The cheating I have seen on team tests is mostly teams listening in on the discussions of other teams.
However, your students may not be cheating. There is some interesting research revealing that two students who are BOTH wrong can indeed argue their way to a correct answer. The article describing this research is:
Schwarz, B.B. & Neuman, Y. (2010). Two Wrongs May Make a Right … If They Argue Together!. COGNITION AND INSTRUCTION, 18(4), 461–494/
ABSTRACT
Several studies have investigated the cognitive development of interacting peers. This study focuses on a phenomenon that has not yet been studied: the cognitive gains of 2 children with low levels of competence who fail to solve a task individually but who improve when working in peer interaction. We show that this phenomenon (which we call the two-wrongs-make-a-right phenomenon) may occur when (a) the 2 wrongs disagree, (b) they have different strategies, and (c) active hypothesis testing is made possible. In a preliminary study, 30 Grade 10 low-achieving students were tested about the rules they use to compare 2 decimal fractions in a questionnaire. The students who were diagnosed as wrongs were invited to solve a task (the 6-cards task) with peers. Three kinds of pairs were formed: 7W1–W2pairs in which the 2 wrongs have different conceptual bugs; 4 W1–W1 pairs in which the 2 wrongs have the same conceptual bugs; 4 R–W pairs in which a wrong interacted with a right student. The 6-cards task was designed to create conflicts between students with different conceptual bugs and between wrong and right students. Two days after solving the 6-cards task, the students were asked to answer a similar questionnaire individually. The preliminary study revealed the two-wrongs-make-a-right
phenomenon: Among the 7 W1–W2 pairs, at least 1 wrong became right. In contrast, in the 4 R–W pairs, only 1 wrong became right, and in the 3 W1–W1 pairs, no change was detected. In a case study that replicated the phases of the preliminary study, disagreement, argumentative operations (such as challenge and concession), hypothesis testing (with a calculator), and the internalization of social interactions mediated the change of peers from wrongs to rights. We then replicated the initial study with 72 low-achieving Grade 10 and 11 students, confirming the two-wrongs-make-a-right effect.
-M
Michael Sweet, Ph.D.
Director of Instructional Development, Center for Teaching and Learning
MAI 2206 | Mail Stop G2100 | (512) 232-1775 | http://ctl.utexas.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: Team-Based Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Erica Hunter
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2011 9:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: cheating with IF-AT?
Hi all,
I have an interesting situation and could use some advice from other IF-AT users. I've been using TBL in large courses (18-20) teams for 4 years and this is the first time I've noticed this.
I was looking over team grades and one team had the following IF-AT scores:
7,9,10,10,10 (RAT is out of 10 points). 10's before appeals are not super common in my courses (most earn 8-9.5 before appeals) but I noticed is that this team has very low iRAT scores - mostly in the 3-5 range. I looked at the last two RATs and compared the iRAT answers from individuals to the team choice and on both there were 2 questions where no individual picked the answer the team went with. In many cases, several would (for example) pick "C" but they would scratch "E" (correct). This seemed strange to me. I pulled some other team's sheets and did not find this - that other teams with high gRAT scores had 1 or 2 higher scores on the team and they had the right answer on their iRAT sheets.
Does this seem fishy to anyone else? Or do you find that sometimes the team "comes together" and develops a new path for the gRAT together?
Individuals on the team are low performing on exams/other assessments and the midterm peer helper scores suggest a team with slacking issues (no one earned above 90 on the PHS).
I'm also thinking of ways to combat issues like this next semester. I'm thinking of have them submit a scratch-order grid thing (one to me - one to keep for reference) before getting the IF-AT. Or have more proctors. Other ideas?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts!
Erica
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