Blog 6: Avoiding academic integrity problems through assessment design

When assessment tasks are designed, it is important to consider them in the context of academic integrity. Assessment needs to encourage learning and discourage cheating. In this blog, I will present some ways to avoid academic integrity problems in assessment design.

1. Make tasks specific and individual to the module run.

Generic task texts can easily be found on the internet so students may be tempted to copy, and they can easily be supplied by a contract cheating writer. In addition, if exactly the same task is repeated on a module, it is likely that students can find previous student work through file-sharing sites (Lancaster and Cotarlan, 2021). However, with some adaptation, tasks can be designed so that only those engaged in the module run can do them well.

2. Make tasks specific and individual to students

Research has indicated that motivation for learning is the greatest deterrent of cheating (Rundle, Curtis and Clare, 2020), so if students are engaged in the task, doing something that is very specific and relates to them individually, it is less likely that they will cheat. In addition, if it is possible to tailor the task differently to individual students within the cohort, this will discourage collusion or inappropriate sharing of the same information.

3. Design tasks to employ higher order learning

It is a good idea to avoid tasks that require students to describe or explain, as these tasks can be easily replicated from existing texts. Tasks that involve more evaluation, synthesis and analysis of specific areas, perspectives, combinations of subjects etc require originality so are much more difficult to cheat on.

4. Add other elements or records to the assessment for authentication

Adding additional elements or records of work such as drafts, progress charts or a diary makes it more difficult to cheat, as most cheating occurs with single assignments. Follow-up vivas are considered to be the most effective way to authenticate assessment as an opportunity to ask students how they put together their assignments, where they found their sources, why they used them in certain ways, how they reached their conclusion etc.

5. Use some elements of alternative in-person assessment

In-class assessments such as exams are more difficult to cheat on, but also other performance-based assessment such as seminar discussions and presentations can be useful ways to prevent opportunities to cheat.

References

Carroll, J. (2007). A handbook for deterring plagiarism in Higher Education (2^nd Ed). Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development.

Lancaster, T. and Cotarlan, C. (2021). Contract cheating by STEM students through a file-sharing website: a Covid-19 pandemic perspective. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 17. Available at https://edintegrity.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s40979-021-00070-0

Rundle, K., Curtis, G. & Clare, J. (2020). Why students choose not to cheat. In Bretag, T. (ed.). A research agenda for academic integrity. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp.100-111