how to prevent cheating in e-assessments

How to prevent cheating

in e-assessments

September 2021

بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم

Aeen mohammadi MD MPH PhD

Department of e-Learning in Medical Education, Virtual School,

Tehran University of Medical Sciences

[email protected]

Plagiarism

Plagiarism

❖The Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

– to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own

– to use (another's production) without crediting the source

– to commit literary theft

– to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an

existing source.

Cheating

Cheating: An old problem

❖ Davis et al., (1992):

Between 40% and 60% of their student respondents said they

cheated on at least 1 examination.

❖ Kleiner and Lord (1999):

95% of those who cheated said they were never caught


The Times:Saturday January 02 2016,

50,000 students at British

universities have been caught

because of cheating over the past

three years.


BBC NEWS:21 March 2015

India arrests hundreds

over Bihar school

cheatingParents and friends of students were photographed climbing school walls to pass on answers.


Chinese school stops

exam cheating by using

a newspaper 'device‘

JANUARY 03, 2017https://www.asiaone.com/asia/chinese-school-

stops-exam-cheating-using-newspaper-device

Cheating: Attitudes

❖ In a study on dishonesty, both students and faculties believe it is easier

to cheat in a distance learning class.

❖ 75% of college students admitted cheating, and 90% of college students

didn't believe cheaters would be caught.

❖ 75% - 98% of college students who confessed to cheating reported that

they set such a personal standard in high school.

❖ 51% of high school students did not believe cheating was wrong.

❖ As the number of distance learning classes increases so will academic

dishonesty (Kennedy et.al, 2000).

https://oedb.org/ilibrarian/8-astonishing-stats-on-academic-cheating/

Cheating: Motivating Factors Percentage

a. Academic overload 90 %

b. Exams focus on memory rather than comprehension 80 %

c. Students are not prepared for the examination 64 %

d. Lack of self-confidence that they can pass 46 %

e. Students like cheating 28 %

f. Students believe everyone cheats 18 %

g. Low instructor vigilance 17 %

h. Narrowly spaced exam seating 14 %

The problem is not the student.It is the teacher, the curriculum,

and the system

Abdelhak HAMMOUDI

How to cheat?

How to cheat?

❖ Text each other the answers

Using smart phones

How to cheat?

❖ Look over their notes

Referring to a textbook

How to cheat?

❖ Asking some else to take the test

How to cheat?

❖ Searching the web for answers

How to cheat?

❖ Collaborative problem solving!!!

Taking help from a friend

How to cheat?

❖ Answers from someone who already took the test

Why cheating?

Cheating: Why?

❖ Fear of failure and making the grade

❖ It’s easy

❖ Peer pressure

❖ Cultural differences

❖ Sloppiness and poor planning

❖ Unclear expectations

❖ Time management issue

❖ Faculty contribute to cheating …

Turnitin.com

10s of thousands $ question:

❖ How can distance learning be administered to:

1. Identify, authenticate, and monitor learners;

2. Minimize cheating;

3. Maintain academic integrity

How to prevent?

Multiple Layers approach:

❖ Course Management– Syllabus

– Course presentation and design

– Instructor/Student relationship

❖ Assessment– Monitoring student activity

– Promoting good student-instructor Communication

(Barbara Christe 2003)

❖ Define academically inappropriate behavior

❖ Discuss the future purpose to the course

❖ Identify institutional policies for dishonest behavior

❖ Identify reasons not to be dishonest

Syllabus Design

Faculty roles in students’ cheating:

❖ Students rarely get caught

❖ Faculty fail to follow through when cheating is observed

❖ Fear of lawsuits

❖ Time involved in pursuing cheating incidence

Course Management

Dear teachtator,Yes, I know you are bored to death by academic dishonesty. YOU arecomplaining about my cheating on exams. YOU are working hard toprevent me from cheating. YOU can’t do it, simply because YOU arethe source of cheating. Remember, Cheating is unstoppable. It endsonly when YOU end..... Check, ‘’Cheat and Teach’’ are one sameword. ,,, same letters.... and a same meaning……

A letter from a student to the teacher

Abdelhak HAMMOUDI

YOUR examinations are boring and painful. They causedmy breakdowns...No one can help. Cheating is my saver,my aspirin, the killer of the pain.

A letter from a student to the teacher

Teacher, YOU should remember that cheating is an art and a skill. It is not an easy task. It is a war job. Students use it as a response to a threat and they have the right to defend themselves. And the threat is YOU. Remove this threat and students will stop cheating. Abdelhak HAMMOUDI

Build a relationship

❖ Get to know your students

❖ The greater communication between you and students

help to decrease the motivation to cheat

❖ Students were less likely to cheat if they respected and

felt respected by the teachers

Course Management

Build a relationship

❖ Discuss academic integrity

❖ Ask students for examples of

cheating and how it impacts

the course

❖ Clear examples of what IS

and is NOT acceptable

Course Management

Assessment

F2F e-Learning

What kind of e-Learning?

Syn.Asyn.

Blended

(64 institute with 400 000 students of State University of NY)

❖ Discussion, papers, other written assignments, projects,

quizzes and tests, and group work.

❖ Almost ¾ of the courses used online discussion as a graded

activity.

❖ ½ of the courses used written assignments and tests or

quizzes. Swan. Distance Education, 22(2), 306-331

Assessment

The sampled courses purposely constituted a mix of academic programs:

❖ Online discussion, exams, written assignments, experimental

assignments, problem assignments, quizzes, journals,

projects, and presentations.

❖ Quizzes and tests were used in 83% of the courses and

written assignments in 63%.

Arend. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(4), 3-13

Assessment

Effective assessment techniques include:

❖ Projects,

❖ Portfolios,

❖ Self-assessments,

❖ Peer evaluations,

❖ Peer evaluations with feedback,

❖ Timed tests and quizzes, and

❖ Asynchronous discussion.

Gaytan and McEwen. American Journal of Distance Education, 21(3), 117-132

Assessment

1) Written assignment: research papers, case study responses,

short essays;

2) Online discussion: any asynchronous discussion activity

(discussion board, blog, or wiki);

3) Fieldwork: collecting field data and write up some kind of report;

4) Test/quiz/exam: multiple-choice or short answer questions;

5) Presentation: student presentations

Types and distribution of assessments

How to minimize cheating

Developing

higher bloom’s

taxonomy

questions


Using multiple set of

questions at same level of

difficulty


Shuffling questions

and items


Limiting exam time


Using open book

questions, and

analytical questions


Using random oral

exam


✓ Never depend on one type of assessment

✓ Multiple forms create a more in depth picture of the students

✓ Make it harder to cheat throughout the course

✓ Use written assignments that require synthesis of material

from the entire semester, divide the assignment into phases

and have students submit interim deliverables for feedback.

Exam proctoring

Exam proctoring is a method of ensuring academic

integrity. It includes invigilation of students, while taking

tests, examinations, or quizzes.

Exam proctoring

1. Live Online Proctoring

In a live proctored test, a qualified proctor monitors the

candidates, audio-video and screen share feeds in real time.

The proctor has been trained to ensure student authentication and

prevent/red flag any form of cheating.

Main types of proctoring:

A trained proctor can monitor up to 20 candidates at a time.

1. Live Online Proctoring

Advantage:

Removes the location constraint of proctoring.

Disadvantage:

Requires the exams to be scheduled

Is not very scalable

Is the most expensive of all the types


Remote proctoring for online exams

www.eklavvya.in

2. Recorded Proctoring

In this method, no proctor is monitoring the feed in real time. Instead,

the audio-video and screen share feeds of the test candidates

are recorded during the test.

A representative plays back these recordings in a fast-forwarded

way and red-flags any suspicious activity through annotations.


2. Recorded Proctoring

Advantage:

It eliminates both schedule and location constraints.

Disadvantage:

It still requires humans to do the review and hence it is not very

scalable and is still expensive.


3. Advanced Automated Proctoring

➢The most advanced form

➢Events are recorded during the test

➢System monitors the feeds for any

suspicious activity

➢Using advanced analytics


• It ensures the candidate focuses on the test screen

during the test.

• There is enough light in the room and checks

for suspicious objects in video and background

voice activity to red flag the test.

• It also uses face recognition to do student

authentication.


Advanced Automated Proctoring

Advantages:

• Eliminates both schedule and location constraints

• Doesn't require humans to do the review

• It is scalable and is more cost effective


Factors driving the growth of Online Proctoring?

1. Growth of e-learning

2. Elimination of high costs of proctored assessment centers

3. Save learners' time and money

4. Not enough infrastructure or computer labs to administer exam

condition environments

5. Increasing focus on work-based apprenticeships and the alignment of

learning and assessments to actual organizational needs

➢Dr. A. Hamoudi slide sets. [email protected]. 2017.

➢ How to Reduce Cheating in Online Courses. Yeshiva University. Evan Silberman, Leonard Presby.

➢ Cramp, J., Medlin, J. F., Lake, P., & Sharp, C. (2019). Lessons learned from implementing remotely invigilated online

exams. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 16(1). Retrieved from https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol16/iss1/10

➢ Perry C. Francis. Cheating in an online environment. Eatern Michigan University

➢ González-González, Carina S.; Infante-Moro, Alfonso; Infante-Moro, Juan C. (2020-04-24). "Implementation of E-Proctoring in

Online Teaching: A Study about Motivational Factors". Sustainability. 12 (8): 3488. doi:10.3390/su12083488. ISSN 2071-1050

➢Proctored vs non-proctored exams. (2021). ). Retrieved from: https://www.onlineexambuilder.com/knowledge-center/exam-

knowledge-center/proctored-exam-meaning/item12515

➢Eliminate top 6 challenges of Offline exam with Remote Proctored Exams (2020). Retrieved from:

https://onlineexamhelp.eklavvya.in/remote-proctored-exams/

➢Flower Darby. 7 Ways to Assess Students Online and Minimize Cheating. (2020). Retrieved from: https://www.al-

fanarmedia.org/2020/10/7-ways-to-assess-students-online-and-minimize-cheating

References:

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