On a ici deux visions bien différentes, d'un coté les Américains se sentent visiblement plus gené par un tricheur et n'hésite pas à aller le dénoncer. D'un autre coté les Francais sont plus "laxistes" et lainbssent la personne tricher sans rien lui dire et continuent leur examen. Je ne saurai pas expliquer ces divergences, peut-être que l'enseignement est plus stricte aux USA ou c'est une histoire de valeurs.

La tricherie est elle tres peu présente pendant les examents aux USA?

I don't think that the school is particularly strict in the US. I think however that honesty and living up to moral standards are very important. I would say that, for this reason, cheating is not very common here.

My hypothesis is that the reactions of the American students have a lot to do with how American students and teachers interact. As we saw in the forum "A good teacher is someone...", a good American teacher is close to the students and empathizes with them. In some sense, American students feel that the teacher is "on their side", that students and teachers are "in the same boat" and have common goals. Cheating goes against these common goals, and for this reason it would be acceptable for an American student to denounce a cheater.

In contrast, my guess is that French students feel closer between themselves but more distant with teachers. If my guess is true, a French student will not denounce another student, as this will go against a sense of student fraternity and solidarity. What do you tink? Will it be honorable or shameful for a French student to denounce another student for cheating?

As one student mentioned, grading on a curve is sometimes used to discourage cheating here.  Allowing someone to cheat would thus potentially affect your own grade.  Is this a concern for you?

Also, various schools in the US use different systems to discourage cheating.  At MIT, it's often an honor system--the only proctors are the professors and teaching assistants (there are even exams without proctors), and students are just expected not to cheat.  At other schools, there are sometimes people specifically assigned to proctor exams and forms to sign at each exam saying that you agree not to cheat--how does it work at your school?

David, en effet, tu as bien compris la mentalité des étudiants francais: le fait de ne pas dénoncer un autre étudiant est de l'ordre de l'entraide entre étudiants, de la fraternité...  

Yun-hang, il éxiste des moyens contre la tricherie. Par exemple, cette année, pendant un éxamen, il y a au moins un prof à nous surveiller constament (voir 2) De plus, les feuilles (brouillon et copie) nous sont distribués lors de l'examen pour éviter que l'on vienne avec notre cours écrit sur nos feuille...

Il est très rare qu'un étudiant en dénonce un autre, pour ma part, je ne l'ai jamais fait. Votre conjecture concernant l'éloignement des professeurs français par rapport aux élèves est réelle. Ainsi on se sent plus proche des autres élèves et on ne les dénonce pas.

Vous est il arrivé de dénoncer des élèves lors d'un éxamen?

Pouvez vous donner des exemples pour illustrer le fait que vous vous dites proche des prof?

It's been a long time since I've actually seen people cheating on an exam.  I think it's much more common with take home exams; for instance, I took a take home exam last year that had instructions to not use the internet, not use course material, etc.  That's impossible to enforce, and I think that over half the class cheated on the test.  My friend even sent me an email asking me for help.

That being said, I didn't let the professors know what was going on... For me I think the sense that I shouldn't denounce my friends is relatively wrong.  It might be different if I thought there was a chance that the curve would be significantly lowered.  In that class it wouldn't have made sense to turn any one person in just because so many people did it.

Actually I can't remember a time that I ever turned someone in for cheating on an exam.  I had something of a similar experience in a class this term, though;  I was in a group where some of our team members were not doing any work, and I let the professor know even though it may have compromised their grade.  In that situation, I was feeling really stressed about the class and was starting to have a bad feeling about it all the time, so that I felt I really needed to talk to someone about it.  That being said, I didn't let the professor know for several weeks after this started happening.

Have you ever let a professor know that someone was cheating or that someone wasn't doing his/her share of the work?

Personnellement, je n’ai jamais rapporté à un prof le fait qu’un autre étudiant trichait. Les relations sociales qui en résulteraient paraissent inimaginable, c’est l’une des raisons pour laquelle nous ne signalons pas les tricheries.

Le nombre de personne trichant lors des contrôles est il élevé ?

Dans quelles matières trichez-vous le plus ?

Comment trichez-vous ?

To go back to Sébastien's earlier questions, I don't think that turning someone in for cheating on an exam is common here. I however suspect that this would be less unthinkable or more acceptable for an American student than for a French student. I have never denounced a cheater myself, but I would not look down on someone who did.

Onto your question of how students are close to professors here: I have been the TA for an undergraduate class, in which I was responsible of recitation sessions (summarize the theory, solve sample problems) and of tutoring students. While I was almost 10 years older than some of the students, they sometimes came talk to me in private to discuss rather personal problems, such as stress, family issues, and even a couple of dating issues. I know that students sometimes discuss these issues with professors as well, and they sometimes get emotional (to the point of crying) with professors and TAs they are comfortable with. These situations are, in my opinion, indicative of a quite close and comfortable relationship between professors and students here. Is this kind of professor-student relationship common in France?

As for your question on how we cheat on an exam... well, you see, we had this exam in French class last week, and... oh, but look at the time, I'm sorry but I need to leave now!

Haha, David. The same exam in which you called our prof mean? :-)

But back to cheating...

I really only have experience with MIT, so that's basically the extent of my perspective. I think that most of the cheating here is in the form of our weekly problem sets ( = homework), especially with math classes. I know many, many students who have cheated and regularly cheat by copying another person's problem set. Most classes (in theory) have a strict collaboration policy, and make it clear that we are expected to do our own work. If we work with others, it should be to solve problems together, not copy what someone else has already done. We are often asked to list our collaborators. However, I don't know that this in any way curtails cheating. Like Mary said, it's so widespread and rampant that it would be useless to try to tell professors about it.

In fact, just yesterday I was working on a problem set for an extremely challenging math class, and the two students I worked with had no qualms about cheating to complete the assignment. In fact, they dubbed the operation "Copy Tech" (Copy Tech is the name of a printing/binding service on campus).

It was incredibly frustrating to me because I'm extremely averse to dishonesty, and it can be difficult finding students to work with when people are so casual about cheating. But would I ever tell a professor about their conduct? Not in a million years. In some ways I guess I've just learned to live with it.

David, en ce qui concerne le rapport prof/élève en france, il est très limité. En effet, le prof arrive, fait son, jolie discours et s'en va. On n'a donc pas d'intéraction avec lui. Toutefois, il arrive que nous rencontrons les profs pour discuter d'un projet, d'un stage à l'étranger...mais ca s'arrête là. Et merci pour tes infos Chloé.

Mais lorsqu'un devoir est à faire chez soit, je n'appelle pas ca de la tricherie mais de l'entraide entre étudiant.

D'ou ma question: Ou est la limmite entre l'entraide et la tricherie?