Number of students cheating in HSC exams rose by 44 per cent in 2020

Hundreds of students have been caught cheating in the HSC after pandemic stress saw plagiarism jump 44 per cent last year. These were the top 10 courses for cheats.

The number of students caught plagiarising their work in the HSC has increased by more than 40 per cent in just 12 months after hundreds of students were busted cheating last year.

Psychologist Michael Carr Gregg said forcing students to do their final year of schooling from home for months stressed out students who made out-of-character decisions to cheat while completing their HSC assessment tasks.

The total number of HSC cheats caught by the NSW Education Standards Authority went from 671 to 842 between 2019 and last year.

The number of incidences of plagiarism increased by 44 per cent in just 12 months

A total of 739 students were responsible for the 842 incidences of misconduct last year, meaning numerous students were so brazen they cheated more than once.

Of those, 468 students plagiarised their assessment tasks — a 44 per cent increase on the previous year when 323 students were caught trying to pass off the work of other students.

Mr Carr Gregg said the increase could be linked to the added anxiety and pressure associated with the coronavirus pandemic.

“There was a lot of stuffing around about when they made children learn from home and this increased their anxiety, it pushed them to make some unwise choices,” he said.

“It just indicated to me the effects of the second wave of mentality, it was pandemic fatigue … I am not at all surprised.”

The most cheats were found in the English Standard course with 132 incidences followed by the English Studies course with 63 infractions.

While plagiarism was the most common method for dishonest students trying to get an unfair advantage, there were 18 cases of using unauthorised notes while there were 15 incidents where students were using electronic devices in exams.

A NSW Education Standards spokeswoman said most students were honest.

The 468 cases of plagiarism prompted Australian Tutoring Association CEO Mohan Dhall to call for viva voce-style oral exams where teachers grilled students on their special topic.

“You can see the problem. It is now clear that moving online opens up this opportunity to cheat and schools must adjust these assessments to make sure the cheating numbers come down going forward,” he said.

“I think we need a really clever redesign of online tasks, because there are predictable problems that occur when students do online based assessments,” he said.

“Some schools have a viva voce where students stand before a panel and discuss the choices they have made.”

President of the Mathematics Association of NSW Karen McDaid said the exams should have been pushed back to later in the year to give students more time to catch up after studying at home.

“I think last year was incredibly stressful for every single student, to be fair to them it is possible that they may have gone and made choices they wouldn’t have previously made,” she said.

A NSW Education Standards spokeswoman said while cheating was on rise, the vast majority of students followed the rules.