Cheating prevention on Moodle quizzes

Cheating prevention on Moodle quizzes

by Maya Nguyen -
Number of replies: 5

Hi all,

Running Moodle 3.1 here.

A language arts teacher has asked me if there is a way to prevent applicants to rather coveted university level program from cheating on the English entrance exam. The students who graduate from this program need to be perfectly bilingual in English and French, both written and spoken. In the past few years we have had students who scored well on their entrance exams but in reality need to be put in remedial English classes because they cannot even compose a paragraph without making major mistakes. The entrance exam has some multiple choice questions and an oral component. The third part of the exam includes two development questions, which are timed like the rest of the exam. 

A student previously took this exam and scored 60%; on his second try, he scored a nifty 85%, even though the question was changed. We are wondering if he didn't contact another applicant of the program and have this person give him the answer remotely, while the quiz was still open. 

The teacher who contacted me wanted to know if there was a way to film the students while he or she takes the quiz; normally, the students are logged into VIA so we see them on camera, but this doesn't prevent them from messaging someone and asking for the answers. We would basically need to see his or her screen to ensure that there is no outside communication during the quiz. 

I'm wondering if anyone has encountered such a situation and what solution you came up with.

Thank you!

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In reply to Maya Nguyen

Re: Cheating prevention on Moodle quizzes

by Richard Oelmann -
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Quiz can be used with a secure browser, but even if you could see/record their screen, how would you then ensure that they dont have a mobile phone or tablet open just below the screen or just out of video shot?

You could make them run the test with skype or a web conferencing tool active which includes screen sharing, but I can still see the loopholes in that.

You already have an oral element to the testing, so maybe simply go with that and if someone's scores are wildly out of balance on the three sections of your existing testing, then look closer at what has happened.

The alternative is to have them do the testing at a registered test centre, whether at the university on some kind of open day, or a local one - when I did my Linux Professional exam a few years ago it was in a room with a locked down PC and on camera for remote proctoring.

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In reply to Richard Oelmann

Re: Cheating prevention on Moodle quizzes

by Maya Nguyen -

The difficulty with having applicants be in a supervised environment is that they can be anywhere in the world. The logistics of organizing supervision are just not cost effective.

Screen sharing would be an interesting option. I'll look into that!

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In reply to Maya Nguyen

Re: Cheating prevention on Moodle quizzes

by Richard Oelmann -
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Seems to me that the assessment design is already good and mitigates against this kind of cheating. Maybe enhance the oral element (if you dont already) by using web-conferencing, such as skype/BBB/Adobe Connect - which may also fit in with the screen sharing suggestion earlier. Then possibly weight the judgments of each of your three elements, or at least have some consideration if the 3 sections give wildly differing scores, as I suggested earlier (flag up if the scores are more than 15-20% different, or something along those lines).

To my mind (and very open for discussion) you will have more success with good assessment design (as I think you already have) than trying to tweak technical solutions and potentially have people rely on those solutions even when they may really be only 80% effective.


R

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In reply to Maya Nguyen

Re: Cheating prevention on Moodle quizzes

by Tim Hunt -
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I concur with Richard's suggestion that it is really all down to designing good assessment tasks. If the course is highly competitive, presumably students have to complete a fairly serious application form. Do you have a section like "Write 300 words about why we should accept you onto this course". Why not get them to write that section in English? That will be a real test of their writing. Much better than a multiple choice quiz. Also, since it has to be about them, then cannot just copy something off the internet, which is always the danger with artificial assignment tasks.

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In reply to Maya Nguyen

Re: Cheating prevention on Moodle quizzes

by Matt Bury -
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Hi Nguyen,

I'm with Tim on this one.

Re: "In the past few years we have had students who scored well on their entrance exams but in reality need to be put in remedial English classes because they cannot even compose a paragraph without making major mistakes."

This is not unusual in second/foreign language assessment, especially with multiple choice quizzes. It's very, very hard to do well and even specialist agencies like Cambridge English, IELTS, and ETS have validity and reliability issues with their tests. How thoroughly have you evaluated the entrance test for validity and reliability? Also, is the test appropriate for what the students will be asked to do on the course? Why not give them an example writing assignment from your course? At a later date, you can then compare their writing in the entrance test to their submitted writing assignments later to see if they were written by the same person.

Personally, I'd look into that first.

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