How To Prevent Students From Cheating In Online Exams
Cheating in higher education is a serious threat that could compromise the validity of online tests, so online teachers must take proactive steps to prevent cheating.
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1. Randomize Questions
Since online exams have become more widespread, students have found new ways to cheat. From writing math formulas on their palms to sharing answers with classmates, cheating has become a serious issue that educators must confront head on. Question randomization may help reduce cheating rates significantly.
Question randomization allows teachers to tailor an online exam specifically for their students’ needs. By mixing up questions and answer options, randomization makes it more difficult for students to collaborate or share answers during an examination process. It can also be applied to quizzes, exams and other types of assignments.
Although this tool won’t completely prevent students from cheating online exams, it is an effective strategy for deterring academic dishonesty and academic dishonesty in online exams. When combined with other anti-cheating tools like website blockers or application cloakers it may prevent certain websites or apps that enable cheating during an exam from being utilized by students.
Instructors should consider using multiple question types on online exams for optimal learning experiences. Instructors should avoid giving only multiple choice or true/false questions, instead opting for open-ended questions that make it harder for students to give identical responses.
One way to deter cheating during online exams is requiring students to sign an academic integrity contract. After watching an educational reminder video on academic integrity, they can be required to electronically sign a document listing what the university considers cheating and its repercussions prior to beginning an exam. This provides them with clarity regarding both policy and potential penalties before starting an examination.
2. Remove Backtracking
Cheating is a growing issue within educational institutions worldwide, yet online education offers learners new ways to bypass anti-cheating rules by sharing knowledge during tests through technology.
Cheating can have immediate and long-term repercussions for students, including decreased motivation to learn. Furthermore, cheating leads to lower quality work produced and unfair assessments for all involved parties involved. Therefore, effective strategies must be devised in order to prevent student dishonesty during exams.
One way of accomplishing this goal is to eliminate backtracking in your online exams, which will prevent test-takers from revisiting a previous question and allow them to provide the final answer directly. Another strategy would be using questions that require application rather than mere recall – for instance by asking higher level Bloom’s Taxonomy questions such as analyzing or evaluating.
Schedule online tests simultaneously for all test-takers to minimize chances of sharing answers or cheating during exams by sharing screen captures between them, or cheating by text messaging their answers during exams. An alternative approach for combatting cheating would be using a platform with live remote proctoring; such software can detect suspicious activities like opening another tab or using keyboard shortcuts and alert a live proctor immediately.
Instructors must remind their students about academic integrity policies by posting a video before an exam starts, to make sure all are aware of the consequences for cheating prior to taking it and potentially dissuading those contemplating cheating from even considering it. Furthermore, professors can require their students to electronically sign an academic integrity contract outlining such consequences; this can be accomplished using either the LMS tool itself or by assigning this as an assignment in their course syllabus.
3. Hide Questions
One of the primary ways students cheat at online exams is by accessing and sharing test questions from outside sources, such as homework help sites or social media platforms, then copy-pasting them directly into their exam papers. This issue can easily be remedied by hiding questions during an exam.
Students cheat in online tests by using additional devices to search for answers to questions. Students might use smart watches, Google glasses, and other devices to browse information online, or they might ask someone else to take the exam for them. A proctoring software which detects other devices as well as suspicious noises and unusual body language could prevent this problem from arising.
Countering this form of cheating requires employing live remote proctors during exam sessions to monitor student activities in real time and prevent unfair advantages being gained by students. Furthermore, browser lockdown software may restrict students from accessing certain websites and disable keyboard functions preventing shortcuts or programs being launched to search for information during an examination session.
Educational institutions can reduce cheating risks in online tests by randomizing questions and responses, making it harder for students to replicate similar problems and copy from each other. Finally, disabling backtracking features will force students to focus on one question at a time while answering it according to their knowledge of subject matter – this will prevent looking up answers online or discussing it with classmates during class time.
4. Require Students to Sign an Academic Integrity Contract
Cheating can have disastrous results in architecture and medicine, including poorly constructed buildings or permanent harm to patients. Cheating also poses a serious threat to students seeking to learn and excel in their studies but overwhelmed by pressure of online courses; for this reason instructors must ensure course policies are clearly communicated to avoid cheating occurring in their courses.
Requiring students to sign an academic integrity contract at the beginning of a quiz or exam can help set student expectations and set appropriate behavior. A further effective technique would be including non-credit questions that ask them to type the student honor code affirming that they will be honest; or to state their work is authentic – both measures help prevent students from looking up answers online before an exam.
Instructors should require their students to consent to having their computer scanned before returning it for regrading in order to ensure no work submitted for regrading was altered in any way. This can be accomplished using tools that scan documents and recognize suspicious patterns such as multiple tabs open, switching browsers or moving around the screen.
Instructors should draw from their teaching experience when it comes to recognizing academic dishonesty during an exam or assignment. One way of doing this might include creative reminders of academic integrity guidelines such as video footage of themselves discussing them before an exam begins, or reviewing the institution’s academic honesty policy and consequences listed in the course syllabus.
Though these methods aren’t 100% guaranteed to reduce cheating in online classrooms, implementing them can go a long way toward mitigating its incidence and helping students recognize when it happens – which may help deter future instances of dishonesty from happening again.
5. Require Students to Log Out
Cheating during exams can prevent students from acquiring the knowledge and skills needed for future careers, while also hindering them from accurately and fairly assessing themselves. Therefore, it is crucial that educators learn to identify how students cheat as well as methods they can employ to combat it.
Cheating can take many forms: one common technique involves accessing questions banks or answers during an exam and copying them; or depending on memory recall rather than understanding and mastery of material. Therefore, exams that assess deeper learning must include measures that measure deeper comprehension rather than simply memorizing facts for regurgitation during assessments.
Students often exploit online assessments by making use of their ability to use smartphones or search the internet during tests – making it easy for them to locate cheating websites or locate correct answers quickly and efficiently. By adding question blockers or anti-cheating tools such as Digify Document Security during online assessments, such activities will no longer take place during an evaluation.
Students caught cheating can face expulsion or be asked to retake assessments depending on the severity of their infraction, although implementing strategies which reduce cheating in advance would likely prove more helpful.
One simple method for accomplishing this is requiring students to log out before beginning online assessments. You can utilize your LMS’ free tool and have students sign an academic integrity contract before beginning assessments; this should include information on your university’s academic integrity policy as well as remind them what constitutes cheating. However, while it is impossible to stop all forms of cheating at once; students will find ways around these measures. Therefore, using multiple strategies at the same time to monitor student progress during online assessments will provide the most effective strategy.