Cheating on Matriculation Exams in the Arabic Sector Distribution methods and attitudes of students, teachers and parents

Author(s):

Sliman Khaldy(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

09. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement

Format:

Paper

Session Information

09 SES 08 B, Assessing Ethical Attitudes, Moral Development and Academically Delinquent Behavior

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-10

09:00-10:30

Room:

328. [Main]

Chair:

Liz Winter

Contribution

Introduction

Norms of cheating while heading towards high social status have become more sophisticated. In Israelevery year the subject of cheating on exams arises, especially regarding the matriculation exams. According to data of the Department of Education, the rate of cheatingamongst students in the Arabic sector is higher than the Jewish sector; in 2010 the percentage of those suspected of cheating in the Jewish sector was 2.2% compared to 8.8% in the Arabic sector inIsrael (Department of Education, 2010, Khaldy, 2014).

The purpose of this research is to examine the attitudes of students, teachers and parents in the Arabic sector towards cheating on the matriculation exams.

The main research questions are:

What are the attitudes of the students, teachers and parents regarding the problems of cheating on matriculation examinations, in its scope, placing the responsibility on the institutions, its causes, implications and methods of treatment?
Are there differences between students, teachers and parents in their attitudes regarding the various aspects of the phenomenon of cheating?

The importance is to understand the causes of the widespread cheating in Arabic schools at a high rate, to cope with it.

Theoretical background

Researchers describe the phenomenonas "a new epidemic" or consider it deceit (Khaldy, 2011; Bertz & Rheingold, 2007).

Research studies that were done in the world show that cheating and cheating in school surpasses borders in the Western and Arabic world. The studies show that this sometimes reaches a scope of 70-80% amongst high school students in the Arabic world. (Nazir & Aslam, 2010, Lau & Haug, 2011, Jones, Blankenship, Hollier, 2013).

Studies of the attitudes of high school students towards cheating found that many of them do not consider it an ethical problem. They continue to cheat in their higher education.

In research literature it is claimed that many causes influence cheating on tests. Some are connected to personal factors of the students, some to their families and society, but quite a few depend on the educational system, for example those related to the students such as fear of failing in their studies, the pressure to succeed and anxiety over failing in examination, pressure of time, competition amongst students and lack of motivation to study. We find that students use various methods of cheating, some of which aretraditional, such as using notes and passing them, writing on furniture and copying from a nearby student and receiving help from a teacher or supervisor (El Sabaoi, 2007), while some are new that have developed as a result of technological advancements such as the use of the cellular phone (Chai, 2014, Khaldy, 2014).

Cheating on examinations can lead to serious implicationsand they cause long-term damage to the individual and to society, especially to the educational system. Marks that do not reflect the true knowledge accompany a lack of motivation to study etc. (Suan and Davidowitz, 2009; Rheingold and Bertz, 2007) and unethical behavior in general.

Professional literature recommends methods of treatment in these areas:

1) Changing the methods of teaching and developing preventative programs including teaching social and religious values, workshops to increase the awareness of the damages, and reducing emotional pressure over tests (Khaldy, 2011; Peled & Khaldy, 2013); increasing motivation to study (Khaldy, 2011; Okorodudu, 2012), changing teaching methods and the evaluation in giving marks, and changing the method of organizing tests (El-Chariri and El-Amami, 2011).

2) Increasing the mechanisms of enforcement and supervision on the integrity of tests such as prohibiting cellular phones by exams and increasing the punishments.(El-Chariri and El-Amami, 2011).

Method

The method In the study, quantitative and qualitative research methods were integrated. In the quantitative part collections of data was done through closed questionnaires and in the qualitative part interviews were held with focus groups and open self-administered questionnaires were distributed (mixed method) (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, Creswell, 2007). The population of the quantitative research included 1470 students of the 11th and 12th grade, 438 teachers and 363 parents. The population of the qualitative research included 133 teachers and 122 students in high schools from various regions in Israel The questionnaires were composed of two parts- Part A of the questionnaires related to the personal backgrounds of the participants and Part B related to various statements relating to the subject of cheating on examinations. Participants were asked to note the degree of their agreement with a statement on a Likeret scale in five categories. 1.Definitely disagree 2. Disagree 3. Indecisive 4. Agree 5. Definitely agree . In Part B in all the indexes that were built there is a high internal reliability regarding Cronbach's coefficient alpha test (above 0.6). For example, the general reliability index amongst the students was (0.95), and amongst the teachers was (0.94), and amongst the parents was (0.92). The quantitative part was based on interpretative phenomenological research strategy and therein a half-built interview was used as a tool for collecting information about the attitudes of those being researched regarding cheating on matriculation examinations. Analysis of the quantitative data was done through descriptions (mean and standard deviation) and Anova tests to check the differences in attitudes amongst the participants regarding cheating, and through T Tests to check two independent samples. Construction of the indexes of various aspects of the attitudes towards the phenomenon on matriculation examinations was done by calculating the average of the answers of the original statements that comprise the indexes through the Cronbach's coefficient alpha test. Analysis of the quantitative data was done by analyzing the content by the thematic analysis method.

Expected Outcomes

The main findings: 1. It was found that teachers and parents related to the phenomenon as more problematic than the students while the students were more indecisive. 2. Those researched admitted the existence of cheating in their school and class; the students and teachers tended not to agree that it was widespread while the parents were indecisive on this subject. 3. Teachers and parents placed the responsibility of cheating on various bodies such as the school administration and the Department of Education, whereas the students tended to take the responsibility upon themselves. 4. The three groups tended to agree with the idea that there are various motives such as success in studies, test anxiety, hierarchical pressure from the school administration, Department of Education and parents that they succeed, etc. 5. Teachers perceived the cheating methods as more widespread than the students; the study showed that the three most widespread methods of cheating are: passing notes, messages on the cellular telephones and friends' help. 6. Teachers and parents tended to perceive the implications as more serious than the students, such as the lack of motivation in their studies, continuation in schools of higher education, etc. 7. The teachers and parents tended to support treatment methods while the students related less to their importance, e.g.: increasing and varying methods of enforcement and supervision, changing the method of teaching and evaluation in giving marks, changing the form and organization of tests, remedial discrimination to the Arabic sector by the Department of Education – whereas the students related less importance to them. Research to be done in the future: examining the possible differences amongst groups or sectors in Israel, in the Arabic sector and Jewish sector that stem from personal characteristics.

References

Bibliography: Bertz .& Rheingold (2007) Cheating in the Internet era, I googled it, Research report Tel Aviv, MOFT Institute. Chai, (2014) On the cellular phone, in the cola, on the board: The battle against the cheaters, extracted on the 16th of May 2014 from the website: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4519885,00.html. Cresswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V.L. (2007). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Denzin, & Lincoln, (2000). The discipline and practice of Qualitative Research in: Denzin, & Lincoln, (Eds.). Handbook of Qualitative Research. Sage publications, Inc. Department of Education (2010) The number and rate of students whose tests were marked as "suspected" amongst all the tested students according to class and sector, Jerusalem. El-Chariri ., El-Amami. (2011), Educational and emotional guidance in educational institutions, Aman Dar El-Mesira (Arabic). El Sabaoi. (2007) The phenomenon of cheating on school tests amongst high school students, , Education and teaching, Iraq volume 14 pp. 271-301 (Arabic). Jones I.S, Blankenship, D. Hollier, G.(2013). Am I cheating? An analysis of online student perception of their behaviors and attitudes .Psychology Research .vol. No.5, 261-269. Khaldy (2011) The phenomenon of cheating on matriculation examinations amidst Arabic and Jewish students during high school in Israel, Jameh (15) pp. 125-160. Khaldy (2014) Cheating on matriculation examinations in the Arabic sector: Distribution methods and attitudes of students, teachers and parents Research report submitted to the Office of the Main Scientist in the Department of Education, Jerusalem. Lau, Haug,. (2011).The impact of sex, college, major, and student classification on students perception of ethics .Mustang Journal of Business & Ethics. 92-105. Nazir, . Aslam, (2010). Academic dishonesty perceptions of Pakistani students .International Journal of Educational Management. Vol. 21 No.7, 2010. Okorodudu, G. N. (2012). Relationship between parental motivation, self –efficacy and examination dishonesty among secondary school students in delta state. International Journal of Psychological Studies ;Vol.4, No.4; 2012. Peled, Khaldy,.(2013). Discrimination, survival and tradition as argumentation for academic dishonesty Suan, & Davidowitz (2009), Academic integrity and discipline: Coping with rebellious students on two campuses in Israel, from Education and its surroundings, 31 PP.

Author Information

Sliman Khaldy (presenting / submitting)

Kaye College

Shfa-Amr

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