International students & widespread cheating

[Pewdie]

Last year I was a masters student (MSc Management). Majority of the modules involved group work. Often times I found it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to communicate with my teammates. They would often confuse very basic models/terms and their emails, WhatsApp messages were intelligible and riddled with errors. However, when it came to producing the actual assignments the standard would be incredibly high. I understand people perform differently in different contexts in how people perform varies in different contexts but I just can't believe there was nothing untoward going on. AIBU to suspect there is widespread plagiarism occurring at universities among rich, international students.

Just to note I am not bitter nor resentful. I have watched many international students agonise over assignments.

I am now retired but my career was in the Civil Service,
When I entered in my late teens, despite having A Levels in English and other subjects I had to sit in a room and do a written exam, with other candidates. It was basic English, Maths, and (I suppose) logic.
Only 3 out of 15 passed this (very basic) exam. 10 of the participants were graduates!
This was the early 1970's so this is an age old problem!

Quite, givemesteel.

There are many solutions - some quite easy - but there seems to be no will to identify students who shouldn't be there or call out ones who are cheating.

It would be more understandable if it were the "recruiting" universities (ex-higher education places) who were accepting dubiously-qualified students, but the problem seems equally acute at high-ranking universities. It's just a question of money.

goose1964 Absolutely, but how then can students writing unintelligible WhatsApp message go on to produce reports that are word perfect and complex. I'm thinking of one particular student who would struggle to respond to "how are you?" in a comprehensible manner (both in person and via email). This same student never spoke a SINGLE word to me despite being in a group for an entire term- she would have another student act as an interpreter. She then went on to write 700 words at distinction level. It was clear in group chats that she was absolutely clueless. She is an extreme example but many were not far off.

In my (first hand) experience it's not just a question of money. Cheating is taken very seriously. However, you can't penalise a student you simply suspect has cheated, you have to be able to prove it beyond reasonable doubt. Failure to do so is likely to result in the university being sued.

My ex is Chinese (British born) and when he did his masters he was regularly inundated with requests from the other students to write their work for them and be paid handsomely for it etc. For obvious reasons he said no but simple facts are a great deal of foreign students do pay for their work to be written and it gets swept under the carpet due to the money the students bring in 🤷🏼‍♀️

you can't penalise a student you simply suspect has cheated, you have to be able to prove it beyond reasonable doubt

You're quite right, but employers have amply demonstrated that this needn't be difficult if the will is there

Along with other initiatives I've run assessment days where a handwritten, 200 word synopsis of whatever's already been submitted has to be completed - and the results have been revealing

Maybe this is the sort of thing Unis could consider, if they really do wish to take the issue seriously?

Stupid question but why can’t the English tests be sat here with photos taken as they go in to be taken?

That's far too sensible a suggestion N0rdic

Back again with my FE perspective - all our learners have to show photo ID when they enter the exam room. Very easily done.

DD had a photo ID card for her GCSE and A level exams.

N0rdic presumably because it would be a huge faff and expense for someone living in India, China or wherever to fly to the UK, sit university entrance / language exams etc, then fly back, without any guarantee of having a place yet - unless I've misunderstood your idea?

Surely they can show photo ID wherever they take the exam, and that could be in their home country? Is it not a prerequisite for being accepted on to a course of study?

What the OP says makes perfect sense: I gave up on a Master programme purely because of this many years ago. There were such low standards.

Goose I used to teach English as a foreign language at a university abroad, in the adult education programme. It is correct that speaking is often the last skill to be developed. (Although if a learner is plunged in an English speaking environment, speaking is often significantly stronger than writing early on) In all cases, receptive skills (listening and reading) will be stronger than productive skills (speaking and writing). However while there will be some disparity, it shouldn't be as big as people here are describing. If someone is capable of producing a well written essay, they should have the fluency to participate in tutorials and seminars, even if their English isn't perfect.
I would also argue that foreign students should have the English skills to participate in group situations. I remember we had a Chinese student in one seminar who would just sit at the back and refuse to participate. There was only ten people so her lack of involvement was noticeable and annoying.

A friend of mine was doing a degree in radiography twenty years ago, and this was happening then, exactly the same.

Widespread cheating is a general problem in Higher Education; it's not the exclusive domain of the international student. I've also seen no evidence whatsoever that the marks of overseas students are being inflated or their cheating ignored, in order to pander to the 'bums on seats' brand of policy.

Plagiarism is easy to spot (I suspect some lecturers possibly ignore it because providing evidence to prove it and then making all the arrangements to organize and sit at an unfair means panel is a pain and cuts into their time. I'd never take this view; if I once did so, I'd be undermining the entire system and the degrees of every graduate who has ever been through it.

Paper-milled essays are just as easy to spot for anyone who knows their discipline and knows their students. The people who write these things - and who earn large immoral earnings at the expense of usually struggling students - are not as clever as they like to think they are. If they were, they'd be working in some form of academic practice themselves, not engaging in this kind of dubious, cloak-and-dagger means of making a living. And I can spot their work a mile off.

My preference would be to put these students through a PhD-style viva, which will make it quickly apparent whether or not this is the student's own work. I've known one or two instances where this has happened.

Cheating is a problem in HE. But I don't think it's helpful to turn it into a specific issue with overseas students.

I used to work in a university and used to work in admissions for our pre-sessional English courses. We had a spate of fake IELTS certificates a few years ago and now checking with candidate/centre numbers has become much tighter. One problem that was still emerging was that some students were sending other people to do the IELTS tests for them. But if someone’s English is markedly below the level their certificate claims when they get here, they are re-tested and, if absolutely necessary, removed from the course. In all honesty though, when I was marking home students’ essays, I felt that the standard of SPAG was really, really poor.

We do get instances of obvious plagiarism, taken very seriously, but it’s by no means limited to international students. Not by a long shot.

Sorry, I still work in the uni, just in a different area!

Then you get your qualification, come to the UK, and practice medicine

But it doesn't work like that though. Doctors who qualified abroad have to sit the Professional and Linguistic Assessments board test (PLAB) in the UK. Only after they have passed can they practise.
The test is in two parts including a mock consultation. How are they passing this?

IME fake ID is not now the main problem. The issue is the low IELTS requirements for entry set by university recruitment. In my institution, moving from IELTS 6.5 in 2 skills and 6.0 in the others (reading, writing, listening, speaking) to 7.0 overall ie what I'd consider to be an adequate level for accurate expression of complex ideas at postgrad level, would result in a 85-90% drop in admissions; we worked out that on one large course this would amount to something like £7 million in lost fees. This will continue to be a problem when universities are inadequately funded and reliant on international student tuition fees.

I also really don't like to see international students being characterised as cheats or lazy. Many of those I teach are highly dedicated, academically gifted and hardworking and are under immense pressure from parents and sponsors to succeed. It's no wonder they don't speak in class when their accent or expression is seen by peers and tutors, and often themselves, as inadequate. I've also taught plenty of UK UG students who were lazy and didn't participate in classroom work (I include myself here!) and who are reliant on often unattributed sources or other assistance.

Shimy, there seem to be major problems with the standards of the folk getting through the PLAB, according to this paper from the BMJ:
<a class="break-all" href="http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar_url?url=www.bmj.com/content/bmj/348/bmj.g2622.full.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm2lrJ3xxszRAUv-dM4121Ecas7QOA&nossl=1&oi=scholarr" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">scholar.google.co.uk/scholar_url?url=www.bmj.com/content/bmj/348/bmj.g2622.full.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm2lrJ3xxszRAUv-dM4121Ecas7QOA&nossl=1&oi=scholarr

And GMC acknowledged that the standards needed to be tightened up. Seems that the political need for having more docs in the UK was trumping patient safety, at least in some cases:
www.gponline.com/gmc-tightens-plab-test-rules-overseas-doctors/article/1387810

Shiny, it also looks as if part of the problem with PLAB tests for doctors is that candidates have been allowed to resit multiple times after failing. Thus there can be an element of 'learning to take the test' rather than proving you are a good doctor.
www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2017/research/tests-doctors/

MariaNovella

Absolute rubbish, currently revising for academic IELTS as a native speaker. A band 7.00 is far from easy. I require a 7.5 and I'm not scoring this straight of the bat in practice essay. I have a an undergrad in pharmacology and an MD in medicine so I'm highly educated. If students are passing academic IELTS with a 7.0 and can't speak English there must be some exam jiggery pokery going on!