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Cheating on online tests poses a significant challenge to educators, undermining the integrity of the educational process. This article explores 14 practical strategies to deter cheating, including the use of advanced proctoring solutions, diverse question formats, and fostering a supportive academic environment. By understanding the reasons behind dishonest behavior, educators can implement effective measures to uphold academic integrity in digital classrooms.
Cheating has always been a constant problem in the educational sphere. It undermines the integrity of the learning process and prevents students from gaining essential skills and knowledge. There have always been numerous ways to circumvent anti-cheating rules; however, the introduction of online exams has caused even more concern among educators.
Technological development has not only fostered the adoption of e-learning, known for its flexibility and convenience, but also provided students with new cheating ideas and techniques. In this article, we will define the reasons why students start behaving dishonestly and offer useful advice that will help you prevent cheating on online exams in your digital classroom.
Although many students believe that cheating is harmless, it is detrimental to the learning process and has not only instant but also delayed effects. Let’s take a look at the most serious of them.
There is a great variety of reasons why students decide to cheat on online assessments, and educators need to be aware of them to find out the most effective ways to combat dishonesty. Let’s outline the most important of them.
The level of engagement has a direct correlation to the level of academic misconduct. According to psychologists , students who lack interest and motivation in a particular subject are more likely to cheat. Moreover, once having acted dishonestly, they often stop considering this behavior immoral. Conversely, students who believe that the knowledge gained from a particular course will be useful in their future life attend classes with more excitement and maintain the integrity of online exams to show better academic results achieved by their effort.
Pressure to succeed is one of the main reasons for the growing number of cheating cases. Modern society makes students realize that they have to attain high grades at school, then enter prestigious colleges, and graduate with honors to get more chances to find a good job and become successful. As a result, academic performance, in their opinion, becomes more important than real knowledge and skills.
Some test-takers cheat on online exams because they didn’t study enough during the course and didn’t prepare well for the assessment. The reasons for such behavior could vary from laziness and lack of involvement in the learning process to lack of time due to a part-time job and psychological problems.
Cheating can spread fast even in educational institutions with robust honor codes. Understanding that some students cheat makes other examinees more prone to undesirable activities. They don’t want to lose a competitive advantage by relying only on their knowledge.
It’s not an easy task to eliminate cheating, especially in the digital environment. Nowadays, fast technological development helps students to come up with more ways to compromise academic integrity. Here we have gathered the 14 most efficient techniques to deter cheating so you can choose the ones that will work best in your fight with dishonesty.
Well-structured and up-to-date online courses with a sufficient amount of information for preparation provide students with extra motivation to stay involved and work with integrity. As a result, the level of cheating is likely to decline. Thus, educators are recommended to continuously review their teaching strategies to make their courses more interesting and engaging.
It’s better to create online tests with various structure, adding not only closed-end questions, such as true/false or multiple-choice, but also questions that require short or long answers. Moreover, educators should also pay attention to the formation of the question, giving preference to the ones that will make students think critically and share their original ideas.
Continuously discuss cheating with your students, warning them about the consequences of this behavior. It’s also reasonable to go over the integrity rules just before an online examination. It could encourage students who were not sure about cheating to act honestly.
After going over the integrity rules before an examination, students can be asked to sign a special electronic contract that includes information about the integrity policy, types of academic dishonesty, content protection rules, and consequences if a test-taker is caught cheating. There are various ways to include this feature in your online exam; for example, you can add it within a Learning Management System (LMS). However, note that it’s important that students sign this document before the beginning of a test.
Anxiety is among the most common reasons pushing students to misconduct. In the e-learning environment, many students feel anxious since they are worried about the technological part of an assessment. To reduce this type of stress, educators can conduct multiple practice tests, prepare a clear explanation guide, etc.
It’s important to schedule an online exam at approximately the same time for all participants. Nowadays, when the geography of test-takers is almost unlimited, don’t forget to take into account different time zones. In this case, to avoid sharing examination content, it’s possible to create slightly different versions of the same test. Moreover, when it comes to timing, it’s important to find a balance. Make sure examinees don’t have too much or too little time to complete the assessment, so cheaters won’t have an opportunity to search for answers on the internet, while honest students will be able to demonstrate all their knowledge.
Another strategy to stop students from cheating is to prohibit backtracking. This means that test-takers are not allowed to return to a previous exam question, and thus need to give a final answer directly. This technique helps students to concentrate and use all their knowledge and skills to solve the task instead of googling the answers or looking for them in the course materials.
Make sure your online test has an intuitive design and provides examinees with clear guidelines. It would be a good idea to describe to your students the structure of an exam and the types of questions in advance. Thus, they will spend less time on technical details and will feel less anxious and more concentrated on the content of the test.
Another technique to reduce stress during an examination and prevent students from behaving unethically is to offer them a chance to get familiar with the test structure. Before commencing a true assessment, examinees can be provided with a sample test of the same structure but with questions not related to the examination topic.
To reduce cheating during both online and “pen and paper” tests, educators should conduct different types of assessments regularly. Some of them include diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments. Diagnostic testing is used to find out the students’ level of knowledge and is aimed at engaging them more in the learning process. A formative test serves to keep track of students’ progress, while a summative assessment evaluates the knowledge of test-takers gained throughout the whole course.
Modern technologies have introduced new solutions to deal with academic cheating. Numerous proctoring software offers educators a great variety of features that they can include in their LMS to improve the integrity of online examinations. While class-based exams allow only for live proctoring, online assessments can be monitored in different ways. The most common types of remote proctoring involve:
Each type of online proctoring comes with its own distinguishing features, benefits, and limitations. For example, live remote proctoring involves a human proctor who can not only monitor the examination process but also communicate with test-takers and answer their questions. However, it lacks flexibility since, just as with class-based tests, it’s necessary to schedule an examination time. Recorded proctoring is more convenient when it comes to scheduling, yet it’s believed to be more time-consuming and less accurate in detecting suspicious student behavior. AI-based solutions are gaining immense popularity since they combine scalability, flexibility, and convenience with a high level of cheating protection.
Ensure your online proctoring solution can detect suspicious noises and activities in the room. Such systems usually make use of an examinee’s microphone to make sure there is no one else in the room or that a test-taker is not trying to use his phone or other gadgets to look for the answers.
One of the common forms of cheating during online exams is impersonation, meaning that students ask another person to take an exam on their behalf. To eliminate this form of dishonesty it’s advised to implement two- or three-factor authentication. For example, it can involve ID verification through a scan or photo, face recognition by comparing the ID and data from the webcam, and a one-time password sent to the previously registered test-taker’s phone.
Friendly and trustful relationships with your students are an essential factor to eliminate cheating. Educators should not only be considered evaluators of academic progress but also people who can share their knowledge and experience. Test-takers who feel respect rather than fear towards their professors are less likely to cheat since they usually want to live up to their expectations.
Let’s briefly summarize the most important tips to prevent cheating on online examinations.
Cheating has remained a serious problem with the introduction and widespread adoption of e-learning. Modern technologies have provided students with new easier ways to act unethically during online assessments. However, many other cutting-edge solutions have been developed to combat academic dishonesty, bringing educators the hope to protect the integrity of their courses.
To eliminate cheating in the digital environment, it’s crucial to remember that the main reasons that push test-takers to misconduct are pressure to succeed, academic overload, and anxiety. Thus, apart from advanced proctoring solutions, it’s crucial to communicate with your students, build trustful relationships with them, and think of more efficient ways to reduce their stress during online exams.
Cheating has always been and remains a serious problem in the educational sphere. The percentage of cheating on assignments and tests is jaw-dropping. Many students not only admit to misconduct but also don’t consider this behavior either harmful or unethical. However, nowadays educators are starting to adopt modern proctoring solutions that help them maintain academic integrity and protect their reputation in the e-learning environment.
Cheating is a harmful practice that leads to severe consequences. It prevents students from gaining important knowledge and skills. Test-takers who are caught cheating on online exams get lower grades and can be suspended or even expelled. Dishonesty leaves a stain not only on the studies but also on the professional reputation of examinees, thus reducing their possibilities to succeed in the future.
Cheating is common during both in-person and online assessments. However, some students believe that it’s easier to cheat in the digital environment. A wide choice of gadgets and modern technologies help students to come up with new techniques to bypass the integrity rules.
There are many techniques for cheating on online tests. One of the most common ones is impersonation, which implies that test-takers ask another person to take an exam instead of them. In addition, students often use other devices to google the answers and screen-sharing software (Zoom, Skype, etc.) to get third-party assistance.
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