Desperate much? Faking your IA data
Written by The Vulture
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash
An anonymous schoolmate, shrugging in the perfect nonchalance that only a year two burnout could have, chuckles as he admits: “I faked all my IA data.” We sit, side by side, numbers tumbling around our heads. He smiles, and I smile back- we know the secret.
It’s an unspoken culture. Sprinkle in some outliers, grab a literature comparison, snip to the third significant figure, and you’ve generated your glorious Frankenstein : a gorgeous data section, demonstrating a not-quite-real correlation, but in the end, a really-quite-real grade.
For the children of MYP, IA’s (internal assessments,) to summarise, are IB ordained essays. The topics you choose to write about are mostly up to you, but you’ll need to write an IA for each of your Diploma math, sciences, and humanities subjects.
So, let’s say you’re a masochist, and chose to do Chemistry at Higher Level. For your IA, you decided to investigate the effect of heat on citric acid concentration. You’re doing fine so far, but right before you squeeze your last oranges, Mrs Stewart announces the end of your data collection time- ding ding, time’s up, and you’ve still got twelve trials to go! Now, you could grovel to her for more collection time, but save your grovelling for your PG’s (Predicted grades.) Instead, you could do what so many IB kids have done: fake your data.
The reasons for committing this sin are brutally clear:
“I screwed up my experiment,” says the same anonymous schoolmate.
“If I didn’t fake my data, it would be harder to do my IA,” remarks another, sheepishly fiddling with their necklace. They did, however, make note that they’d only ever fake qualitative data for their design science class. “Quantitative data is harder to fake,” she said.
“For IB students, it’s worth it (to fake data),” states an anonymous IB teacher. “ If they (the students) didn’t have any data, they wouldn’t be able to write anything after,” they continued , referring to the “data analysis” and “evaluation” subsections found in the latter part of an IA’s structure, where your results are mass processed into significance tests and p values and error bars like a deli sausage.
Unsurprisingly, the trend seems to be about convenience for time-poor DP students. For most of the IA’s, the conclusions you draw are heavily dependent on the data you collect, be it quantitative or qualitative, so it’s just easier to have a full set of data. Furthermore, missing data explicitly indicates an inappropriate method for your time frame, which may get you marked down in terms of methodology. Some may argue that it’s worth it to fake a little.
Don’t misconstrue. You won’t be graded based on the numbers you collect. IA’s are graded on the basis of how you introduce, explore, analyse, and evaluate your investigations. As long as turnitin.com isn’t smacking a fat plagiarism sign over your data section, it’s safe to say that no one will attack you for having a few faked numbers here and there at your own discretion.
But as much as it might be worth it to punch in faked data for the IB for the sake of easy living, it would do well for those of us looking to careers in research to keep a bug in the back of our heads, reminding us of the fact that we can’t be IB kids forever, though we’ll live with the scars of it for all eternity. Eventually, we’ll need to come clean about being dirty, data faking rats, or scrap that habit completely. Otherwise, we might be left in the sewage.
Surprisingly, and somewhat worryingly, we’re not the only ones desperately fudging our data. The U.S. Department of Health’s Office of Research Integrity (ORI) oversaw the case of Dr Ricky Malhotra, a research assistant professor who admitted to committing research misconduct at the Universities of Michigan, and Chicago (Case summary: Malhotra, n.d.). Malhotra was found to have re-used western blot tests with falsified labelling, in studies backed by the National Institute Of Health, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. As a result, Malhotra entered a Voluntary Settlement Agreement with the ORI, in which he agreed to refuse any advisory positions related to public health services, and to senior supervision over any further work.
You can lie about science, but science never lies back. The truth outs when your results look suspicious.
Year 13 student Tiara-Reece Kail Asa was one of the first I’d interviewed who was flat-out disgusted by the idea of data faking. “Something about faking data feels….eugh,” she grimaced to me, “I’d rather be honest.”
It was the moral thing to do, yes, so I nodded at her. She then switched to saying something about citric acid, and it was at that moment that I remembered- I had a Chemistry IA due in a week. Now, I may have bolted my head down and admitted to missing a few trials here and there, or, I may have done what so many IB kids have done: fake my data.
References:
Case Summary: Malhotra, Ricky: ORI - The Office of Research Integrity. (n.d.). Retrieved
October 16, 2019, from https://ori.hhs.gov/case-summary-malhotra-ricky.