> Most courses are either graded on a curve or the material is adjusted in difficulty to target a certain level of challenge.
Thankfully not the case where I went to university. The bar was clearly set in the first lecture: If your overall score is 90+%, you get an A. 80-90%, a B, and so on. Doesn't matter what your peers do.
University is (or should be) about learning, not about competition with peers.
When I read the article, my mind was clear: He is not the unethical one. That's assuming no curve. If he is curving, I'm all for any method that messes up the curve, because curves are (generally) a bad idea.
The person you responded to accounts for uncurved classes in their argument, that cheaters in uncurved classes "inject false signal into the difficulty feedback loop".
If the average assignment grades are very high the professor will be inclined to make the assignments more challenging. Cheating disrupts the professor's ability to accurately determine how well their students are grasping the material and adjust accordingly.
> The person you responded to accounts for uncurved classes in their argument, that cheaters in uncurved classes "inject false signal into the difficulty feedback loop".
We both understood the comment very differently. The "inject false signal" is for curved classes. When you have a curve, your grade depends on how well your peers do. If they are cheating and you are not, you are unfairly at risk for a lower grade. In an uncurved class, your grade is independent of whether your peers cheated or not.
> The person you responded to accounts for uncurved classes in their argument, that cheaters in uncurved classes "inject false signal into the difficulty feedback loop". The person you responded to accounts for uncurved classes in their argument, that cheaters in uncurved classes "inject false signal into the difficulty feedback loop".
Ah, I see the confusion. For me, this is just "curving by proxy". By uncurved, I meant: The professor decides what students should learn and be able to do with the material, and designs the exam accordingly. If almost everyone gets an A, then it means almost everyone learned the material adequately. Most of my professors did not modify the difficulty of the course/exams/HW based on how well the students did.
The exceptions were when the whole class did poorly and no one would have gotten better than a C - then they adjusted to ensure some people got at least a B - but usually not based on a distribution. I have taken at least two courses where no one was granted an A, because the professor felt he had made fair exams, and no one met the bar he deemed to be an A.
>The exceptions were when the whole class did poorly and no one would have gotten better than a C - then they adjusted to ensure some people got at least a B - but usually not based on a distribution.
See, that illustrates the problem. If cheating pushes grades up, then the difficulty won't be adjusted, even if no-one would actually have gotten high grades if it wasn't for cheating. The professor might think the test was fine because at least some people got Bs, but what if all those people cheated?
Thankfully not the case where I went to university. The bar was clearly set in the first lecture: If your overall score is 90+%, you get an A. 80-90%, a B, and so on. Doesn't matter what your peers do.
University is (or should be) about learning, not about competition with peers.
When I read the article, my mind was clear: He is not the unethical one. That's assuming no curve. If he is curving, I'm all for any method that messes up the curve, because curves are (generally) a bad idea.