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When does “homework help” cross the line and become “cheating”?

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

It is quite common for friends and relatives of a student to help him or her with homework. Getting homework help in order to do homework is generally not considered cheating. In fact, it is considered essential in many cases.  Some students use study guides to to help them with their homework. So, if all these sources of assistance are considered necessary, when does it cross the line to become cheating?

Let’s look at the case of family members (e.g.  parent or elder siblings) helping out with a student homework. When the teacher explicitly states that certain work has to be done by the student, without the help of anyone else, getting help would definitely be cheating. Even if there is no one to monitor whether the student has taken the help of others or not, a teacher who knows the student well can often tell whether he or she has received help.

There are other potential forms of cheating with respect to homework. These include getting answers from homework guides, getting answers from older students who have done the same homework in a previous year, etc. In all these cases, there is little in the ‘legal’ sense to say that one has cheated. Rather the difference is subtle. In most cases, the choice is left to the student, who has the option of using or not using a source of superior information. Using such superior sources of information, which are not available to others, might be considered cheating. Teachers should monitor the quantum of help that each of their students get, and take that into account when assigning grades.

When does “homework help” cross the line and become “cheating”?

Generally, parents/elder siblings help out children/younger siblings with their homework. Taking the help of these elders to do proper and error-free homework is not considered cheating. In fact, it is considered essential in most instances. Even teachers monitor the quantum of assistance given by the elders in the family to the children. Sometimes, children are required to use the Internet to do their homework. So, if all these sources of assistance are considered necessary, when does it cross the thin line to become cheating?

Let’s look at the case of parents/elder siblings helping out with the homework of their children/younger siblings, which slips into the realm of cheating. Where the teacher explicitly states that certain work has to be done by the student, without the help of anyone else, in such cases taking the help of others would definitely be cheating. This is so, since there is no one to monitor whether the student has taken the help of others or not.

In the case where the student has to take the help of the Internet to gather certain information and draw his or her own conclusions from the information, if the student takes the help of the Internet to find out the optimum conclusion, it would be termed as cheating.

There are various other forms of cheating in ‘homework’. These include getting answers from Guides, getting answers from older batches that have done the same work in the previous year, el al.

In all these cases, there is little in the ‘legal’ sense to say or charge that one has cheated. Rather the difference is subtle. In most cases, the choice is left to the student who has the option of using or not using a source of superior information, which is not be available to other students of his/her batch. Using such superior source of information, which is not available to others, would be considered cheating.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Homework. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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