Another way of discouraging cheating...
A lot of instructors that I know have used different versions of the same test, often with the questions in a different order. They want the students to take the same test, but eliminate the situation where a student feels they can take advantage. It keeps the "honest students honest" because they know that it is useless to look at another's paper.
I tell my students that the test and quizes the questions are scrambled and not to even bother to try and look at your neighbors test because the questions are not in the same order. By doing this it just takes the thought of cheating out of the how am I going to pass this test question that is in the students head.
Hi Connie,
Great tactics to utilize to curtail cheating.
Patricia Scales
I have also used this technique and it worked quite well. I also make sure that, if possible, there is at least one seat between the students and all books, bookbags, purses, etc are on the floor and cell phones are turned off and put away somewhere. They are told at the beginning of the test that if a cell phone sounds they will get a 0 on the test. In some cases they may need a sheet of paper to jot notes on and I always check to make sure the paper is blank on both sides.
This is a good way to discourage cheating. I have used this technique so that students sitting next to one another receive different versions of the same test. An important thing to remember is that when using the scantron to score the tests, use the correct key for grading the different versions.
