What are some possible solutions to cheating?

Answer 1

My thought is that some people will always try to beat the system, because they like to solve that sort of problem. It isn't always due to lack of self confidence in what they know. So, in a testing situation, walking around through the class periodically (called proximity in classroom management), and having 2 or 3 different sets of tests so that no one is sitting next to someone who has the questions in the same order.

If you give a take home test, it should have the type of questions where it is necessary to analyze and synthesize the information in order to answer the question. If people come up with a word by word same answer, then you know. When teaching, my solution to that was to grade the paper once, and then divide the score between the number of students who turned it in.

The test should reflect the objectives you set up when you were planning the course and so nothing should be particularly a surprise to a student who has been attending to the learning experience.