The article listed below titled, "Cheating on standardized tests isn't fleeting – it's predictable," contains a thought provoking quote:
"More than 30 years ago, Donald Campbell, an eminent social scientist, warned about the danger of measuring effectiveness by a single influential metric. The more any quantitative indicator is used for decision-making, he said, the more subject it will be to corruption and the more it will corrupt the very process it is intended to monitor."
The author then goes on to apply Dr. Campbell's law to high-stakes testing saying, "When attention is focused on standardized test scores to the exclusion of other factors in evaluating educational quality, the stage is ideally set for unethical behavior."
While this attitude is clearly the flag-waving front of the anti-testing crowd, I believe it has merit worth discussion within the pro-testing audience.
Do high-stakes tests cause more cheating? Do low-stakes tests really have less cheating? Send me an email. Tell me what you think.
Best regards,
Don Sorensen
Vice President, Marketing
Caveon Test Security
don.sorensen@caveon.com
801.592.3396 |
1 > The Stresses of Vietnam's Exam Season
TIME - USA
...In recent years, entrance-exam fraud has been highly publicized in local media. Last year, two dozen students were caught being fed answers through Bluetooth headsets concealed under wigs. Earlier this month, police busted a ring issuing fake IDs to university students who were to take the test for struggling prospective scholars. The price? $2,500 — more than twice Vietnam's average annual wage. In response to concerns over cheating, authorities have beefed up security, calling in local police and even the Public Security ministry to guard exam sites....
2 > Cheating on standardized tests isn't fleeting -- it's predictable
San Francisco Chronicle - CA, USA
...More than 30 years ago, Donald Campbell, an eminent social scientist, warned about the danger of measuring effectiveness by a single influential metric. The more any quantitative indicator is used for decision-making, he said, the more subject it will be to corruption and the more it will corrupt the very process it is intended to monitor. The use of high-stakes testing is precisely the kind of process that Campbell's Law unwittingly foresaw. When attention is focused on standardized test scores to the exclusion of other factors in evaluating educational quality, the stage is ideally set for unethical behavior. Uprep, however, is not alone. And neither are charter schools....
3 > Kazak Exam Scammers Outwit Officials
Institute for War and Peace Reporting - London,England,UK
...According to the press service, the man was arrested as he attempted to sell a compact disc for 1,300,000 tenge (around 10,600 US dollars) containing 10,000 codes of correct answers to UNT questions. During a subsequent police raid prompted by the arrest, NSC employees found large sums of money - 25,000 dollars, and over 2 million tenge (around 16,000 dollars) - said to have been received for assistance in passing the UNT....
4 > Oakland charter school director resigns amid cheating scandal
Inside Bay Area - Oakland,CA,USA
...This year, Padia said, investigators found 2005 algebra and geometry test booklets at the school — a major security breach. As a result, he said, Uprep's standardized test scores for 2007 will be invalidated as well. "This is pretty serious, in terms of having actual copies of the test," Padia said. State education officials have asked Oakland school district officials to take over the investigation and to handle the administration of future state tests at the school, Padia said....
5 > Sentencing July 25 in Guard test bribery
ArmyTimes.com - Springfield,VA,USA
...Thomas was a test examiner for the Office of Personnel Management when, between September 2000 and February 2002, she received a total of about $1,500 in cash for boosting ASVAB scores for about 70 applicants, according to court documents. The documents also state that Thomas conspired with Guard recruiters when determining which test scores to manipulate....
6 > School mired in claims of cheating
SFGate.com
...Now, eight former teachers assert in a 27-page report to state and local education officials that a culture of cheating exists at the school. And they say it's done at the top level. The teachers claim: -- Students' grades are frequently falsified. -- Course titles don't always match the easier content tested. -- Low-scoring students are barred from taking state-required exams in an attempt to keep them from lowering the school's scores. -- Discipline is arbitrary and intimidating....
7 > Tougher catching cheating with online test takers, educators say
Naples Daily News - Naples,FL,USA
...The number of students taking online courses is surging, which is making things very difficult for educators who want to prevent cheating. “We have gone from testing with paper and pencil to almost exclusively online,” said John Pribanic, a testing specialist at Edison College in East Naples....
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