Job Discussion Forums

[Abba]

How common is students cheating in exams? and what are the main causes for this? Please could any teacher/lecturer share his experience for this topic, especially for the following points:

1. How common is the small writing on tables, chairs, walls, etc before the exmas in your class?
2. Is cheating happening in all modules, or only in certain modules like Maths, Engineering, etc.

3. Are the cheating rules applied strictly, or with a blind eye?

4. Is cheating the same with girl students or diferent? I hope the female teacher collaboaret in this, and give us their experince.

5. Why do you think Saudi students cheat? and what are the main causes, if any, for students to cheat? is it because for their low level background, or because they used to "spoon feeding" tradition, or what?

Any contributions are welcomed !

[Stephen Jones]

[scot47]

Cheating does not worry me. It is the suicidal and homicidal behaviour on the roads that still alarms me after many years in the country!

[KSA-UK]

Cheating??
That's a national sport in Saudi Arabia.( I mean, after eating Kabsa and drinking "Besbsi" and of course: Football).
In fact, Just like football they're not very good at it. It 's as easy to catch a Saudi student cheating as to score a goal to their keeper...Ask the Germans they scored 9 goals against the Saudis in 98!!!

[Arab Strap]

actually 8 against them in 2002...............

sorry, just couldn't let that one go.

[Mark100]

S Jones is correct in saying that it is not considered 'cheating' but rather it is helping your mate.

It is a cultural thing and it was endemic where i taught in Saudi.

[KSA-UK]

We have to be fair...
Just 8, not 9.
Cheers AS!

[Wigwam]

Cheating is everywhere not just the Gulf.
My Spanish students used tell me of their expertise in this profession (the second oldest) and the teachers would not puish them if there not caught as would have taken some imagination for the Spanish school and university teachers not to notice. Some of the methods included
the writing of invisible ink on assigned desks and using those cheap joke shop glasses that can read this ink

using elsticated cheat cards connected to the shoulder and quickly lost up the arm if a teacher suddenly appeared

the sneeze, cough, tap, arm raising system of codes employed to give multichoice answers

Does anyone else have a list of the genius at work?

[dmb]

My favourite(in the Gulf) was the clever kid in class photographing his answers(on his phone) and sending it to his classmates a few meters away. Actually that's my second favourite. My favourite is when the stupid kid in class does this and they all copy the wrong answer.

[veiledsentiments]

Why would they be allowed to keep their phones? I always required all phones to be placed on my desk and they could pick them up when they left.

VS

[Abba]

[veiledsentiments]

Well, I have never taught in the US or UK, so I was referring to the situation in the countries where I did invigilate exams - Egypt, UAE, Kuwait, & Oman.

So, I see no reason why it should be so different in Saudi. I expect that it depends on the employer in KSA...

VS

[Arab Strap]

To go back to the football analogy, way back in 1989 KSA beat Scotland in the Under 16 FIFA World Cup Final�����result was 5-4 on penalties.

Now the actual game itself was played fairly but one might question the validity of the Saudi players as quite a few of them kept tripping over their beards during the game. Meanwhile the wee, white, ginger haired, freckly Scots were missing their afternoon nap to play.

While the Scottish players sought solace at the bottom of an Irn Bru* bottle the new world champs were greeted by their grandchildren at Riyadh airport. This does suggest that cheating, sorry helping your friends, is endemic to Saudi society.

*Scotland's other national drink, fizzy popular with the under 12s and those with a hangover.