So much for higher education
Plagiarism and grade inflation are the norm
CARSON JEREMA STAFF
“Someone has to show them how to write a sentence, and if I didn’t, they could not complete the work. Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to fail the entire class,” a U of W professor told Maclean’s for the magazine’s recent university issue.
Throughout high school, students are inundated with austere warnings that when they get to university, there will be no one to baby-sit them. The reality is much different. Faculty across the country often cater to selfentitled and lazy students, many of whom lack the basic skills to succeed at the university level.
Since the 1960s, educators have complained that grades were being inflated, a trend that appeared to level off in the mid-1980s but that has been on the rise again since the mid-1990s. Essentially it is easier to get an A than it was 20 years ago despite no concurrent increase in ability on the part of students. And the C has virtually disappeared, especially in the humanities and social sciences.
A 2002 report by Margaret Winzer of the faculty of education at the University of Lethbridge that reviewed the grade inflation literature, concluded that there are a number of factors behind inflated grades, but offered universities’ reliance on student evaluations and need to retain students as the most salient.
Student evaluations have been given greater consideration in evaluating the quality of teaching in recent years, and students typically give good evaluations to professors who grade easily. Indeed the popular website ratemyprofessor.com lists “easiness” (not to mention “hotness”) as criteria by which university professors are graded. Apparently challenging students is a poor career move.
Because universities' increased reliance on tuition, as government funding waned during the 1990s, universities are pressured to attract and retain students — students who perceive the job market to be incredibly competitive and in turn pressure their professors.
Critics might proclaim, as Winzer notes, that students are simply better prepared and that teachers are clearer in their instruction — trends that naturally lead to higher on-average grades. Call me cynical, but if anyone believes that, they are seriously deluded. I cannot tell you how many times friends and peers of mine have complained bitterly that they received a B or B+ rather than the A that they surely deserved. That they earned the initial grade is questionable — never mind bumping it up. I should add that my transcript has benefited from this as much as anybody else.
Moreover, everybody knows that deadlines tend to be little more than a suggestion, which has less to do with a complacent faculty and more to do with pragmatism in the face of students that can’t follow a calendar.
The problem ultimately stems from a system of higher education focused more on accessibility (63 per cent high school average? come on in, we’ll take your money) as opposed to quality. A point made explicit in the far-fromsubtle 1997 indictment of higher education in Canada, Petrified Campus, authored by three surly history professors. The authors argued, among other things, quite unapologetically that grade inflation at the high-school level, especially in Ontario, has greatly contributed to the problem.
That students are ill-prepared and feel entitled to good grades is further illustrated with what many see as the endemic problem of plagiarism. The Internet has made it quite easy to search for and “borrow” the words and ideas of pretty much anyone.
A flurry of media coverage this past spring accompanied the decision of Mount St. Vincent University to ban the use of turnitin. com, a website used by thousands of schools around the world to detect plagiarism, though not by the U of M. The Los Angeles-based company scans submitted essays and checks them against the billions of websites, articles and previously submitted papers in its database to determine the originality of work.
Mount St. Vincent cited concerns of privacy and the possible culture of mistrust created by the use of services such as turnitin. com, and the student union complained that use of the website equates to a presumption of guilt. Others have argued that using such services impede creativity, as students worried about unintentional plagiarism are afraid to fully express themselves. These arguments are incredibly flawed, or, as an Ottawa Citizen editorial put it, “silly.”
If students are using the web to plagiarize, it should only follow that professors use more sophisticated tools to catch them. The Citizen editorial did add the caveat that students should be given the option to sign a release for their work to be submitted to plagiarismdetecting websites.
If the fears and concerns of professors and other educators were unfounded or exaggerated, then the use of turnitin.com might seem excessive. Unfortunately, the problem is quite serious. A study in a recent issue of the Canadian Journal for Higher Education reported that 53 per cent of Canadian undergrads surveyed admitted to plagiarism, very few of whom believed that it was a serious problem or inherently wrong. If a culture of mistrust does exists, this is certainly its source.
What to do? Well, raising entrance requirements and, more broadly, academic standards — as some overcrowded Ontario and B.C. universities have begun doing — would be a start, as would harsher penalties for academic dishonesty. But because of a cultural trend that favours entitlement and the belief that any dullard has the right to go to university, the system could take a generation to correct itself — if it ever does.
