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.

As part of my degree, I studied in France for a year at a very prestigious institution. I had to pass a French written exam in the U.K. before I could go, and I had another written exam to pass as soon as I arrived before I could start. Then throughout the year, we were marked on oral participation in seminars - in addition to the usual (fortnightly) exams etc. It was bloody hard and very competitive, and it seemed onerous at the time. But now reading about international students effectively 'cheating', it all makes sense. You wouldn't have made it through their checks unless you were bright and had excellent French......which probably explains why they were so few international students on my course!

@SheeshazAZ09

That's pretty ignorant of you.

Anyone who took their medical degree outside of the EU has to take an exam called PLABS, this examine tests the doctors clinical skills and knowledge. Then in order to register with the GMC they require a 7.0 in IELTS.

Doctors from within the EU also require IELTS. And come 2022 all medical graduates (even the UK) will be required to pass a board exam called the UKMLE.

What you are saying could really scare people, don't base facts on hear say.

@TFBundy

So you refuse to be treated by 33% of Doctors? Because you do realise that 1/3 Doctors are not trained in the UK.

Also many Doctors specialise here in the UK and therefore have to pass stringent clinical fellowship exams such as those from the Royal College of Physicians.

You are deluded. Without foreign Doctors the NHS would crumble even more than it already is! I just hope you have private health care and are not refusing treatment because some Doctor isn't suitably British enough for you.

"Have idly wondered if anyone's ever sold their low 2:1 dissertation to someone else afterwards and had them get a First? Wouldn't surprise me after what I've read here."

Highly unlikely. For a start it would likely return a 100% plagiarism score on Turnitin but, more fundamentally, the student's supervisor would easily spot a dissertation that appeared out of the blue without any supporting work being done.

Rebs1988 - how bizarre. I know several bilingual children aged 16/17 who have got 8.0 in their IELTS writing.

Universities use Anti plagerism software such as TurnItIn.

But if students are buying assignments that others have written for them it would be nearly impossible to prove I guess. Though they run the risk that the assignment writer has written the same assignment for someone else at a different uni and that the software picks it up.

We have had had at least one occupancy where one of the paid assignment writers contacted has us to complain that one of our students had not paid them.

Awkward for the student concerned.

Occupancy = occurance

MariaNovella

Perhaps it was general IELTS. Also in academic IELTS there is cloze reading passage. IELTS is difficult, I have a friend who has taken it 4 times. They are looking for certain things such as collocations, idoms as well as unusual accurate vocab, varied grammaticak structures. Not to mention that some of the topics are pretty niche, most people from the street could not write a well structured 300 word essay in 40 mins on the topic of football patriots.

This is a SERIOUS problem at my university and it centres entirely around the Chinese exchange students.

I befriended one last year (the only one I’ve met so far who spoke good enough English to converse with) and she actually told me how the others all use online sites to write their essays for a high fee.

She told me how much it cost, for the most recent essay we submitted and it was several hundred pounds for a 3000 word count and one diagram!

She didn’t cheat, because she couldn’t afford to, but she said that ‘those who go to really good Uni’s don’t usually cheat - they have too much to lose, but those who come to middling universities treat it like an extended visa so they can shop and party in the UK and get a degree at the end. The Uni’s don’t care as they don’t have enough UK kids to fill their spots and exchange students pay much more than local students!!! (Usually in cash)’

Most definitely academic, not general. It’s a highly formulaic test - it’s difficult to get a good mark if you don’t have a good teacher who understands the mark scheme. This is why it’s also not a good test of sophisticated English.

The IELTS essay topics are usually fairly straightforward for 16/17/18 year olds who have been writing essays on miscellaneous topics for years!

Wow Meteor that's quite interesting

those who come to middling universities treat it like an extended visa so they can shop and party in the UK and get a degree at the end.

Really? There are loads of Chinese students in my city and the uni I worked at and partying is the last thing I would associate them with! Not all of them are rich either because I employed some of them via the in house recruitment agencies for events and they worked very hard for low wages.

I haven’t heard anything about language difficulties or cheating but it is a top uni so as you say, maybe there is less cheating there and they have a handle on the issue? The one issue that did come up as a problem was cultural ones. Many international students come from cultures where it is seen as impolite to question or contradict others and the studying style they’re used to is having facts given to them and repeating them back rather than thinking and innovating. It caused problems with teaching because if in a group they’re supposed to be batting around ideas and coming up with solutions, if you have 20 students staring blankly at you or just repeating their lecture notes it’s very difficult to progress learning. I believe they now start the international students earlier and have extra classes covering learning styles which is intended to deal with that.

I would suspect with Chinese students if anything is happening it’s probably translation rather than straight up essay cheating.

Most of them do come with good background knowledge of the subject and they are so concerned with ‘losing face’ I don’t think they’d risk outside cheating. Also often their courses are funded by the Chinese state which expects them to fulfill a specific purpose and the Chinese state is not one that you would really want to allow to spend a lot of money on you then go back without achieving what they expected.

There is undoubtedly a problem with contract cheating in UK HE. However, not all international students are cheats, and not all cheats are international students.

There are a lot of sweeping generalisations on this thread which make me very uncomfortable indeed.

@Rebs1988 I think you didn't read my previous posts about the problems with the PLAB tests and incompetent/poor English speaking docs getting through them? Please do so before slinging around terms like "ignorant". And it is super-clear that there are huge problems with the IELTS too:
www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2016/apr/08/english-language-requirements-foreign-doctors-not-fit-purpose
The sheer volume of noise around the issues of 1) competency and 2) English skills in medical professionals, even from a medical establishment that loves to keep its dirty laundry under wraps, must surely convince you that there are problems here?

@Rebs1988 Please also read post by amusedbush above about apparent cheating in the IELTS.

@SheeshazAZ09

Pretty sure I could find articles on the contrary, since you are not a Doctor you are not qualified to comment on the sufficiency of PLAB.

I wouldn't dream of commenting on the barr exam because I'm not a lawyer, yet you think because the guardian published an article you are now an expert.

Not sure if it was you or another person, but, being the wife of a Doctor still doesn't give you credentials by proxy. If you really want to know spend 5 or 6 years at medical school and another 5-10 specialising. Then I'll listen.

I agree this is a depressing thread.

I'm a foreign too and studied in the UK (I now live back in my home country due to personal circumstances). At the time I started my degree (2011) my English was good but then it obviously improved a lot during my degree. I wrote my essays all alone, I backed them up with a shitload of reading and I had no one to proofread them. Still, I got great marks and I graduated with a first. In my third year I went to Alicante, Spain (Erasmus) but I spoke impeccable Spanish since I was little, so that wasn't a problem either. However, loads of english native speakers would come to Spain and only pick English subjects.

What strikes me as odd is: why would you go to study in Spain for example when you can't speak Spanish?! This is really weird and it doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?

I do remember a few foreign people in the UK who spoke no English whatsoever and still graduated. I wish I knew how.

I think you didn't read my previous posts about the problems with the PLAB tests and incompetent/poor English speaking docs getting through them? Please do so before slinging around terms like "ignorant".
But the article you linked applies a very strange standard of proficiency in English - not knowing what "mardy" is (I also don't, googling suggests that it is very local to Lancashire / Yorkshire) or not understanding idioms like "to spend a penny" or "pushing up daisies". I don't think it is a sign of professional incompetence.

British citizen. I live abroad and have been offered money to write assignments for Masters courses. I refused. It has affected my career prospects. Integrity costs but happy I can sleep. I know people who have it as a constant side hustle.