Designing Smart, Secure Online Experiments

How to Reduce Cheating and Encourage Deep Learning

Although cheating has always been a concern in education, does that mean everyone is doing it? Dr. Donald McCabe with the International Center for Academic Integrity conducted a comprehensive study involving 70,000 students (both undergraduate and graduate) over a 12-year period, from 2002 to 2015.

According to their findings, 64 percent of students admitted to cheating on a test, 58 percent admitted to cheating, and 95 percent admitted to engaging in some form of cheating—whether it was taking an exam, copying, or copying homework. According to one study, during the time of COVID-19, the frequency of cheating in online tests has almost doubled.

There are several things that encourage students to cheat, and it’s not always about taking shortcuts:

• Education overload. Juggling multiple assignments, tests, and projects can quickly become overwhelming. When students feel overwhelmed by the workload, cheating can seem like an easy way to get everything done on time.
• Fear of failure. Fear of not meeting expectations—whether of teachers, parents, or themselves—may lead students to cheat, as a way to avoid disappointment and escape the consequences of failure.
• High level and distance anxiety. College acceptance and scholarships—so much is riding on getting good grades. This pressure leads to depression and anxiety, making students see cheating as the only way to maintain good grades.
• Feeling unprepared. If students don’t feel ready, or because they haven’t read enough or are struggling to understand the material, they may cheat as a last resort because it seems like a quick and easy solution.
• An easy opportunity to cheat. Often, students cheat simply because the opportunity arises. When the answers are easily accessible, or when they feel that professors won’t see or care, cheating becomes a more attractive option.

5 Best Ways to Design Smart Online Tests

Although cheating is common, it is not something that teachers are powerless to stop. By understanding the root causes, teachers can create assessments that discourage cheating and encourage students to engage more deeply with the content. Here are 5 proven strategies for creating effective and reliable online surveys.

1. Diversify Assessment Formats

Use eLearning tools that allow you to use different methods to assess students online. Don’t rely solely on traditional multiple-choice questions. Instead, include interactive question types that encourage students to use their knowledge in different ways, such as matching, hotspots, drag-and-drop activities, and open-ended questions—they work best because they encourage critical thinking and are difficult to cheat. .

Also, try to give quick feedback to both correct and incorrect answers. Logical feedback helps reinforce learning and encourages students to reflect on their mistakes, reminding them that assessment is part of the learning process, not just a measure of success.

2. Set Rules for Checking for Evidence of Cheating

If you want to prevent cheating, secure testing rules are necessary for your online testing. Start by blocking simple tricks like highlighting, copying, and pasting, which students can use to share or search for answers. Also, prevent students from returning to previous test pages so they can’t revisit references to other questions or change their answers after moving on.

Some eLearning authoring tools like iSpring Suite allow teachers to use advanced assessment rules. For example, add time limits to questions, control the number of attempts students get, and shuffle both questions and answer choices to make every test feel different and more difficult for students to game the system.

For an even broader approach, branching conditions are complete. With iSpring Suite, you can create different ways of asking questions depending on whether students answered the questions correctly or not. It makes the testing experience more personal, keeps students more engaged, and leaves less room for cheating.

3. Use Professional Software to Secure Final Exams

When it comes to final exams, technology can be a powerful helper. In remote testing, proctoring software is a great way to monitor students and flag any suspicious behavior, to ensure they follow the rules. Browser blocking tools also help create a controlled environment, preventing students from leaving the test page and limiting distractions or temptations. For written assignments or essays, try plagiarism checks to catch academic dishonesty and ensure that students are submitting original work.

4. Rely on Advanced, Data-Driven Analytics

Creating comprehensive assessments is important, but even the most secure assessments are of little use if you don’t have access to detailed information and don’t know how students interact with the assessment. For example, you won’t know how many attempts were made, time spent, and whether students repeatedly answered the same question incorrectly.

If you already use Moodle™ software to teach your students, the best way to create lessons and assessments is with iSpring Suite as it will provide you with comprehensive assessment reports that no other authoring tool provides (except Moodle’s native quiz maker).

The iSpring Suite seamlessly integrates with the LMS with the free iSpring Module plugin that allows teachers to publish lessons directly to Moodle™ and access complete visual statistics on iSpring questions as soon as students complete them, with a detailed breakdown of each attempt.

You can easily collect, filter, and analyze a lot of data, like time spent training, scores, completion rates, and more—with all your stats saved, even when you reload the test.

These in-depth analytics provide valuable insights that help you adjust your assessments, identify patterns, and reveal students’ blind spots to create a more effective learning environment.

5. Provide Continuous, Positive Feedback

When students receive regular feedback on their work, they can identify areas where they need to improve and make changes before the final exam. This approach leads to better performance in testing and promotes a deeper understanding of the material.

Continuous feedback also takes the pressure off critical assessments, reducing a student’s motivation to cheat—when they know they’ll have opportunities to improve, they’ll focus more on learning and take fewer shortcuts.

In short

After hours of creating challenging online tests, the last thing you want is for your students to find a way to game the system.

Creating safe and meaningful eLearning assessments requires thoughtful design and the right tools. Combine different types of tests with reliable test rules and comprehensive question statistics, and you are sure to reduce the risk of cheating and encourage deep learning among students.