aware of, and take advantage of.

biocomputation 8y ago
People who can, do, and people who can't, cheat. It's the way of the world, and not isolated to any particular ethic group, social class, or otherwise.
- sjroot 8y ago
  That might be true, but I think it is occurring disproportionally amongst Chinese students (and perhaps as a result, Chinese engineers).
  - biocomputation 8y ago
    I'm not doubting that some Chinese students cheat. Maybe it's even higher than the proportion of students in other ethnic groups who cheat. I'm simply saying that it shouldn't be framed as a problem with Chinese culture because it is a problem in all human cultures. That's all.
    - sjroot 8y ago
      That we can agree on!
whooshee 8y ago
People are not afraid to calling out cheating. Yes, there are Chinese students do that. People are just not that into overgeneralize a giant group of people.
- briandear 8y ago
  Is it over-generalizing when there is a cultural predisposition around it? Making generalizations about a culture when an element of that culture is the target of the generalization seems fairly reasonable. As always, “it isn’t everyone,” but the exceptions prove the rule.
  - cortesoft 8y ago
    Well, part of the problem is that humans are pretty bad at accurately assessing frequency within groups. You seem pretty certain that there is a ‘cultural predisposition’ to cheating, but I have only heard anecdotal evidence.
    - hnaccy 8y ago
      >A Wall Street Journal analysis of data from more than a dozen large U.S. public universities found that in the 2014-15 school year, the schools recorded 5.1 reports of alleged cheating for every 100 international students. They recorded one such report per 100 domestic students. >Students from China were singled out by many faculty members interviewed. “Cheating among Chinese students, especially those with poor language skills, is a huge problem,” said Beth Mitchneck, a University of Arizona professor of geography and development. https://www.wsj.com/articles/foreign-students-seen-cheating-more-than-domestic-ones-1465140141 https://www.wsj.com/articles/foreign-students-seen-cheating-...
      - pixkpr 8y ago
        that doesn't mean there's no bias in reporting cheating. and the second quote is anecdotal. it might be easier to spot the cheater who doesn't write english well if their papers are obviously better written than the student speaks. it would simply be more difficult to catch cheaters who speak and write english fluently. it's possible that chinese students cheat more in school, even a significant amount more, even their style of cheating may be drastically different, but I still find it somewhat strange that that gets so much focus in a system that is like what cycling used to be: https://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/02/cheating_in_college_has_become.html https://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/02/cheating_i...
ghettoimp 8y ago
FWIW. In my undergrad days, long ago now, cheating was rampant throughout the (overwhelmingly white and male) CS student body. One professor, whom I admired, got fed up with this. He handed back a particular assignment to his class, ungraded, with the code of conduct stapled to each student's submission. He then pointedly told the class that if anyone needed to come and tell him anything after class, he would be in his office. This move was the talk of the dorms for weeks. But nothing really came of it. This stern warning no doubt caused some fear and anguish among those affected, but that was the extent of it. Nobody got expelled, flunked the course, or had their record damaged in any way. This is just an anecdote. I certainly don't have any data on the prevalence of cheating, or on differences in attitudes toward cheating, among Chinese versus other students. But I'd be surprised if there is a measurable difference. In my experience, everyone is completely shameless and nobody faces any real consequences even when they are caught red-handed.
- ntsplnkv2 8y ago
  If it's an assignment many people will copy this has always happened and will always be true for probably every human being anywhere. That's why exams exist. Make them hard. People who do the homework will succeed. Others won't. We're too afraid of making people fail.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    And yet exams can be (are?) a poor way to test knowledge. I’m ideologically against exams. For many they are stressful, and they don’t represent any real life scenario as you will always have access to reference material on the job.
    - ntsplnkv2 8y ago
      > For many they are stressful, and they don’t represent any real life scenario as you will always have access to reference material on the job. Good. They should be stressful. I don't want people who can't handle stress being doctors or engineers. Out in the field they will have to make decisions that will not just be "look it up in the reference manual." And it's not like you can't have reference materials on exams. All of my engineering exams were open reference. It didn't matter.
opportune 8y ago
In my experience, the ~30% of Chinese students who went to international schools, understood American culture very well, spoke almost perfect English, and who didn't exclusively hang out with other Chinese students never cheated any more than other students. It was the Chinese students who only hung out with other Chinese students who were the major cheaters However, I only ever TAed for undergraduate courses, where a much larger portion of Chinese students were from the subset with international educations / who were better able to culturally assimilate. And going to a school that was hard to get in to, typically you need to be very impressive to get in as a Chinese international student (or from a powerful family, preferably both) regardless. At a similarly selective program for graduate school, the Chinese students were, for lack of a better term, more "Chinese" culturally and more insular. I wouldn't be surprised if cheating were worse. But there's also the fact that graduate CS programs are less discerning of international applicants' credentials/pedigree
rtpg 8y ago
You think chinese exchange students invented cheating on uni exams/copying people's homework? Man, you haven't watched enough teen movies about getting through school And everyone talks about it! Why else would we, on an article about _industrial espionage_, get to uni students copying homework? Acting like this is some sort of chinese predilection instead of a thing that happens all the time everywhere is not intellectually honest.
fraudsyndrome 8y ago
No one's tiptoeing around it - it just looks like people are more open to generalizing a whole ethnicity around anecdotes. Sounds like you're calling people politically incorrect just because they don't generalize. (Another anecdote) I just finished my CompSci bachelor (majority white) and everyone talks about copying each others work like it's casual conversation. Only friends share work with each other when they can be sure to alter it enough. Everything you said there, being widespread, blatant, not caring, shameless, were the exact same descriptions of those in my program. If anything, it sounds like it's more politically incorrect to generalize white people as having these traits because I've only ever heard people generalize Asian/Chinese students. Why is it when one group does it it's okay, but another it's wrong?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lawnchair_larry 8y ago
It’s funny that this comment is flagged down, but also one of my most upvoted comments ever. Controversial apparently.

biocomputation 8y ago

People who can, do, and people who can't, cheat. It's the way of the world, and not isolated to any particular ethic group, social class, or otherwise.

sjroot 8y ago
That might be true, but I think it is occurring disproportionally amongst Chinese students (and perhaps as a result, Chinese engineers).
- biocomputation 8y ago
  I'm not doubting that some Chinese students cheat. Maybe it's even higher than the proportion of students in other ethnic groups who cheat. I'm simply saying that it shouldn't be framed as a problem with Chinese culture because it is a problem in all human cultures. That's all.
  - sjroot 8y ago
    That we can agree on!

whooshee 8y ago

People are not afraid to calling out cheating. Yes, there are Chinese students do that. People are just not that into overgeneralize a giant group of people.

briandear 8y ago
Is it over-generalizing when there is a cultural predisposition around it? Making generalizations about a culture when an element of that culture is the target of the generalization seems fairly reasonable. As always, “it isn’t everyone,” but the exceptions prove the rule.
- cortesoft 8y ago
  Well, part of the problem is that humans are pretty bad at accurately assessing frequency within groups. You seem pretty certain that there is a ‘cultural predisposition’ to cheating, but I have only heard anecdotal evidence.
  - hnaccy 8y ago
    >A Wall Street Journal analysis of data from more than a dozen large U.S. public universities found that in the 2014-15 school year, the schools recorded 5.1 reports of alleged cheating for every 100 international students. They recorded one such report per 100 domestic students. >Students from China were singled out by many faculty members interviewed. “Cheating among Chinese students, especially those with poor language skills, is a huge problem,” said Beth Mitchneck, a University of Arizona professor of geography and development. https://www.wsj.com/articles/foreign-students-seen-cheating-more-than-domestic-ones-1465140141 https://www.wsj.com/articles/foreign-students-seen-cheating-...
    - pixkpr 8y ago
      that doesn't mean there's no bias in reporting cheating. and the second quote is anecdotal. it might be easier to spot the cheater who doesn't write english well if their papers are obviously better written than the student speaks. it would simply be more difficult to catch cheaters who speak and write english fluently. it's possible that chinese students cheat more in school, even a significant amount more, even their style of cheating may be drastically different, but I still find it somewhat strange that that gets so much focus in a system that is like what cycling used to be: https://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/02/cheating_in_college_has_become.html https://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/02/cheating_i...

ghettoimp 8y ago

FWIW. In my undergrad days, long ago now, cheating was rampant throughout the (overwhelmingly white and male) CS student body. One professor, whom I admired, got fed up with this. He handed back a particular assignment to his class, ungraded, with the code of conduct stapled to each student's submission. He then pointedly told the class that if anyone needed to come and tell him anything after class, he would be in his office. This move was the talk of the dorms for weeks. But nothing really came of it. This stern warning no doubt caused some fear and anguish among those affected, but that was the extent of it. Nobody got expelled, flunked the course, or had their record damaged in any way. This is just an anecdote. I certainly don't have any data on the prevalence of cheating, or on differences in attitudes toward cheating, among Chinese versus other students. But I'd be surprised if there is a measurable difference. In my experience, everyone is completely shameless and nobody faces any real consequences even when they are caught red-handed.

ntsplnkv2 8y ago
If it's an assignment many people will copy this has always happened and will always be true for probably every human being anywhere. That's why exams exist. Make them hard. People who do the homework will succeed. Others won't. We're too afraid of making people fail.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  And yet exams can be (are?) a poor way to test knowledge. I’m ideologically against exams. For many they are stressful, and they don’t represent any real life scenario as you will always have access to reference material on the job.
  - ntsplnkv2 8y ago
    > For many they are stressful, and they don’t represent any real life scenario as you will always have access to reference material on the job. Good. They should be stressful. I don't want people who can't handle stress being doctors or engineers. Out in the field they will have to make decisions that will not just be "look it up in the reference manual." And it's not like you can't have reference materials on exams. All of my engineering exams were open reference. It didn't matter.

opportune 8y ago

In my experience, the ~30% of Chinese students who went to international schools, understood American culture very well, spoke almost perfect English, and who didn't exclusively hang out with other Chinese students never cheated any more than other students. It was the Chinese students who only hung out with other Chinese students who were the major cheaters However, I only ever TAed for undergraduate courses, where a much larger portion of Chinese students were from the subset with international educations / who were better able to culturally assimilate. And going to a school that was hard to get in to, typically you need to be very impressive to get in as a Chinese international student (or from a powerful family, preferably both) regardless. At a similarly selective program for graduate school, the Chinese students were, for lack of a better term, more "Chinese" culturally and more insular. I wouldn't be surprised if cheating were worse. But there's also the fact that graduate CS programs are less discerning of international applicants' credentials/pedigree

rtpg 8y ago

You think chinese exchange students invented cheating on uni exams/copying people's homework? Man, you haven't watched enough teen movies about getting through school And everyone talks about it! Why else would we, on an article about _industrial espionage_, get to uni students copying homework? Acting like this is some sort of chinese predilection instead of a thing that happens all the time everywhere is not intellectually honest.

fraudsyndrome 8y ago

No one's tiptoeing around it - it just looks like people are more open to generalizing a whole ethnicity around anecdotes. Sounds like you're calling people politically incorrect just because they don't generalize. (Another anecdote) I just finished my CompSci bachelor (majority white) and everyone talks about copying each others work like it's casual conversation. Only friends share work with each other when they can be sure to alter it enough. Everything you said there, being widespread, blatant, not caring, shameless, were the exact same descriptions of those in my program. If anything, it sounds like it's more politically incorrect to generalize white people as having these traits because I've only ever heard people generalize Asian/Chinese students. Why is it when one group does it it's okay, but another it's wrong?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

lawnchair_larry 8y ago

It’s funny that this comment is flagged down, but also one of my most upvoted comments ever. Controversial apparently.