Cheating is so destructive to the whole educational process and therefore it must be punished severely once the perpetrator(s) is/are caught. A "professional" cheating student has betrayed himself/herself, the family, the country, and the whole world.
When I went to study in Great Britain in the late 1970s/early 1980s, I found out that a university punishes a caught cheater by total dismissal from the university & the cheater is not allowed to join any other U.K. university later on. I admired that strict law since the dishonest deserved that destiny & the society will be harmed a lot if a deceitful person is allowed to continue . It is unfair to see "devils" climbing the ladder thereby causing more harm to human beings.
In terms of tests or exams, it is quite common to see students cheating in various ways. The five major forms, as per my research and teaching experience include:
• Using crib notes, or cheat sheets on a test or an exam
• Copying from another student during a test or exam
• Helping someone else to cheat on a test or an exam
• Whispering the answers on a test or an exam to another classmate, and
• Cheating on a test or an exam by illegally obtaining a copy of it before the test or exam.
As far as technologies are concerned, the two common forms include using a cell phone to cheat and text messaging answers to another classmate.
Our students try to do previous "intelligence" on professors, aided by students that have previously taken exams. With some professors this approach works.
If you do not think this is cheating, think again. This knowledge is shared in the web.. for a price, and you can have price catalogs for the subjects of whole educational programs. And @Ingrid, there are also price catalogs for e-learning activities. If there is demand, there are people with entrepreneurial skills willing to fulfill it.
At a western Asian university, a student was caught cheating by exchanging his exam paper with a classmate so as the mate answers the questions for him.
The 2 students were reported to the administration so as a punishment is executed involving dismissing both for one scholastic year (or two semesters) plus giving them zero for that exam. A gang intervened to return the 2 students after their absence for one month so as the people forget. Luckily enough, the lecturer (who caught them) was not penalized !
At that university, lecturers found out that their offices were opened & searched when they were away at the end of each semester just before the final exams.
When one hears & sees these stories, the whole educational system becomes a suspicious case of corruption.
I get furious, when I catch students to cheat with cell phones - they simply make pictures of other student´s notes and look at them while taking exam. This is the most popular way nowadays. Also, they sometimes look for answers on google, but I give them short tests, so that they do not have time to do this.
Less popular, but still frequent is writing paper slips. Students are very creative with these - they have various forms starting with simple If a student writes one of these (the old-fashion way), at least he puts an effort in preparation. Also, it depends on what is on the slip - if I find only acronyms for some classifications or beginnings of definitions or something like that, it is obvious, that the student studied, but needs some "help" (I believe if he had an oral exam, he would have been able to produce answers without cheating, but in written tests he might not be so flexible or swift).
The cheating also happens during students´ interaction during exams. This is also quite popular, but I avoid it by seating students far from each other - so that they cannot see other students writing or hear his whispering (without me hearing it as well). Also I prepare various versions of the tests. If a student tries to copy someones work, I give them both the test again - orally to see who the cheater is. Sometimes one student "helps" the others in order to keep or form friendships, gain popularity, become favorite among others. I try to have one-to-one discussion afterwards with each student involved in cheating to find out the reasons and find solutions (many times is enough to have a "serious talk").
I am not saying that it is acceptable to cheat, but I try to see the reasons for it.
It is important not only to find out about it, but also to prevent it to happen again.
Maria
Many interesting links for practical cheating advice you can find on YouTube:
I prepared 3 forms of the same test with very minor differences, that are difficult to notice, between them. I did not write Form A, Form B, and Form C on top.
Upon invigilating the exam, my advice to the students was to be honest & to not cheat for their own personal benefit. Students thought of that as "the usual preach". I also watched them very well.
A student, who thought of himself as a "smart guy", copied all the multiple choice answers from his "hard working" neighbor in a very sneaky way .
When I corrected the exam, this student got ZERO out of 20. I wrote this note on his exam paper : All Your Answers are Correct BUT According to a Different Form from Yours !!
I basically agree with dear Ingrid. I want to share with you a story related to this topic. One of my professors wanted to stop students from cheating. He prepared two different kinds of questions. The first exam was absolutely standard and one of the questions in the book. The second one offered the same questions but the numbers of the questions were changed. I was a member of the second group. Let's see what happened!
We had to check numbers in some thermodynamic tables and they were not there!!!!! imagine in that short time the second group had to extrapolation for each step!! and the steps were many. Also, the numbers were awful and equations were really complicated and no one could use calculator! And I could see the students of the first group are giving the answers written on the pieces of papers!!!
Therefore the average score of all of the students in second group was 30/100 and the first group was 95/100. I spoke about this problem with my professor but he did not accept to check us again!!!!
It is not absolutely fair! I think you have to test your students many times in different exams not with one paper-based exam!!
I recommend that you read this open free book "Guiding students away from plagiarism": https://www.kth.se/polopoly_fs/1.656375.1550157133!/Guidingstudents%20away%20from%20plagarism.pdf
Read carefully the this chapter: CHAPTER TWO / STRATEGIES TO DESIGN PROGRAMMES AND COURSES THAT PREVENT PLAGIARISM
Using digital exam, e-exam is a good way to help the student with examination methods that is harder for them to solve with cheating...recommend this web site for using e-exam (You can use google translate for read the text...et cetera) Go to: https://wiki.sunet.se/display/Inkubator/Digital+Tentamen+II
I remain.
/Mats Brenner, Learning Center - University of Gävle in Sweden
On written exams, they use the cheat sheets, ie specially for a specific exam prepared physically miniaturized and hidden somewhere in clothing, for example, notes.
Monash University is rolling out an e-exam platform. Use of lockdown browser, we provide laptops in an invigilated environment. Student sign on with ID and student number, no phones, no watches etc.
Crumpled paper...better students write the answers on a small sheet of paper specially on multiple choice type of test, crumple it and throw to the intended recipient if the teacher is not looking...
I've seen smart phone usage, cheat sheets and copying off of their neighbor. I give them a warning if I see copying, and give them a zero if I find a cheat sheet or any smartphone usage.
This happened many, many years ago when I was a new teacher. I had 6 classes with 40/class. Nizar's way was what I did, the items were the same but the numbering was different for each class and for all classes, no two sections have the same order of test papers. After the test, the students exchanged papers and did the checking. A few students were mad at the sight of their zero scores until I said, look at the test papers and the answers before saying anything against your classmates... and all did... the class reacted, many were jubilant and gave a thumbs up sign, or a nod, or a wink of approval...the zero scorers improved their ratings.
Electronic devices such as smart phones and smart watches are very popular to deceive the teacher during an exam, the sheets written with almost invisible pencil are widely used in tests on paper. I share an interesting link: https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/112738?show=full
Using smartphones to take pictures of the questions and sharing them with an outside person, who then verbally walks the test taker through the questions via wireless earbuds.
Most of the students used small piece of paper. Initially, when cell phone was introduced, students were writing SMS and were sharing also. After that blue tooth was also tried. As no network was required, Blue tooth was very cost effective mean of cheating. But this technology was used for a very short period. When teachers came to know, they totally banned the use of cell phone inside the examination halls. Therefore, they are back to old cheating material.
We have introduced e-assessments for summative exams. We provide all the laptops (1500) with a lock-down browser / photo ID. Multiple cameras watch from various angles. Yes the odd mobile phone is sneaked in to photo questions / send and receive answers from outside (we know as they were caught). Invigilators can spot body language when someone is doing 'something' different to others. No bits of paper are allowed. Worksheets provided. Next steps will be to provide access to white listings to expand the types of questions being offered.