We educators are already finding that technology makes the unending war against cheating more difficult. Some of my colleagues have already caught students trying to use various electronic devices to communicate with others or access the internet during tests.
The progress of technology is inevitable. Devices will become smaller and more commonplace. It’s reasonable to suppose that in a decade or two, we’ll start seeing electronic devices permanently attached to the body or built into clothing. For instance, we may see something the size of a hearing aid that fits in the ear and allows for audio communication. Once we reach this level, it will be impossible for a teacher to police for cheating in a room full of test-takers.
We cannot rely on students’ ethics to keep cheating at a relatively low level. Survey indicate that a sizeable majority of students already cheat at least some of the time.
We may respond by writing tests that challenge a student’s problem-solving ability, in which case merely having access to information isn’t so useful. But obviously this works well for some topics, like math, but not so well for others. Anatomy, for instance, is all about memorizing a ton of information. As all that information is surely available online somewhere, cheating will be trivial for any students who can access the internet during a test.
So what do you say? Is the end of fair testing nigh?
In some ways it makes cheating a little harder. Every semester I’ve been in a comp class has seen someone busted for plagiarizing, in part because instructors could compare papers to various sources on an online database. You’re right, that it can be a problem, and every instructor I know says you automatically fail a test if you’re seen using any kind of electronic device.
I noticed that as well. A large number of students deemed it appropriate to translate someone elses work without giving them credit.
I’ll have to wait and see. I’m sure administrators and teachers will be playing catch up but I’m not convinced that it will be impossible to prevent cheating.
As you started saying yourself, if technology makes cheating unstoppable, then testing needs to make useless. I have always been all for open book tests. Your are very right that some areas make this more difficult than others. I am sure that interested teachers will eventually find a way.
And there is also the fact that the problem is amplified now by a technological gap between teachers and students. Soon enough, though, these students will be teachers themselves and will have the know-how to sniff and stop high-tech cheating.
think a paradigm shift in testing is likely. A test is really valuable when it simulates real world situations the student may face in the future as a professional. In these situations the internet and all its advantages (and possibilities of cheating) would be available to the professional, and so should be available to the student. Instead deadlines and use of specified computing resources should be used to limit the students capacity for cheating. All projects would need to be written on college computers, within short timescales, and with all computer activity recorded. it would then become much harder for a would be cheat to have the work done by someone else, or to krib the work off another source.
The idea that memorising facts is part of education will become obsolete, knowing
x=-b +/- (b^2 -4ac)^0.5 / 2a
is pointless, since it can be easily looked up at any time. Instead of learning facts, students should learn methods and clear concise thinking strategies. Both of these are far less liable to cheating than mere facts.
Finally after each large important test, there should be a minor in-class test for all students where they are required to explain a particular part of their test answers. Maybe summarise their test paper in one page, or explain one key point. whatever this in-class test is it shouldn’t be predictable, and should help weed out students who didn’t do their own work in the main test.
Pretty much what Bippy said…I think the rote memorization of facts strategy of ‘teaching’ is what lends itself to being ‘cheated’ against. Q.E.D. drop the stupid rote memorization of facts as important in the teaching/testing process. Whats the point anymore when anyone can access the internet and do a brief search…even with their phone? Perhaps what needs to change is our education system to keep up with our technology…maybe learning would be interesting and fun for the students again, instead of basically a grind. I know in MY day I resented the rote memorization strategy of teaching and that it was a huge grind to get through it…today its several times more a pain in the ass and a downer for students. IMHO anyway, having several kids ranging in age from 6 to 16 (well, I have a few outside of those ranges too, but they aren’t in school :)).
Plagiarism on written work: Taken care of by sites such as turnitin.com. I use this with my grad students.
Looking over shoulders - online tests where the question order is scrambled (my #3 is your #10). Use this for your necessary memorization.
True mastery - in class presentations, and short answer essay questions with open note & open book.
Modern tech will require that instructors shift how they test, and I think that the percent cheating will be the same as before (with a slight shift as our culture allows).
Cost may be an issue, but wouldn’t one of those airport screening wand thingies pretty much eliminate sneaking an internet capable device into the test room?
I agree with those who say that education standards will definitely have to adapt to the everpresence of information networks, and that that will be a good thing.
But there are easy ways to keep students from connecting to the internet while in class: a Faraday cage built into the walls of the classroom will keep them from communicating with anyone outside the room. A wireless sniffer/jammer inside the room should keep anyone from communicating locally.
I like the essay method, but there’s a problem which comes along with it: a distrubingly large number of students couldn’t write a coherent sentence to save their lives.
One of my husband’s students last quarter recieved a dismal grade on a short paper assignment. Hubby talked to the student and found that she had a really good understanding of the concepts introduced in class and could discuss them intelligently, but she just couldn’t *write *them.
I’ve taken open-book tests that were designed to penalize anyone who didn’t know the material. If you had to lookup more than a few items, you ran out of time.
While you couldn’t setup every room on a campus like that, there could be specially designated rooms (an entire building, even?) that are setup for this purpose.
I agree with what Bippy the Beardless and **xtisme ** said. I’ve held the view since I was a kid that if a test can’t handle you having access to reference materials then it isn’t a very useful test for most subjects. In the real world I can use manuals or search the net or take notes or ask someone else. Besides being impractical, it also slants things artificially towards people with a certain array of talents, such as a good memory for rote material. In a rote facts test, someone with a good memory for rote facts will do well, while someone who understands the subject broadly but needs to look up the occasional detail will do badly.
No offense, Bippy, but this is nigh-impossible and just asking for trouble. Just try and record the computer activities of 20,000 students logging on to any campus computer, at any time, and then try telling them that they can’t do any schoolwork away from it.
Simply put, you won’t have a processing problem very long. No one will go to that university very long.
College is for adults. The more you treat them like children, the more they’ll act like children.
Which raises the question - should she have even been allowed in the class? How did she get to that level withOUT being able to write a coherent sentence?
I see the same regularly - students who can NOT write. I wonder what they were taught back in high school, junior high, etc. Do they still diagram sentences? Are essays assigned?
This is a problem. People need to learn to write better. I find that this is my biggest problem in my career as an engineer.
This person needs to learn how to write things well. It is one of the essential real world skills and you do your students a disservice in accommodating their writing problems.
Many professors/instructors are faced with a quandry. If they fail everyone who derves it, a good portion of their class will fail and the university will get upset. Again, it’s not that these particular students don’t know the information, it’s that they simply lack the ability to convey it in a particular fashion. I’m not saying this is a good thing by any means, but an instructor who fails a lot of students is sometimes blamed themselves. “If so many students are failing, it must be because you’re a poor instructor!”
And, unfortunately, some universities have become more fixated on the buisness aspects of education, meaning that they want to keep the student enrolled even if they’re really not prepared for college-level work. Most places who have this sort of outlook don’t openly discourage their professors/instructors from failing students, but there is a subtle pressure to keep the pass rate above a certain level.
I understand your point about doing them a disservice and idealistically, I agree with you, but practically, I don’t see how to change an issue which has become systemic.
There are many, many students graduating from high school without being able to write coherent sentences. Maybe that’s where the problem truly lies, though I’d venture to say it goes back farther than that. Anyway, when they arrive in a college like the one I work for, they take a placement essay test. Then we place them as accurately as we can. Other students are international and have different skill levels in regard to writing. Some will attempt to go to regular English right after ESL even when they’re not ready, because they just don’t want to take the time to do it right. And so on.
I doubt very much that sentence diagramming takes place any more. I wish it did. I’ve had plenty of native speaker students who didn’t know the damn difference between one part of speech and another. **Note: If I am wrong about what is taught in high school, somebody please jump in here and correct me. I have never taught K-12. All I know is what I’m seeing at the college level.