Here’s What’s Wrong With Online Tests
The huge problem with the closed-note test
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I just took a difficult midterm for my Intel Assembly Language class. It covered four chapters of the textbook and had a string of challenging coding questions which were less about problem-solving and more about memorization and hexadecimal arithmetic skill. I scored an 88%. Not my best but there’s nothing wrong with that score.
I’m proud not to have succumbed to temptations in the forms of the Google search bar and the eTextbook which were just one click away the whole time. While I would take the test the same way over again, I also know that many of my classmates are likely to have opted into the easier and less honest strategy of googling answers.
It seems deeply wrong that while I probably have studied more thoroughly, and engaged more in the class, my less studious fellows will perhaps be scoring higher. I see it as unjust that my performance on this test may be viewed as either average or poor while those going against the teacher’s instruction not to use notes will be elevated to the top of the class. Though I am far from being slow, running a race against people pumped up on steroids is a less than satisfying experience. There simply is no way to compete fairly against people with access to billions of algorithmically sorted results, not to mention searchable textbooks to provide an additional reference.
To be clear, I am a huge proponent of remote education — utilizing everything from educational websites to ebooks to podcasts as learning tools. I just want a more fair method of taking tests. The online model currently forces learners to choose between academic integrity and ostensible success and this needs to change. Too many people will choose the easy path, leaving those who should be ahead — for their fair sportspersonship and honesty — to constitute the nether regions of the bell curve.
Cheating has been around for far longer than online classes and may even outlive them, but education technology should deter cheating rather than enable it. There are two obvious solutions. The first is to make online tests open note, which is becoming common practice in many classes. This solves the problem by removing the moral imperative not to utilize tempting resources. Unfortunately, it also causes another problem: teachers lose the ability to test for knowledge of the recently covered material and instead can only measure a student’s skill at making queries of existing information. The latter skill is useful, but it isn’t the only thing teachers should be able to test for. Still, making tests open-note is preferable to the current model because it factors in and rewards fair play. The other solution, while harder to implement, achieves the best of both worlds — allowing teachers to test for knowledge while simultaneously rewarding academic honesty.
That solution is to personally monitor the tests while concurrently utilizing anti-cheating programs. This makes cheating much more costly, thereby ensuring a level playing field. The only downside, apart from making a class of honest students slightly sad about the lack of trust, is the implementation cost. Whereas delivering a test online can be done in a matter of minutes, fully preventing cheating requires a lot of resources. Not only do teachers need to be paid and trained to somehow detect cheating online, but they also need high-tech tools to stop students from opening another browser window containing all the answers. A company called Proctorio already has created some anti-cheating software, but it seems that many teachers are not even aware that it exists. Online teachers need to be especially in tune with the latest learning technologies and implement them whenever possible.
Incentivizing student honesty and making it infeasible to cheat are both important aspects of education that need to be prioritized. A major purpose of education is to prepare students for the workforce. If the “top” students don’t know the skills they profess to have learned, then everyone suffers. Employers have a harder time selecting qualified and loyal candidates. Honest applicants have a harder time finding jobs in their fields and dishonest applicants will eventually be fired or humiliated for their lack of relevant skills.
This all needs to change. Teachers should continue creating their online curricula but need to give proper credence to integrity concerns. Reshaping the paradigm around online tests is a relatively easy measure which will drastically improve student outcomes. The COVID-19 coronavirus has made online education far more mainstream and since many students will be finishing up this semester online, this issue has become global. Online teachers and school administrators need to rectify the current situation which rewards dishonesty.
