How do students take tests? Isn’t cheating more of a problem?

In most HyFlx courses, we recommend that all students take the same form of test (in-person proctored, fully online, take home, etc.) in all modes. Using a consistent approach should lead to more reliable and potentially valid results. Cheating is almost always a problem when tests are used to determine student grades no matter the course mode – classroom or online. When designing a HyFlex course, we recommend considering whether or not traditional tests are needed to evaluate student learning and outcomes measurement. It may be possible to replace most, or even all of the learning assessment with more “authentic” assessments, like projects, papers, presentation, or other forms of expression. (See the Universal Design for Learning guidance or sites like Indiana University’s Center for Innovative in Teaching and Learning for more.) When high stakes tests are required, some schools and faculty will use programs such as Respondus Lockdown, which prevents student access to pre-selected websites during the test. The program has the option for students to provde video evidence of their surroundings before and during a test to ensure they don’t have prohibited supplies with them. There are also options, such as ProctorU for the test taking to be recorded. Some schools, many faculty, and possibly all students do not want to use online proctoring to mitigate cheating, and some institutions ban the practice outright. You can design an assessment approach that reduces student cheating without using online proctoring, but you have to be very intentional. For more guidance on how to reduce the liklihood and impact of student cheating, see the work of James Lang, especially the book Cheating Lessons – insightful book review here.