• Open Access

Patterns, correlates, and reduction of homework copying

David J. Palazzo, Young-Jin Lee, Rasil Warnakulasooriya, and David E. Pritchard
Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 6, 010104 – Published 18 March 2010; Errata Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 6, 029901 (2010); Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 6, 029902 (2010)

Abstract

Submissions to an online homework tutor were analyzed to determine whether they were copied. The fraction of copied submissions increased rapidly over the semester, as each weekly deadline approached and for problems later in each assignment. The majority of students, who copied less than 10% of their problems, worked steadily over the three days prior to the deadline, whereas repetitive copiers (those who copied >30% of their submitted problems) exerted little effort early. Importantly, copying homework problems that require an analytic answer correlates with a 2(σ) decline over the semester in relative score for similar problems on exams but does not significantly correlate with the amount of conceptual learning as measured by pretesting and post-testing. An anonymous survey containing questions used in many previous studies of self-reported academic dishonesty showed 1/3 less copying than actually was detected. The observed patterns of copying, free response questions on the survey, and interview data suggest that time pressure on students who do not start their homework in a timely fashion is the proximate cause of copying. Several measures of initial ability in math or physics correlated with copying weakly or not at all. Changes in course format and instructional practices that previous self-reported academic dishonesty surveys and/or the observed copying patterns suggested would reduce copying have been accompanied by more than a factor of 4 reduction of copying from 11% of all electronic problems to less than 3%. As expected (since repetitive copiers have approximately three times the chance of failing), this was accompanied by a reduction in the overall course failure rate. Survey results indicate that students copy almost twice as much written homework as online homework and show that students nationally admit to more academic dishonesty than MIT students.

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  • Received 4 October 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.6.010104

This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Errata

Editorial Note: Patterns, correlates, and reduction of homework copying [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 6, 010104 (2010)]

David J. Palazzo, Young-Jin Lee, Rasil Warnakulasooriya, and David E. Pritchard
Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 6, 029901 (2010)

Erratum: Patterns, correlates, and reduction of homework copying [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 6, 010104 (2010)]

David J. Palazzo, Young-Jin Lee, Rasil Warnakulasooriya, and David E. Pritchard
Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 6, 029902 (2010)

Authors & Affiliations

David J. Palazzo

  • Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA and Department of Physics, United State Military Academy, West Point, New York 10996, USA

Young-Jin Lee

  • Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA and Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, USA

Rasil Warnakulasooriya

  • Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA and Pearson Education, Boston, Massachusetts 02116, USA

David E. Pritchard

  • Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

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Vol. 6, Iss. 1 — January - June 2010

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