I’ve written about the problem of AI-assisted cheating before but this week there’s a really sad example of what AI is doing to education. It comes from Princeton University which has had an honor system against cheating in place since 1893.
In 1876, an editorial in Princeton’s newly founded campus newspaper, The Princetonian, argued against the use of proctors to monitor exams. Proctoring was “a means of bad moral education,” the author wrote. Treat students as presumptively dishonest, and some would become so; treat them as honorable, and they would learn to behave honorably. And so the editorial board suggested a different approach: “Let every man write at the end of his paper a pledge that he has neither given nor received help, and let professors and tutors address themselves to some better business than watching for fraud.”
That proposal was eventually embodied in Princeton’s famous Honor Code, adopted in 1893 and modified only lightly in the ensuing 133 years. When students take their final exams, professors leave the room. Students write down a pledge not to cheat. They are expected to report anyone who does. Any student accused of impropriety comes before a jury of their peers.
This week, Princeton made a substantial change to the honor system. Starting this summer, professors will proctor exams, keeping an eye out for anyone who might be cheating.
On Monday, faculty voted to require proctoring in all in-person exams starting this summer, reversing a policy set in place in 1893 when Princeton introduced its honor code. The change came after “significant numbers” of undergrads and faculty requested it, “given their perception that cheating on in-class exams has become widespread,” according to a letter from Michael Gordin, Princeton’s dean of the college.
AI has made it both easier for students to cheat and harder to spot, Gordin wrote. Students are loath to report cheating because they are afraid they’ll be called out on social media. Those who do make reports often file anonymously, making it difficult for the school to investigate.
Have students cheated at Princeton over the past 133 years? Undoubtedly. What makes it different now is the how easy it is to cheat and the level of help you can get without relying on anyone else’s work. And because it’s easy, more students are doing it.
“If the exam is on a laptop, someone can just flip to another window. Or if the exam is in a blue book, it’s just people using their phone under their desk or going to the bathroom and using it,” she said.
In a survey of over 500 seniors conducted by the student newspaper last year, 30% reported they had cheated on an assignment or exam. Nearly half reported knowledge of an honor code violation but less than 1% had made a report…
Nationwide, studies suggest that a third of students admit to using artificial intelligence to produce entire assignments, said Christian Moriarty, a professor of ethics and law at St. Petersburg College in Florida and a director at the nonprofit International Center for Academic Integrity.
A third of students are admitting it but there are probably many more too ashamed to admit it (but not too ashamed to cheat). I wouldn’t be surprised if well over half of students were cheating.
Princeton isn’t getting rid of the honor system. Students still have to write at the end of assignments that they neither gave nor received help. However, the proctors are there to keep an eye on anyone who might be trying to cheat and presumably to discourage cheaters who will now have a greater fear of getting caught.
The real problem here is that students who do this aren’t learning anything because they aren’t doing any work. And if that’s already widespread at a place like Princeton that literally prides itself on the honor system, you can probably imagine what is happening at your local high school.
But there’s a danger involved in calling out cheaters, even in high school.
A local parent is suing the Palo Alto Unified School District, alleging that a high school English teacher falsely accused his son of using artificial intelligence to write an essay and required the student to retake the assignment in-person, resulting in a lower class grade.
Parent Takashi Kato believes his son was discriminated against as a multilingual Asian male and is demanding the school reverse the student’s grade, according to a lawsuit filed last week in the North District of the U.S. District Court. Kato claims school staff wrongly penalized his student and did not follow a formal grading procedure. He hopes to put an end to the in-person retake practice through his federal lawsuit.
It will only take a few lawsuits nationwide before school districts order teachers not to interfere, even if they think a student is cheating. And once that happens, school itself becomes largely useless unless all teachers go to oral reports or blue books.
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