Is it acceptable to put the blame on an instructor during an oral exam for a mistake?

Question

During class, I asked my instructor about a certain thing that didn't make sense to me. Basically, there was a problem that I couldn't figure out how to solve using the methods we've studied. The instructor told me that the problem couldn't be solved using those methods. As this aligned with my own suspicion, I took her word on it and moved on.

During the oral exam, I was talking about this, and said that the problem was not solvable. The examinator said that it is solvable using those methods, and he explained how.

My response was "ah, I see, that makes sense", and then we kept on discussing.

But now, after the exam, I am thinking whether it would've been acceptable of me to just "put the blame" on the instructor by saying that I got the wrong information from her?

On one hand, that is the truth, and by telling them this, I might avoid being held responsible for a mistake that wasn't entirely my fault.

On the other hand, and this is how I felt during the exam, it felt to me out of order to bring up the instructor in the exam. She wasn't there to defend herself, so it seemed wrong to talk about her "behind her back", so to speak.

What would you have gained from this? I've never had an oral exam so I don't know how they work. — Azor Ahai -him-, Jun 12 '18 at 23:49
Life tip: something being someone else's fault doesn't inherently absolve you of responsibility for it. — user541686, Jun 15 '18 at 08:29
I don't know if it's the same in oral exams, but in real life, blaming someone else is rarely a good strategy. Just turn it around and take the responsibility: "I must have misunderstood what X told me", and you come over as much more professional. — Michael Kay, Jun 17 '18 at 09:32
@Mehrdad true, however there are several occasions (yes even in scientific degrees) where one has to agree with the instructor's version of the topic if one wants to get the best results in an exam. The fact that the instructor said "this is not solveable" builds an expectation to the student that he/she should answer like that during the exam. — Andrea Lazzarotto, Jun 17 '18 at 16:34
@AzorAhai how is it possible that you "never had an oral exam"? (I am assuming you went to university, apologies if that's not the case) — Andrea Lazzarotto, Jun 17 '18 at 16:42
@andrea No one ever gave me one? How else would I never have had one lol. And yes, I've finished my bachelor's degree. — Azor Ahai -him-, Jun 17 '18 at 16:42
@AzorAhai interesting. I've never heard of a degree without any oral exam. Sounds like a dream though, oral exams are generally much more intense. — Andrea Lazzarotto, Jun 17 '18 at 16:50
@andrea Interesting. I've never heard of anyone in either university I attended ever having one. They sound like a pain for everyone involved. — Azor Ahai -him-, Jun 17 '18 at 16:53
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55803/how-to-deal-with-an-abusive-advisor?rq=1 — , Oct 08 '20 at 11:26

score 81 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 13 '18 at 19:31

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That is an annoying thing that happened to you, and I can see why it would bother you. University instructors are human, and we sometimes make mistakes, or misunderstand a question from a student, or have blind-spots in our knowledge. It is certainly annoying to a student if this leads them to error.

However, there is a bigger issue here. Setting aside the interpersonal issues of whether or not it is advisable to "blame the instructor", I would suggest you take a broader view of your responsibilities as a tertiary-level student. By university level, it is expected that students are no longer children or adolescents, and they are old and ugly enough to critically assess what they are told by their teachers, and proceed on the basis of rational inquiry and evidence, rather than on the basis of faith-in-authority. If you are told by an authority figure like a university instructor that X is true, then it is up to you as a student to seek evidence/argument to confirm this claim, and treat the claim with scepticism if there is not a clear and convincing explanation.

In your case, you were told something that was false by an instructor. Since that thing was false, presumably your instructor could not have backed up the claim with a water-tight argument, had you inquired about the reasoning for the claim. You say you "took her word for it", but that is not what tertiary-level instruction is about. By taking her word for it you rejected the standard of reason and instead adopted the heuristic of believing that which is plausible, and is confirmed to you by the assertion of an authority figure. You paid an appropriate price for that by getting caught in an error in your oral exam, so hopefully, lesson learned.

In this case your instructor probably just made a mistake when she asserted that error to you, or misunderstood your question. However, in my view, it would even be legitimate as a teaching exercise if she intentionally gave you a wrong answer and then tested to see whether you would parrot it back to her in an oral exam. The point here is this: you do not go to university to learn to uncritically repeat the assertions of authority figures with PhDs; you go to university to learn to reason rationally, based on evidence and logic. You failed to do that in this case, so you made a mistake. That is great, because university is where we go to make these mistakes, get penalised for them, and then learn not to do them again.

edited Jun 13 '18 at 19:31

Aaron Hall

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answered Jun 13 '18 at 01:04

Ben

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It's usually difficult if not impossible to prove that a problem can't be solved by a particular method.So I don't fault the OP for not insisting on a proof. But then, with this information "known" only on the instructor's authority, the right thing to say in the oral exam would have been "I've been told that the problem isn't solvable" (or perhaps "told by Professor X" or "told by an authoritative source"), not flatly "the problem isn't solvable". – Andreas Blass Jun 13 '18 at 02:03
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In your case, you were told something that was false by an instructor. - There's also the possibility that the student misunderstood what the professor was saying (the converse to your note that professors sometimes misunderstand students). – Kimball Jun 13 '18 at 05:49
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I have to disagree somewhat here. Hunting for evidence and independent confirmation of everything you hear is a cartoon version of science. By contrast, real scientists accept “that which is plausible”, (and/or “confirmed [by] an authority figure”) all the time. In fact, weighting statements by their prior plausibility and by the reliability of their source is almost certainly how all reasoning works (according to the hypothesis of Bayesian reasoning), and there is, a priori, nothing wrong with it (and it’s not incompatible with “reasoning rationally”). – Konrad Rudolph Jun 13 '18 at 09:41
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I agree with you that reliable sources contribution information, with Bayesian updating being rational, but this answer needs to be read in context. The OP is at university learning a field, and specifically says that the matter in question did not make sense to him. Under such circumstances, it is not appropriate to defer to another source, since the object of the course is to understand the material. If we are willing to fall back on prior probabilities with evidence consisting of confirmation by an authority figure, then we can dispense with most of university instruction. – Ben Jun 13 '18 at 10:33
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A teacher intentionally giving wrong information would be unethical. To test for "parrots", as you say, it is enough to provide a short (but correct) explanation and check if all you get back is the exact same explanation, without any further insight. Lying is hardly a good teaching option, it will create confusion, and as @KonradRudolph said, we can not check every sentence for accuracy, so we must trust that teachers are right most of the times, and always try to be right. – Rolazaro Azeveires Jun 13 '18 at 12:03
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An aphorism I use frequently: "Faith-based math is not real math." – Daniel R. Collins Jun 13 '18 at 13:57
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To paraphrase, the student said "I can't see how to solve that with these tools", the instructor said "that's because you can't", and you expect the student to challenge the instructor's statement? The instructor just confirmed what the student had already (incorrectly) established themselves. – Martin Bonner supports Monica Jun 13 '18 at 15:42
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@KonradRudolph Given my observed priors the chances of "instructor making mistake and saying something false"|"Student claims that's what he did" vs. "student misunderstanding problem/explanation from instructor"|"Student claims instructor said something false" is 0.1 for first and 0.9 for second. It's certainly not always the case but 9/10 cases that's what happens. – DRF Jun 13 '18 at 19:48
@DRF You might be replying to the wrong comment but just in case you didn’t: My experience agrees with yours. But that doesn’t impact what I said. – Konrad Rudolph Jun 13 '18 at 19:50
@KonradRudolph I wasn't replying to a different comment, but you're right. Reading your comment it doesn't impact what you said it should impact the answer though. In way too many SE questions the word of the OP is taken as the word of "god", ignoring the priors we all hold. That's what I intended to point out. If the student got an A or B+ on the exam regardless I'd change my opinon anything less and with p<0,05 he's mistaken in what the instructor said. – DRF Jun 13 '18 at 20:16
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I disagree with the notion that 'silently' giving false answers during maths lectures is a valid teaching stratagem. The intent to promote skepticism is noble, but it is doubtlessly out of the scope of the syllabus. It might be appropriate for a philosophy of science class, or part of some kind of orientation to uni class -- but certainly not as a random sneak attack penalty that could happen in any class. Despite your ideal of what all humans should somehow telepathically know, not everyone has been educated to be skeptical, and that lesson is not the purpose of that particular class. – Ben R Jun 13 '18 at 23:30
@Ben "If we are willing to fall back on prior probabilities with evidence consisting of confirmation by an authority figure, then we can dispense with most of university instruction." On the contrary, if we are not willing to give large updating weight to an authority figure making a claim, we have to dispense with almost all non-math university instruction, and much of math instruction for the average student. – Acccumulation Jun 14 '18 at 00:37
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If I ask a professor for an answer that I cannot find for whatever reason, and the professor gives me an answer that is intentionally false, and then uses that against me in an exam, then I will consider all legal ways to rectify this cruel and unfair situation. – mafu Jun 14 '18 at 17:47
@BenR Well the instructor probably writes the syllabus themselves, so they could always just add that line in there. And skepticism and independence isn't really the direct and intended lesson of any class, but it is one of the overall goals of higher education, and something a university student is expected to pursue and structure their advancement around (and, in theme with the independence part, to do so without having to be constantly poked with a stick about it). Konrad's point is still valid, though. – zibadawa timmy Jun 14 '18 at 18:08
@zibadawa timmy Sure, they could add that. But is that a scalable, consistent-to-evaluate approach to teaching skepticism? Or just an excuse to bully people for not happening to have the same belief structure pre-loaded into their head before entering the classroom? What if, instead, we used the same formal methods to teach rationality like we teach just about anything else? People frequently bully those they consider weaker, and to force victims to play cryptic games with unknown rules & punish unavoidable failure. How well does your point of view fit that last sentence, compared to mine? – Ben R Jun 15 '18 at 06:04
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Also don't forget this classic: "Whoops-- I mean... I was secretly testing you the whole time!" Throw a line into your syllabus about how you're promoting independent study, and now you're no longer accountable for mistakes. Genius. – Ben R Jun 15 '18 at 06:34
@BenR Well, yes, that is kind of the point of quite a number of standard lines in a syllabus in America. Cut out the amount of hemming and hawing a student can do so you save yourself time and headaches for at best nominal gains, and give yourself hard standards and policies so you spend less time debating the minutiae of every little thing. Every instructor picks where their lines are, but it's hard not to recognize that the less that's in your hands--because it's already decided by the syllabus--then the easier and less stressful it gets to run the course. – zibadawa timmy Jun 15 '18 at 15:42
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@KonradRudolph the argument by authority is one of the arguments for God. It is an excuse for lazyness and while I don't disagree that it's done, it's also wrong. I've seen students correct professors enough times to know that unless there's proof that you can sit and follow through and understand - even if you don't read it; if it's infront of you then you can question it; while here the OP was just told something without any reasoning; but they just accepted it because it was how they felt... again, much like God.
Don't argue like a theist - you know better.
– UKMonkey Jun 15 '18 at 16:08
@UKMonkey You're confusing the equally-named logical fallacy with a valid shortcut for knowledge building. Nowadays human knowledge is so vast that we must rely on this shortcut all the time, we cannot possibly investigate all claims critically. Failure to acknowledge this leads to a fundamentally flawed epistemology. But the heuristic obviously only works with valid authorities, otherwise it's fallacious (as in pseudoscience or religion). – Konrad Rudolph Jun 16 '18 at 12:09
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I am downvoting this because it wrongly implies students should always and relentlessly challenge their instructor's answers. Many times instructors are correct and only sometimes they make mistakes. Challenging every answer with "I do not believe this, prove it" not only would damage the flow of lectures but would also be quite rude. – Andrea Lazzarotto Jun 17 '18 at 16:41
@Andrea: Thanks for your explanation of your down-vote. However, I think you are proceeding on a false-alternative. No-one has said (or implied) that students must "relentlessly challenge" instructors and "damage the flow of lectures"; that is an obvious straw-man. A simple request for some explanation of why a thing is true is sufficient. In this case, it would have been sufficient for the student to inquire as to why the class of techniques in question does not solve the problem at hand, and what alternative would be required. – Ben Jun 17 '18 at 23:39
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-1 I am surprised how many upvotes this has: I agree with the underlying "spirit" of the post but the point is far overstated. The reality is that this is very dependent on the field and the particular question that was asked. In some fields (e.g. medicine), there may be a lot of facts to memorize and it simply would not be feasible to try to independently verify them all the time. In other fields, like math, most statements should be verified, but still not ALL statements -- for example, statements about sets (product set, axiom of choice, etc) should be taken for granted in an algebra class. – Caleb Stanford Jun 25 '18 at 17:15
Myself, I am a PhD student in computer science. If every time my professor said something I were to independently verify it, I would get far behind in every class I have taken as well as far behind in my research. Knowing when to investigate further and when to assume a result on faith (even though this makes you a bit less confident in it) is a key skill in research. – Caleb Stanford Jun 25 '18 at 17:16
@AndreaLazzarotto Well stated. – Caleb Stanford Jun 25 '18 at 17:17

score 51 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 13 '18 at 01:07

Gracefully accepting your mistake was the right thing to do. Even if your examiners took your story at face value, it's doubtful that they would have adjusted your score. It's unfortunate that you got bad advice, but at the end of the day, you're still responsible for the material.

score 11 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 14 '18 at 07:09

Lots of people will tell you lots of things over the course of your life. Ultimate responsibility for what you choose to believe and what you choose to pass along as true belongs to you.

In this case, assuming that everything you said is true (and five minutes with you in the front of the room during an oral exam is not necessarily the best place for you to assess if the examiner was correct, just as a casual discussion with an instructor after class isn't), you used the body of information you had to form an understanding on a topic, your examiner didn't feel like your understanding was correct, and explained why. You said "thank you". We call this "academic discourse".

Your actions were appropriate, if you did indeed see that the examiner's analysis made sense. That said, if the examiner had made some sort of mistake, and you saw a flaw in that analysis, you might have pointed out the error if you thought your own understanding was correct. If the analysis offered by the examiner wasn't clear to you, you might have asked for clarification. All of these, like the action you took, would have been appropriate. Even if you saw a flaw in the examiner's analysis, and you chose not to point it out, that is fairly acceptable (though I would prefer it if my students stuck to their guns when they know they are right).

"Blaming" someone else for your misunderstanding would not have been appropriate, and might well have been interpreted by your examiners as a character flaw.

score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 13 '18 at 13:06

You're right - it would have been inappropriate to dump the matter on your instructor. It would have made no difference if she was present at the examination, because that's not the time to get into a he said/she said conversation.

The conversation you want to have is with your instructor. Confirm independently that she was wrong (otherwise you're simply taking the word of the examiner - not much better than simply taking the word of the instructor). Let her know, politely, that the information given in class doesn't seem correct for the following reasons: (show your work). If other students were present when the incorrect information was given, I imagine they would want to make a correction.

I would disagree with Ben and say it's possible she should take some of the blame in this situation, but she is the person best equipped to make that decision as the instructor of your class. We certainly don't have that information. If she feels that it's appropriate, she might speak with the examiner on your behalf.

A small note of diverse opinion: It would have made a lot of difference if the instructor was at the room. Of course the student should not promptly point the blame to the instructor, but if the instructor readily assumed partial blame the examiners would lay completely different eyes over the student for the rest of that exam. Also, the student could have made allusions to the conversation he had with the instructor, so that the instructor would remember the event. There is also a possibility of the examiner being wrong, and the instructor's in a more comfortable position to argue this case. — Mefitico, Jun 13 '18 at 18:38

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 13 '18 at 15:47

Short answer:
Suck it up and move on.

Long answer:
Welcome to the real world. It will happen with your colleagues. It will happen with your supervisors. It will happen with your boss. Worse, often time, they would even point the finger back at you and deny they have even said such things. It's your words vs. theirs, and it is a battle you will never win. Paper trail helps, but everyone is too busy to get to the bottom.

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 14 '18 at 12:04

I think Ben's answer is great, but I also want to give another possible perspective that has not been mentioned so far:

It could be that during the semester your instructor was referring to the methods you had studied so far, while you were referring to all methods related to the course (?). At least I can see how just a little change in the description of your question has a huge impact on how to interpret what has happened and there is enough room for misunderstandings.

In any circumstance, it is usually never a good idea to blame someone right away. It is, however, always acceptable to ask questions in order to clarify. Never attribute to malice what could be attributed to an honest mistake or misunderstanding. And, as a humble person, always be prepared that it could actually be you who made that mistake (for example, by misinterpreting what was said).

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 14 '18 at 18:12

Others have given answers on what to do in that situation. I will instead highlight what I do to avoid this situation beforehand.

After asking the teaching assistant, I try to verify their solution. If I cannot reliably confirm it, especially if they were unsure themselves, I will then send a concise email to a reliable source asking for clarification. That is usually the second in command, else directly the professor - never a student assistant.

I have been burned enough times to know that any other way is unreliable. There is no need to feel guilty for asking once you 'did your homework'.

In another aspect, it sounds a lot like in your specific case, there was a misunderstanding. That you and the instructor have talked about a different question would be a probable explanation for the unfortunate situation you encountered.

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 25 '18 at 17:36

I agree with the other answers that say you should probably just let it go and move on. However, if you think you might be on the borderline between two grades, or between passing and failing the course, then you might want to ask for consideration. Explain the situation to the instructor, explain that you accept responsibility for the mistake, you're not asking for a grade change, but if you end up with borderline marks you would appreciate any leniency that they think is appropriate.

When I did a little assistant teaching during my PhD, when there was a misunderstanding of this nature, the instructors were willing to take this approach. In any case, I don't think you'd offend anyone or look like a "whiner" for asking.

Is it acceptable to put the blame on an instructor during an oral exam for a mistake?

8 Answers8