Phase 1 Step 3

PHASE 1 STEP 3 - SEARCH AND MANAGE FOR INFORMATION AND FIND THE SOLUTION


TOPIC: Cheating in Online Examinations Among University Students




Literature review

Person in charge 1: Man Jun Poh (KA20124)
References: 


          From the article above, all the implementation guidelines have been prepared by University Malaysia Pahang authorities during online final examination to prevent cheating cases. The main objectives of the guidelines are to ensure the final examination can be systematically and smoothly managed, guide course lecturers in conducting online final examinations as well as instil integrity in taking online final examinations among students.

Based on the suggestion they provided, if the final examination is conducted synchronously, the use of applications such as Zoom, Webex, Google Meet, Skype, and others are recommended to facilitate course lecturers to supervise the final examination in real-time. Indeed, supervision of online exams by lecture way is one of the effective methods to prevent cheating cases.

Other than that, in order to avoid academic dishonesty during the administration of the final examination, lecturers are advised to create open-book questions, scenario-based questions, case studies, applied research, and others that are deemed suitable to test students’ higher-order thinking skills. In this way, candidates cannot find any solution from any search engine and they have to solve the questions themselves.

Moreover, the final examination questions must be prepared in at least two (2) different sets and undergo vetting processes at the Faculty level in accordance with the existing procedures. Questions can be arranged randomly and each student will receive different sets of questions. Therefore, students have no chance to cheat and share the answers via social media with each other since the test questions differ from each other.

Finally, each course lecturer must use the Student Integrity Declaration Form (Refer to Photo 4) which stated that the answers provided by students are the results of their own efforts and are not plagiarized from friends or any other sources. Whenever they are caught have misconduct during online exams, 0 marks will be given without giving them chance to explain about them.

Photo 4: Student Integrity Declaration Form

My Suggestion

1) Supervision of online exams by lectures / online proctoring by lecturers
2) Setting of vary set of questions 
3) Using online examination system, such as exam.net


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Person in charge 2: Fatin Najihah Bint Md Ridzuan (KA20133)
References: 

From the article, there is a certain discussion that involves the online course where it designs by placing the focuses on academic integrity, plagiarism and other cheating issues. As we knew the online environment had different methods of cheating from traditional classes that face-to-face. With the freedom to access the social communication devices, the student can freely work together during exam conducted as the examiner did not know how the other side from their computer content to the environment. This shown that online examination needs a high-stake assessment in order to control the cheating problem by designing a new set of solutions that can help to determine how and why students take this action.

This article gives several behaviors of cheating that resolve among the student during the online examination. There are some students used the online platform like Google Docs and also Chegg, where they will post any question from the test to get the instant feedback or solution. Especially, when these questions had repeated and already been used before the test, they can just purchase or download the answer immediately. Besides that, as the online examination need the student to always be connected to the internet during the exam, it will make them attempting to search for the answer every time they met a dead-end.

There are a certain group of students that work together during the online examination through social media, where they will share the questions and discuss the answer between them. And one more thing is the student that usually prowess with cheating will adapt to current technologies and evolve their methods over time.

        So there are several solutions that can be extracted from the article to overcome the cheating behavior during the online examination:

1) Proctoring, which by control the exam environment
2) Software control of the environment (eg: Respondus Browser application), which can avoid the student from surfing the internet
3) Algorithmic test bank (eg: McGraw-Hill’s Connect software)
4) Short-answer, essay or other form tests


My Suggestion

1) Using the camera and online or live platform  (eg: GoogleMeet, Microsoft Teams) to monitor the student
2) Examiner share the questions of the exam in the online and live platform and not in a document
3) Release the question one by one for certain times


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Person in charge 3: Muhammad Aliff Haqimee Bin Md Yusof (KA20123)
References:

Based on the article, a few factors that influences students to cheat or do the plagiarism is:
1. Internet sources

            In this era, the internet has many benefits which can improve the quality of education in many ways. The Internet opens the doorways to a wealth of information, educational resources, knowledge, and increasing the opportunities for learning. Though the internet has many benefits, still there are a few students that misuse the internet for their benefit which uses the internet for cheating in the online exam. Since the internet grants easy access to a limitless amount of knowledge and information, this will provide another opportunity for students to copy and paste the information on the answer sheet during the online examination.
2. Ambition
            We found out that the student with higher goals and ambition mostly has high tendency to engage in cheating behavior or actions than the students who are eager to excel in their respective subjects. That’s mean, there was some student will lead to cheating during the online exam because of the eagerness and pressure to succeed and to attaining their own goals.

There are strategies that can be used to reduce the level of cheating or plagiarism in an online examination which does not allow students to have so much time. This is because the exam should be allowed only enough time for students to answer the question, so that, the student did not have time to look up the answer for the question.

Other than that, the lecturer should do not allow the function of backtracking. This is because we need to make sure that the student cannot quickly go through the exam question and then go back to the first question to find all the answers using the internet, or other resources.

Next, instead of doing writing online exams, the lecturer also can do a live session spoken response test in which the lecturer could ask their students about some questions and they need to answer them verbally. This techniques to assess speaking proficiency and it will be a challenging task for the student since they cant to cheat and they need to respond the question immediately during the live session.


My Suggestion

1) Making live session using Gmeet or zoom during online exam
2) Do not have online exam. Instead have weekly assignment and quiz
3) Lecturer create their own question which expects student to apply, analyze and evaluate the information instead of simply recalling the fact


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Person in charge 4: Yong Chen Yee (KA20109)
References:

        From the article above, the online examination is convenient for educational institutions because the online exam can be held at anytime and anywhere if the students have devices with an internet connection. It makes the exam flexible compared to in-person exams. It is also easier and cheaper. The instructors do not need to prepare and give the paper to the students. However, there is a phenomenon that took place – cheating.

        The exam is to evaluate the student’s ability to master the knowledge they learned. Cheating will lead to inaccuracy of evaluation of their learning progress.

        Technology has improved day by day. Students have more clever ways to cheat with the aid of technology. Firstly, students can share their screen with others. By using software like Team Viewer, the third party can access and control the student’s computer. It means that the third party can even do the exam on behalf of the student.

        Secondly, using electronic devices such as smartphones and smartwatches. Supervision via webcam during online examination is not effective. The limited visual angle makes the usage of electronic devices hard to detect. The students can keep their notes and answer the questions by using mobile apps. They can open the slides during the online exam to find the answer. Students can also post the questions to the educational apps, Brainly, for example, and get the real-person answers. The apps like Cymath help students to solve mathematical problems.

        Then, faking identities to take the exam. Authorization of the students is hard during the online exam. The third party can impersonate the students by showing the rigged identifications like fake driving license, identity card and student card.

        The most common solution to minimize cheating during online exams is using proctoring software. It designs with the features such as ID verification, automated monitoring, and computer lockdown. However, it is technically complex and high cost. Hence, some educational institutions choose to supervise the students via webcam throughout the exam.

        In short, the lack of in-person supervision and technology ease students' cheat during online exams. Knowing how the students cheat is crucial to identify a suitable solution.

 

My Suggestion

1) Using proctoring software, with the feature of eye movement tracking, etc.
2) Supervision via webcam.
3) Require students to record the device screen throughout the exam.
4) Using two devices, one for students to read the paper, another is for supervision via webcam from side to provide a wide-angle.
5) Regional testing centers.
6) Open-book test.
7) Original higher order thinking skills question pools.
8) Intentionally post the questions and submit the answers on homework helper services like Chegg.com before the exam.
9) Multiple choice questions + randomize the question pools + remains the difficulty level.
10) Compare the average marks with past years.


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Person in charge 5: Nur Mawaddah Alia Binti Alias (KH20029)
Reference:

Based on the article, there are several factors that influence some of the students to perform academic dishonesty or cheating in academic which is:

1)       Poor time management: Students in their early years of college, many students have difficulties managing their time successfully. Because of this, they may put off studying or working on assignments until it is too late for them to do a satisfactory job. Cheating then appears attractive as a way to avoid failure.

2)        Academic pressure: Sometimes some student wants to maintain GPA from the previous semester in order to keep stay in the hostel, to participate in athletic or even to gain financial aid from the scholarship. Academic pressure can force them to turn to dishonest methods to surpass their classmates.

3)      Anonymity: In a large class, sometimes some lecturer doesn’t notice some student existence or unconcerned with their performances. This can increase the temptation to cheat by assuming that the instructor won’t notice what they do.

4)       Failure to understand academic syllabus: Some students are slow learners or didn’t focus in class. This will affect their understanding of the syllabus. It will cause them to cheat in exams or assignments in order to gain high marks.


My Suggestion

1) Change paper topics from year to year to avoid plagiarism.
2) Instead of use theory questions, lecturer can create a Higher Order Thinking Skills(HOTS) question on students to test their understanding.

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Person in charge 6: Syed Muhammad Faizal Bin Syed Mahadzar (MA20098)
References:
https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/educational-assessment/fourteen-simple-strategies-to-reduce-cheating-on-online-examinations/

 

From the article above, 30% of college students taking online courses and that number expeditiously increasing. So, administering exams within the online learning environment will be needed.  Many instructors are hesitant to include exams within their online courses because of the potential of compromising academic integrity. Using virtual live proctoring technologies may be a good solution but the price is too expensive and not part of the instructor’s institution’s distance education infrastructure. Even without expensive virtual proctoring tools, there are many ways that instructors can do to decrease cheating during online examinations.

First, create questions that require higher-order thinking. Instead of having students respond to questions that can be answered by a simple web search or even by finding the answers in their textbooks. Instructors can create questions that are on the analysis, synthesis, and evaluation levels. It will be more challenging to ask a friend or “Google” the answer when the questions require students to explain, analyze, infer, create, compose, evaluate, and authentically demonstrate their mastery of course content.

Secondly, use varied question types. Instructors should avoid doing multiple choice or true and false questions and include open-ended questions. By making varied question types, It is more difficult for students to give the same response as their friends verbatim for open-ended questions, and students would be forced to explain their responses using specific details and supporting narratives that are unique to their own understanding of the course materials. 

Thirdly, creatively remind students of academic integrity policies. For this solution, Instructors can remind them by post a video explaining the guidelines for the online exam and review the institution’s academic integrity policy and consequences that are listed in the course syllabus. There may be some psychological impact on students after seeing and hearing their instructor discuss academic integrity right before an exam begins, which may deter students who were thinking about cheating.

Lastly, Instructors can order students to sign an academic integrity contract. After reviewing the academic integrity reminder video, have students electronically sign a contract that lists what the university considers cheating. Include a link to the university website that houses the academic integrity policy and requires a signed contract prior to beginning the exam. With this contract, Instructors have the right to punish students if they still do not follow the contract’s rules.

 

My Suggestion

1) Create questions that required higher-order thinking.
2) Order students to sign an academic integrity contract.







List of solutions

After collecting all of the ideas from all of our group members, we have eventually figured out 5 main solutions that are more effective to overcome this issue. Below are the 5 solutions we choose: 


1.     Online proctoring

      The lecturers will be responsible to supervise the students throughout the examination from the moment the questions are being released. The lecturers will launch an online meeting to conduct the online proctored exams using video-communication platforms such as Google Meet and Zoom. Generally, the meeting will be recorded as further reference and integrity evidence. Each candidates’ actions will be supervised from time to time to make sure that no cheating cases happen during the online examination.

 

2.     Using online examination system, such as exam.net

      Exam.net supplement the hard cheat protection (hindering the students to start the exam) with some underlying controls and logs for detection of cheats with software, split-screens, the integrity of variables, events, source code, settings or use of virtual machines and remote desktop solutions. This means that during and after an exam, Exam.net is able to inform the lecturer about suspected cheating. The lecturer can then, for example, do a manual check of the student's computer, view logged suspicious events and see how the student's answers have emerged. The teacher may also do a plagiarism control of the students' texts.

 

3.     Preparing different sets of questions

      While preparing the tests, the lecturer needs to be creative and innovative which they need to randomized the question of the test paper to make sure that each of the students will get different sets of questions. By randomizing the question paper, the student is not likely to get the same question and get the same sequences of questions with their friends. Hence, the chances of cheating in online exams will be lower as they cannot seek the same answer from each other via the social media.

 

4.     Open-book test but with higher order thinking skill (HOTS) questions

      Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) questions require students’ critical thinking skills from learning outcomes. HOTS include analyzing, reasoning, comprehending and evaluation. An Open-book test will allow candidates to bring in a set of notes, textbooks. The open book tests work only when the answers cannot be readily extracted from the book (or other resources), but only from the synthesis of all of the knowledge within. There must be no single "right answer", but a range of possibilities requiring creativity for the answer of HOTS questions. Thus, every student should be able to produce their own unique answer.

 

5.     Release exam questions one by one

      Exam questions will be released one by one in order to prevent candidates to upload their test questions and ask the answer from the experts on Chegg.com. Experts have to take time to solve the test questions and hence the candidates are not able to copy the answer from the experts on Chegg.com in the limited and allocated answering time. By controlling the answering time and submission time, it will give students less time to increase the value of time, making it more costly to cheat during the online exam comparing to solve the exam questions by themselves.


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