We describe and evaluate a method to mitigate unwanted student collaborations in assessments, which we recently implemented in a second-year undergraduate mathematics module. The method requires a list of specific pairs of students to be prevented from collaborating, which we constructed based on the results of previous assessments. We converted…

Unproctored and teacher-proctored exams have been widely used to prevent cheating at many universities worldwide. However, no empirical studies have directly compared their effectiveness in promoting academic integrity in actual exams. To address this significant gap, in four preregistered field studies, we examined the effectiveness of…

Automatic grading models are valued for the time and effort saved during the instruction of large student bodies. Especially with the increasing digitization of education and interest in large-scale standardized testing, the popularity of automatic grading has risen to the point where commercial solutions are widely available and used. However,…

Educators set restrictions in examinations to enable them to assess learning outcomes under particular conditions. The open book versus closed book binary is an example of the sorts of restrictions examiners have traditionally set. In the late 2000s this was expanded to a trinary to include open web examinations. However, the current technology…

In spring 2020, the chemical education community faced an abrupt transition from in-person to online classes, which also necessitated online assessments. Building upon an existing three-semester study (F17, S19, and F19) using Rasch modeling and classical testing theory to improve in-person multiple choice exams, this study investigates the impact…

A challenging aspect of online education is assessment since academic integrity could be violated due to students' cheating behaviors. The current qualitative research investigated English teachers' perceptions of why students cheat in online assessments. Besides, it attempted to find strategies to reduce cheating in online assessments. Twelve…

Technology-driven shifts have created opportunities to improve efficiency and quality of assessments. Meanwhile, they may have exacerbated underlying socioeconomic issues in relation to educational equity. The increased implementation of technology-based assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic compounds the concern about the digital divide, as…

Unlike the traditional multiple-choice (MC) format, the discrete-option multiple-choice (DOMC) format does not necessarily reveal all answer options to an examinee. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the reduced exposure of item content affects test security. We conducted an experiment in which participants were allowed to view…

A decision of whether to move from paper-and-pencil to computer-based tests is based largely on a careful weighing of the potential benefits of a change against its costs, disadvantages, and challenges. This paper briefly discusses the trade-offs involved in making such a transition, and then focuses on a relatively unexplored benefit of…

This paper reports on findings from a large Australian research project that explored the relationship between contract cheating and assessment design. Using survey responses from 14,086 students and 1147 educators at eight universities, a multivariate analysis examined the influence of a range of factors on the likelihood that different…

A common approach to increase test security in higher educational high-stakes testing is the use of different test forms with identical items but different item orders. The effects of such varied item orders are relatively well studied, but findings have generally been mixed. When multiple test forms with different item orders are used, we argue…

The New York State Education Department (NYSED) has a partnership with NWEA for the development of the 2024 Grades 3-8 English Language Arts Tests. Teachers from across the State work with NYSED in a variety of activities to ensure the validity and reliability of the New York State Testing Program (NYSTP). The 2024 Grades 6 and 7 English Language…

The instructions in this manual explain the responsibilities of school administrators for the New York State Testing Program (NYSTP) Grades 3-8 English Language Arts and Mathematics Tests. School administrators must be thoroughly familiar with the contents of the manual, and the policies and procedures must be followed as written so that testing…

The instructions in this manual explain the responsibilities of school administrators for the New York State Testing Program (NYSTP) Grades 3-8 English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Grades 5 & 8 Science Tests. School administrators must be thoroughly familiar with the contents of the manual, and the policies and procedures must be followed…

A concern that has been raised with the transition from pen and paper examinations to electronic examinations is whether this will make cheating easier. This article investigates how teachers and students perceive the differences in ease of cheating during three types of written examination: paper exams, bring your own device e-exams and e-exams…