would you class this as cheating?

[dogscatsandbabies]

Hold the 'LTB' - it's not like that!

University exam. Healthcare profession. Students are provided with a case study 24 hours ahead of the exam to focus their revision, then asked questions on it under exam conditions (written).

Each time the specialist area I work in comes up on the case study, at least one savvy student contacts our department fishing for recommended treatments for their "hypothetical" patient. It's never been given- we're all quite savvy ourselves as it happens.

But it struck me that actually if it's help with revision they're after then asking us for that (and us providing it) is ok. If we don't know what the exam questions will be we can't give them the answers after all. But every time I've been approached it's been under a bad excuse as to why they're looking for help. So it must be cheating if these students won't be honest about it- right?

Of course it's not cheating. It's researching and revising. What's the diff between getting it from the horses mouth and from a book, except getting it from you is likely to be more relevant?

It's cheating because they are literally cheating you. If they rang up and asked for advice honestly then no it isn't.

You see, the first year it happened I had actually set the exam questions so couldn't possibly say anything. But this year I have no idea what they will be asked (I'm usually at least consulted on the content of their lectures but I've been on maternity leave) so I'm definately not an insider. But I think you're right suechef it is the student's deception that convinces me I shouldn't be giving out info.

Of course it's cheating if I have understood it correctly. They don't call as part of their revision (which would be quite lazy and possibly a poor use of your time) they call after they have been given the exam case looking for the answer. Morally it is clearly cheating, technically as far as the uni is concerned it would be tough to make a formal case against the student but it may be wise to include the advice not to contact the relevant departments for information on the case once the case has been released as part of the course.

why is it cheating ? would it be cheating to go look up the answer in a text book? and open book exam (i think thats what they are called) is you are given a question / case study / situation ahead of a exam so your allowed to ask question research said things in a text book etc

i cant see it being cheating unless they are doing this during the actual exam

I don't really see why it's cheating if they're researching as required. They presumably don't give the exact details to avoid putting the department in a difficult position.

Whether it's cheating depends on the university/department's exam policy. If ask to see this. If they're forbidden from discussing it with anyone (i bet they are) then it's cheating. If they're not, it's not.

Sorry, I'd ask to see this

It is cheating because analysing a case in terms of making a diagnosis is not a simple matter of opening a textbook and reading the answer. If it was that simple computers would replace doctors. Diagnostic expertise requires knowing what questions to ask, an ability to isolate the relevant facts from the background,an ability to see patterns, reasoning to decide on most likely possibilities, etc all within a medley of psychological, social and ethical considerations that complicate matters.

I'd say it's cheating as well.
Because they have a case study, so they have a specific set of criteria that they are questioning around, and hoping that they will get a direct answer as to recommended treatments, rather than researching all the available options and using their budding diagnostic ability to work out which one is most appropriate themselves.
The POINT of the case study is for them to hone their own diagnostic ability and WORK OUT the best treatment from available options, not just ask someone else what they would do and take that as their answer.

It's lazy, it's dishonest and it reduces their ability to learn the skills they should be learning.

I'm not convinced about any university that does "open book" exams, or releases questions beforehand.

To me that sounds like both dumbing-down, and manipulation of the results their students get to artificially inflate them.

So if the university is doing this, then they can't expect students not to take it further and try and get the answers this way.

Is it a bit of a dubious university/course?

I don't see this as a problem but can you ask the uni or your link tutor for clarification?

I think it's cheating because they are ringing you with a hypothetical patient, asking you for your professional opinion and probably taking in the way you answer the question, what questions you ask them to ask etc, your judgement etc. But not sure how you get around it....

It is cheating because analysing a case in terms of making a diagnosis is not a simple matter of opening a textbook and reading the answer.

But is there any suggestion that that is all that these students are doing? Would it not be legitimate for a qualified doctor faced with a puzzling patient to open a textbook (or internet page) as part of their investigations?

icimoi - of course it's ok for a qualified professional, who has already passed exams in their subject and done all their clinical competency qualifications, to open a text book or look up info on the internet.
Equally it's ok for students in this scenario to open text books and look things up on the internet, because that is part of their diagnostic learning - sifting through information and knowledge, and applying it to the case in hand.

There is unlikely to be a text book that they can open and the answer will be staring them in the face - the case study is to help them work round the info they retrieve and pull together a treatment plan.

Phoning someone up and asking them for their treatment plan is therefore cheating, because they've sidestepped all the info retrieval, sorting, sifting and creating.

icimoi for starters passing their exam should demonstrate their competence with their materials! not their ability to ask someone else for the answer. Would you be happy to be treated by a doctor who had to ask another doctor for the answers to everything?

In addition they are free to open a book, search the internet and discuss the case amongst themselves to reason their way to an answer. They are cheating when they call someone else to give them the answer.

aye I'm a doctor and had an open book exam as part of my course. It was a case study and we could bring in 20 pages of notes. Rigorous courses can include an open book exam. (We had many traditional exams)

op this is a difficult one but I would be leaning towards it being cheating due to them not being honest with their question to you. I also wonder what the university's rules are re research for this exam? Maybe they need to be clarified to make it clear whether this is cheating.

What puzzles me is that, given the facts about the hypothetical patient, surely what all students have to do is to think about and search for the diagnosis and recommended treatments. They won't ever be making it up from scratch. Every textbook will say that for X set of symptoms the range of possible diagnoses are A, B, C and D; and when you look up illnesses A-D they will set out a range of treatments, with the criteria for deciding which one is appropriate for which patient. Essentially these students are using OP's department as textbooks.

No they're not, because they're bypassing the work and learning aspect of looking up the symptoms and the range of diagnoses, working out the most likely diagnosis, then working out the most appropriate treatment from the range of treatments available... you're writing this stuff, can you not see how they're shortcutting and missing out some of the learning available to them?

Nope, not cheating unless it's explicity forbidden in the rubric of the question paper. (seems unlikely in this scenario)

If they're given 24 hrs to research/revise a specific case study, it's up to them what they do during those 24 hours.

Sounds like you need to raise this in a review meeting with the external examiner present with a view to drafting guidelines for your departmental staff to work with.

icimoi diagnosis does not work like that in anything other than the simplest of cases. There is no rubric of symptoms X, Y, Z must be problem A B, C. Instead you get a complex history and presentation from which you must use judgement to extract the relevant facts, place them in order of likelihood, relate them to diagnostic tests which themselves have to be evaluated in terms of risks and benefits and situate the entire decision within socio-cultural and ethical factors.