Cheaters Exposed Analyzing Statistical Anomalies

Hugh Pickens writes "Proctors and teachers can't watch everyone while they take tests — not when some students can text with their phones in their pockets, so with tests increasingly important in education — used to determine graduation, graduate school admission, and — the latest — merit pay and tenure for teachers, Trip Gabriel writes that schools are turning to 'data forensics' to catch cheaters, searching for data anomalies where the chances of random agreement are astronomical. In addition to looking for copying, statisticians hunt for illogical patterns, like test-takers who did better on harder questions than easy ones, a sign of advance knowledge of part of a test or look for unusually large score gains from a previous test by a student or class. Since Caveon Test Security, whose clients have included the College Board, the Law School Admission Council, and more than a dozen states and big city school districts, began working for the state of Mississippi in 2006, cheating has declined about 70 percent, says James Mason, director of the State Department of Education's Office of Student Assessment. 'People know that if you cheat there is an extremely high chance you're going to get caught,' says Mason."

Comments

Sooo...

[redemtionboy]

...the lesson here is to cheat just barely enough to get by, or to consistently cheat all the way through. A better lock just makes a better lock picker. Not that I'm saying we shouldn't discourage cheating, but the issue is why students want to cheat rather than gain the knowledge. I understand that testing is one of the best ways to gauge knowledge, but we're too focused on testing and no where near focused enough on education. Tests are proven to decrease a students interest in subjects. The solution is to move to more objective based learning where students complete projects or applications showing their knowledge of the material. Obviously testing is easier, but if our goal is education, we need to change.

Wouldn't this require specially designed tests?

[khasim]

Gotta love this line:

David Foster, the chief executive of Caveon, said the company had not published its methods because it was too busy serving clients. But the company's chief statistician is available to explain Caveon's algorithms to any client who is curious.

Interesting. So their people have time to explain the methods to non-peers ... but not enough time to write them up for peer review.

Catching cheaters is missing the point

[Somebody Is Using My]

There seems to be an increasing emphasis by schools on "catching cheaters". This seems to be missing the point.

We send our kids to school not so they can pass tests. I honestly do not care if my kid gets an "A" or an "F" on the test; I care that he actually learns the material. Tests are a tool that educators can use to help them determine if a child is learning the material but passing grades shouldn't be the goal. If students are cheating on tests then you need to look at the reason why. Is the material being presented in a way that is too hard for the child to understand? Is it not being presented in a way that interests the student? If a student is intererested, he will learn. If he learns, then he has no need to cheat.

Stop spending money on anti-cheating technologies. Spend money on improving the methods of education.