To avoid cheating in high-stakes quizzes developed with Captivate you need to use algorithmic questions (the same question uses different words and different numbers).
Algorithmic questions are questions that change from learner to learner. The change could be merely in the numbers used for the calculations, but it could go as complex as changing the text of the question.
During a presentation, someone demonstrated a tool that was being developed in University of Michigan that could do this. The example used was in a language class. Unfortunately, I lost contact with the presenter and was never able to find the next version of the system. Since then, I have been trying to emulate it. Captivate now allows me to do that.
The questions that I am now developing use random numbers for the data that is shown in the examination and then compares the input from the learner to the result of the equations using the random numbers presented. The exams are not simply asking the student to apply a formula, but the student needs to know which formula is the appropriate one to apply.
I am also going further. The questions themselves describe the environment in which the problem occurs. They say something like “Mr. Smith is the accountant at Small Mills Incorporated which is a company that produces paper envelopes.” With this system I can now have a set of names for people, a set of names for companies, and a set of products, and use a random combination when presenting the question. The work that the student needs to do to answer the question is still the same but the question itself might look very different. Now, if someone posted in a cheating site the question they got in their exam, a Google search will not easily come back with that result because too many of the words are different. I could even give the same question several times throughout the semester to the same student and they will still have to work with them each time. However, once the student really understands the topic I am teaching, he or she will be able to recognize that it is basically the same question and respond to it much more quickly. And that ability is what I want my students to have.
So, if you are developing quizzes using Captivate for your K-12 or Higher Education classes and these are quizzes that determine the grade of the student. You should start thinking on doing something like this.
Why don’t we use question banks so that the bank contains a set of questions and each question has a set of factors:-
1- Degree of difficulty (rate from 1 to 5).
2- The time required to answer the question.
3- Type (fill in the blank, multiple choice, connect,……)
A set of questions is chosen at random (40% of the questions have a high degree of difficulty, 40% of the medium, 20% of the simple level) and thus all students receive a different test of the same degree of difficulty).
It is also possible to repeat the test at any time and time.
I will try to start the project
Wondering why you don’t include the use of Question pools in these reflections? As a former professor, I am very well aware of a lot of cheating workflows. It is one of the reasons I mostly use open book examinations or oral exams whenever possible. Simple shuffling questions and the Question pools I mentioned before can be a good start as well. And use penalty to avoid ‘guess’ answers. It helps as well.
For use of Question pools, maybe have a look at:
http://blog.lilybiri.com/random-questions-dos-and-donts
I am very familiar with question pools but they still have too many disadvantages. You can find the responses to most banks quite easily. Thus, I want the question to use different numbers for each student. If the student is able to find the correct formulae to solve the problem, I am fine with that. In real life this is what they would do too.
Use random numbers, they are easy to generate with JS. I always use that with math projects and (of course) with games.
MCQ and similar questions are not as easy as most think. To me it is impossible to have a full assessment only with the SCORM types of questions. But that is my pedagogical background. most assessments look to be only ‘pro forma’.
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