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Do secrets come out? Statistical evaluation of student cheating in Russia
We develop an original method of student cheating evaluation that is based on the comparison of students’ grades on exams in class, homeworks and experimental homework. The data for the study is collected from the survey of 2013 sophomores of the International College of Economics and Finance at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Russia. At the end of the statistics course in addition to standard assignments (homeworks and exams) students were given experimental homework with the rule of limited cooperation among students. The violation of this rule was considered as cheating. The scale of cooperation is measured and then tested through different methods including the stochastic frontier; it reveals connection with the GPA level, students’ expectations of the cheaters’ share and their moral norms. We also find different behavioral patterns for high and low performing students as well as country specific context of student cheating behavior.