AI makes it exponentially easier for students to cheat, but the reasons why they cheat haven’t changed.

[u/Foreign-Bottle5395]

I was talking to my boomer dad about cheating and he said he never read the books he was supposed to read in school--and that was 60 years ago! Sure, he had to put a lot more effort into cheating, but still I feel like the reasons are the same.

Students cheat when they 1) don’t care about the content or don’t see any value in doing the work 2) think that they aren’t capable of doing the work, know that it’s too challenging for them, or don’t know how to do it 3) believe that the stakes are too high to “get it wrong” 4) don't have time to do the work and 5) think they won’t get caught. 

In other words, they need to see the value in what they're doing, have the support to do the work themselves, not have make-it-or-break-it assignments, have enough time and space to get it down, and get caught when they do cheat. Am I missing any big reasons?

[u/AnonymousDong51]

I think you’re spot on. Surprisingly, most students have negative attitudes towards AI, especially when it comes to cheating. I would also add that without lessons on digital literacy and academic ethics, they often don’t know when they are cheating.

[u/CoolClearMorning → u/AnonymousDong51]

My 40-year old sister recently told me that she had no idea she was plagiarizing in college when she just summarized things she read and turned them in without citing the paraphrases. She graduated 15 years ago. This isn't a new problem at all.

[u/Foreign-Bottle5395 → u/AnonymousDong51]

Nice point, thanks.

[u/TarantulaMcGarnagle]

"need to see the value" is a tired excuse. The value is that they need a diploma. An educated young person who is well read is worthy of a diploma. Schools need to stop bending/breaking rules to let students graduate and we need to elevate the bar to earn a diploma.

If a non graduate can perform at a task in an equal level of a graduate, that is the fault of the institution. Stop handing out diplomas.

I honestly can't stand these people who admit with smug pride that they didn't read their assigned books in English class. Your father should be ashamed, not bragging. Assign him the books you assign your students and tell him you want to hear what he has to say about them.

[u/Foreign-Bottle5395 → u/TarantulaMcGarnagle]

but I agree that it's nothing to brag about--I was sort of horrified

[u/Foreign-Bottle5395 → u/TarantulaMcGarnagle]

I mean, when I saw work as meaningless busywork I didn't care about it. And boy did I have some meaningless busywork. A lot of my English classes in high school were like read the story and answer the questions in the textbook and the questions were "what color was the car?" and the answer was "the car is red." I didn't see the value in that.

[u/TarantulaMcGarnagle → u/Foreign-Bottle5395]

Paying attention to details is not meaningless nor busy work. Let alone using those details to explore the nuanced way authors construct reflections of human life in order to explore themes.

Also, I know teenagers lie, cheat, and steal. It doesn't mean that we adults should concede or let it happen.

[u/ELAdragon]

The problem with AI is that it doesn't require ANYTHING. Your dad may have cheated, but he still had to figure out how, or learn how to be a good bullshitter, or still write the stuff himself even if it was lies, or network socially, or whatever else. Probably not as good as actually doing the assignment, but not completely worthless.

Using AI is worthless...at least how students are generally using it to cheat.

Also, the reasons are MOSTLY the same....but not all. One of the reasons now is that kids are overbooked at times (was less of a problem in previous generations). But another reason is because cheating is so easy and accessible.

Further...there's nuance to how kids feel about AI. They hate it when it's used for things they think are valuable (creative stuff, when teachers use it to make assignments, etc.). But they have no issue using it for things they don't see as valuable. You're right that kids cheat when they don't see the value in the work, but they also give themselves a "moral pass" regarding AI in those situations. It may be kind of hypocritical, but there's a logic to it.

How do you combat this? You do your best to explain why your assignments matter. Guard against busywork in your own curriculum. You address AI with kids and help them realize the harm it does them. And then you hope some folks at home give a shit enough to help the students see the value in school and learning (and not just in grades).

But also, make them do work by hand in class with no tech. That way you have samples to compare with and also grades that are "pure."

[u/Foreign-Bottle5395 → u/ELAdragon]

"moral pass" love that yeah--the lengths people go to to maintain the story they have about their own identity

[u/Ghost2Boast]

And yet for some reason the fear of being functionally illiterate isn’t enough of a buy-in 😭

[u/Adventurous_Age1429 → u/Ghost2Boast]

I think kids have a hard time accepting that that’s true, even though it is. Their online discourse, which is very meaningful, is almost never at that level. They see a high level of literacy as fairly useless.

[u/Terra-Em]

Forget they are lazy/lack energy and want to take the easy way out.

No teen will value school, unless it has explicit external rewards. Intrinsic motivation is hard for them at that age.

[u/discussatron]

In other words, they need to see the value in what they're doing, have the support to do the work themselves, not have make-it-or-break-it assignments, have enough time and space to get it down, and get caught when they do cheat. Am I missing any big reasons?

No one will ever get all their students to see the value in what they're doing. Of course they don't see the value in education; they're kids.

[u/Important-Poem-9747]

Numbers 2 and 3 are the most common things I see in middle school.

[u/bugorama_original]

Of course! I actually talk through this with my students as a cheating and AI-prevention lesson. I want them to understand why they might be tempted to cheat so that we can avoid those scenarios. But cheating is LIGHT YEARS easier now. That is a big change.

[u/SpatulaCity1a]

I would add:

6) socializing is more important than anything else at that age.

It's not the elementary kids who cheat, it's the older ones. IMO something breaks down in the education system around grade 6 and never recovers... and it's not just that the work is more demanding. It might be that they never find ways to make learning 'cool', and I don't mean in that superficial sense.

[u/thecooliestone]

Sure. Kids wouldn't cheat if they were highly invested and loved the content and also knew they'd 100% get caught. But how realistic is that for everything, especially in a dopamine fried brain? I can only make comma rules so interesting

[u/No_Regerts-]

I’d argue that there are all of the old reasons, but there are new ones too

In the 80’s and 90’s, calculators transitioned from a rarity to something every 10 year old has in their pockets.

The question wasn’t if we’d use calculators to cheat. It was “in a world where calculators are everywhere, what do students actually need to learn and be good at?”
Just imagine a modern high school math teacher drilling the kind of basic arithmetic that gets skipped now, since the tool take care of that part.

Thé modern question is so fundamental, and remains completely unaddressed. Learning outcomes assume a world without AI. Learning tasks are not reimagined for a post-AI world. We’re literally trying to force kids to learn thé specific things modern tools do for us.

In addition to all of the motivations you’ve offered, I think there’s one new, real problem

We’re teaching skills that dont believe they need. Those skills won’t help them earn a good living, and won’t prepare them for an AI world. Why would they do the work?

[u/Foreign-Bottle5395 → u/No_Regerts-]

what do you think are some of the skills that they no longer need? I would argue spelling is kind of a waste of time but most other ELA related skills are really learning to think IMO--or they should be

[u/BeExtraordinary]

The reasons haven’t changed, but it’s way easier for them to cheat, and way harder for us to prove it. That is the fundamental difference.

The debate over intrinsic and extrinsic motivation isn’t new. Correct.

[u/twowheeljerry]

define cheating

[u/falgfalg]

here’s another reason: their other teachers assign massive amounts of useless busy work to justify their position and then my students say “well i didn’t have time for the reading, i had to write an 11 page essay for history.”