Should Students be monitored when taking online tests?
With the past two years of our lives taken over by the pandemic and moving into the virtual space, online tests have become increasingly popular. With students taking their exams from their homes and the concerns of cheating, online test monitoring software has also seen a rise. These online test monitoring programs make sure that students don’t cheat by tracking everything from how often your eyes are moving, how often you type, to a face recognition step that requires you to have your camera on to authorize your account. I still think that students should not be monitored when taking online tests as these monitoring programs can be inaccurate and cause more harm than good.
One aspect of the issue is that these monitoring programs do not actually stop students from cheating. A study done at Marshall university showed that 32.7% of students have admitted to have cheated on school assignments and tests online, only 0.6% more than the amount of people that have admitted to cheating in person (https://mds.marshall.edu/cgi/ viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1000&context=eft_faculty). While students might have felt more likely to get away with cheating online, the research shows that the percentage of people who cheated in person only continued to cheat online, and there was not a drastic increase in the amount of cheating in general. This shows that there is really no need for intensive online monitoring programs, since the amount of students that are cheating have not changed.
Another problem with online test monitoring software is the stress these programs can cause for students who don’t even plan on cheating and just all students in general. The programs track every single tiny movement, such as the background of your room, the movements detected on your camera, and even the frequency you move your mouse. Students can be hyper aware of the smallest actions, and become distracted from the test itself. Aside from the intensive tracking of online test monitoring programs, they also don’t take into account the students’ different situations. As the New Yorker writes, Yemi-Ese, who was then a junior at the University of Texas, had trouble trying to get the program to recognize his face (https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/is-online-test-monitoring-here-to-stay). Yemi-Ese, who is black, experienced the program failing to reliably locate his face, until you turned on all the lights in the room and had to look into a blinding ring light. When he had to stay at a friend's house for a while without all his lighting setups, The program gave him a hard time again and caused much more stress and struggle than necessary. Taking tests and going to school online already comes with its difficulties, and these strict requirements only make it harder for students.
Although I see the potential benefits of online test monitoring programs and how they can help regulate the virtual classroom experience, I think that the negatives outweigh the positives for now. The percentage of students cheating online and in person have remained the same, with or without monitoring programs. And the amount of stress and anxiety can actually do more bad than good for students who need to focus on the test instead of whether what they are doing on camera could be flagged as cheating. Overall, I think that online test monitoring has potential to become the next best way to prevent cheating, but for now, there is no need for these additional programs that make the virtual school experience all the more complicated.
I think that cheating is usually the result of laziness from not studying or just choosing not to learn the material at hand. Or possible a last resort after starting the test and forgetting something. The desire to get 100% can result in the most drastic solutions, and cheating is definitely not the solution. I think that monitoring online school would work for the most part, discouraging cheating, but with the points mentioned above some people will go into even more drastic ways to get answers. Nice blog - Henry
ReplyDeleteI agree, that the same amount of people cheating online and in person are probably the same. I understand why teachers would want to monitor students online to make sure they aren't cheating, but like you said, I think the negatives outweight the positives.
ReplyDelete-Rohail
I agree, these extreme measures of making sure students don't cheat only cause more nervousness about being caught cheating when you are not. The cons of this extreme measure of making sure students don't cheat definetely outweigh the pros.
ReplyDeleteIt might seem like more people would cheat on online tests, but if someone is willing to cheat they would probably cheat regardless of how they were taking the test. Also, tracking every tiny little thing that happens while the student is taking the test is ridiculous. In-person tests don't have a teacher assigned to each student to look over their shoulder, so there is no reason to do so for an online test. A lot of the things that you mentioned the software tracking don't make any sense at all. How would tracking mouse movements tell you if someone was cheating? I can see how something like eye movements would be useful, albeit unnecessarily intrusive, but most of the others are totally unnecessary. I agree that online test monitoring, at least in its current form, makes things unnecessarily complicated and doesn't accomplish anything.
ReplyDelete-Nibaw
I think that there are some measures that can prevent cheating online such as browser checking (if you switch browsers it tells the proctor) might help with getting rid of some cheating, but there are always so many ways out of that. Writing notes, pulling up a different computer, etc. are still available. If your camera has to be put on, tape notes to the wall in front of you. Cheating on online tests is really just inevitable, but I'm also not surprised that the number of in-person cheaters an online cheaters are the same. If a student wishes to cheat and puts a little thought into it, it is very very hard to catch especially considering how many students in classes there are.
ReplyDeleteI think online monitoring the student online during test is a useful, but I feel like there are better alternatives than face recognition and the use of complicated technology. I remember in middle school, my teachers used this system called Herpara, which monitored which tabs students had open and were on. Realistically, students have an extreme chance and temptation of cheating online and their is not much teachers can do about it and prevent it.
ReplyDelete-Tim