Game Theory in CS1010E | Shower Thoughts

Game Theory in CS1010E Should I Cheat? and how should I Cheat?

Establishing Background Information

Public Context
An Online Take Home Exam
10% Online Closed Book Test for 4MCs S/U-able Mod
Signed Document promising not to Cheat (Self -PRESERVATION is at STAKE)

Estimations

Heavy Cheating (Blind Copying)
1. Assumed that you’ll get full marks
2. Achieving Maximum 10% of PE1. 10% of 4MC is 0.4MCs
3. Assumed that you will copy all your friend’s answers because you have no clue how to do it.
Light Cheating (Cheating while respecting plagiarism checks)
1. Assumed that there are no negative effects on GRADES
2. Assumed that the objective magnitude of immorality committed is half that of heavy cheating
Don’t Cheat
1. Assumed that you will likely lose some competitive edge because you’re not choosing to cheat while everyone is
2. You gain morality point because, well, y’all can resist all the social pressure

Expected Utility Reasoning (Outcome/Choice)

Assumptions

Odds of getting caught is 50-50
1. I believe this is generous since cheating in a closed-book exam at home is EXPECTED.
2. In a Cohort of 500-ish people, the chance of someone trying to "baotou" is high.
Modular Credits (MCs) and Morality Points have a linear cost-benefit relationship
Gain in MCs are based on competitive edge relative to the bell curve

Findings

A) What is the Option to choose?

Clearly, the majority will choose Light Cheating. There is no real tangible cost at all (except for 0.5 morality points for whatever that is worth). Light Cheating is especially enticing because not cheating will dictate a loss of competitive advantage since everyone else is probably going to cheat and not get caught.

The Case for the Extremes: Heavy Cheating and Light Cheating

Rare birds will tend to choose the 2 extremes.

The case of Heavy Cheating is self-explanatory, it seems unfavourable in all aspects. But yet, it seems like an option to those who are either overly opportunistic or needs that 10% weightage which might be a pass-fail difference to the student

On the other hand, those who Don’t Cheat probably value their morality way more than the expected cost of 0.05MCs of their grades. An exception to this would be for those who realised that they don’t need 0.05MCs worth of competitive edge because they are surely good enough to get an A grade.

B) What is the price of morality?

Hence, it is estimated that our Morality is worth about 0.066MCs.

That’s about 1.67% of a Module. What a steal!

Conclusion

These findings were not intended to be used to bash the students for cheating. Yeah, I realised I had unintentionally proven how cheap our ability to self-govern (morality points)- but was it that surprising? Considering recent cases of COVID-19 locally, it is obvious that we act too heavily based on our self-interest, and that’s a pretty humane flaw. However, I would like to show that the school should take part of the responsibility in such a mess. Based on my findings, it is obvious that any average rational student would take the path of “light cheating”. That itself is dangerous. I believe that the school should realise that the conditions presented to the student are unfavourable. There should be some acknowledgement for the moral dilemma experienced by the student instead of slamming them as abhorrently indecent. I hope this is a step to making the academic community a much more conducive place.