Cei Exam Questions Free

[Alexandrin Chaples]

Im facing a situation at my university that raises some ethical concerns and I'd like to get your perspective on it. One of our professors has a consistent practice of reusing the same exam questions every year for their course. The questions remain unchanged from year to year. Additionally, this professor does not share either the questions or the solutions with students.

My concerns are twofold. Firstly, this approach could potentially benefit students who have access to previous years' exams through their peers, creating an uneven playing field. Secondly, the lack of transparency and the repetitive nature of the exams could impact the overall learning experience and assessment integrity.

I am unsure about the ethical implications of this practice in an academic setting. Is this approach considered acceptable in academia? Are there ethical standards or guidelines that address such practices?

The ethical concern is that a professor needs to provide an environment in which every student can learn. This practice, which I consider foolish, isn't necessarily contradictory to that ethical concern. We are supposed to be educators, not graders.

The fairness concern may be misplaced. Certainly students will be aware of this (most students). Old exam questions might be a good way for students to review what has been given otherwise. Some student organizations (in the US) have kept files of old exams along with answers for (more than?) a hundred years. They may give some students a grading advantage, and they may give some students a learning advantage. The latter is fine. But whether the overall learning environment is proper and fair is beyond such a narrow concern.

It is considered "acceptable" in the sense that it is common enough and that there are few rules that prevent it. I don't adhere to that practice, not condone it, but look deeper. I'd recommend other practices, but, at base, it is the learning that is the important thing.

Personal note: When I was a student (previous century) there were student organizations that kept files of old questions along with (correct/acceptable) answers. These were open to members, which I was not. I never considered this to be a problem as I was willing to work hard to learn things. If someone else got a good grade not working hard, it didn't affect me if I also got a good grade.

It is one reason, however, that I've become an opponent of grading "on the curve" which is, in effect, making the grades of one student dependent in some (any) way on the grades of another. Just as we need to be educators, we need to judge students individually as needed. I told students at the beginning of important courses that everyone could earn an A and that everyone could earn an F. And, no, not everyone wanted to hear that.

The teacher openly announced that they'd use the very same question pool (which I guess did not have more than 5 variants of each question) they had used for some decades, and that old exams are available.

The course had a large number of exams (> 10 in 1 semester) and they said the idea is "to ask everything" (to rule out good/bad luck with the subtopics), and that even if someone would try to "just" memorize the questions and their answers, there's a sufficient number of questions in the pool that one really cannot help learning the principles behind the answers as a side effect also that way.

Not sharing solutions with students would not really be possible where I am since students have a right to see their graded exams and they can ask questions why exactly they lost points - at which point the solution will be revealed.

I'm going to offer a different perspective here, offering that how negligent the practice is depends highly on the institution, classroom size, grading practices, and course content, along with a host of other factors

Cultural Background - In some cultures, cheating is more accepted and/or widespread. This is especially true of cultures that place a heavy emphasis on examination. More of these types of students in your classroom will also increase the likelihood of questions being recorded in passed on.

University Selectivity - In general, anecdotally, it seems that more selective universities have more cheating. I would guess that this is because students are more likely to cheat their way to a good GPA in high school, because they are more likely to have merit-based scholarships which require a certain GPA, and because the average student is more likely to care about their grade than, for example, a student in a regional state college with an over 90% acceptance rate.

Grading Structure - Does the course use a "traditional" grading system? Or an alternative one? If you have a course that, for example, uses a mastery system, where students can continue to retry a topic until they pass, then they are less incentivized to cheat, since if they fail, they can just try again.

Course Difficulty - What is the average student grade in the course? If its an "easy A" course, students are less likely to feel the need to cheat, but if its a "filter" course for a major where over a third of students routinely fail, students are much more likely to feel pressured to cheat.

Grade Importance - How vital is getting a good grade in the course to the student? If it is a gen-ed class, then the answer is probably pretty low, beyond keeping the grade high enough for merit-based scholarships. If it is a course where a good grade is required to declare their major, then the incentive to cheat is going to be high.

Future Relevance - If a class imparts a skillset which is going to be particularly relevant for later coursework, and for after college (e.g. on a job search), and the instructor actively ensures students know this, then students are more likely to view learning the skillset as important (and thus not cheat).

Attitudes Towards Professor - When students particularly respect and like a professor, they are less likely to cheat. Similarly, if they detest and don't respect a professor, then they are more likely to view cheating as acceptable. As an anecdote, I remember in my undergrad a student using Chegg to cheat on some homework for a disliked professor, while this student also mentioned how they would never cheat for a specific other professor's class, who was known for being kind, passionate about teaching, and a good educator in general (it is worth noting despite these qualities the professor did not give easy As).

Cheating Punishment - When professors use systems to identify cheating, and institutions take it seriously and exact strong punishments on students, students are less likely to cheat than when professors don't pay attention and where students only get a slap on the wrist when caught.

Number of Questions - If you have a database of, let's say, 500 questions, and each student will be asked only 20 questions a year, than memorizing each answer is much more difficult and less rewarding.

Finally, I suppose one could also consider how "equal opportunity" the cheating will be. If it is likely answers will be posted online and distributed to the entire class, it's probably less discriminatory than a group sharing it among themselves, though I would think this is only a little solace for an already bad scenario. Beyond that, it's difficult to tell what would lead to more "public" cheating, beyond large class sizes and more homogenous students.

Most Problematic - A professor is teaching a very large course (i.e.: 100's to 1000's of students) where at least a B is required to declare some (popular) major. The institution is an extremely selective university, and many of the students in the class come from cultures where cheating is more acceptable. In fact, most of them are close friends with people that took the class last year with similar descriptions. There are also students, particularly those from poorer backgrounds, that don't have any network within the university. The university famously does nothing to cheaters, and even students caught several times continue to be enrolled in the institution. Despite the course grade importance, the content is of little relevance for students after passing the class. The professor is a jerk and is hated for it. Its also a very difficult class, with more students failing than passing. Exams only have a single opportunity, and a poor performance cannot be made up for. Despite the difficulty, exams are multiple choice and taken online at home alone, and the exact same questions are used every year, for every student, with absolutely no variation.

Least Problematic - A professor is teaching a course at a public regional university with very high acceptance rates. The classroom is very small with less than 10 students, who are all from similar local backgrounds. The instructor is beloved and respected by the students, as both a great educator and a kind soul. The instructor uses a grading system which lets students in some way make up failed exams, and almost everyone gets an A in this course. The professor and institution take cheating seriously, with first offenses resulting in failing the course and second offenses resulting in expulsion. The course grade isn't relevant for their futures, but the content of the course is of tremendous significance, and the students know this. The professor has a large database they pull from, but may be repeated in multiple years by chance. These questions are challenging, involving writing an essay, writing a mathematical proof, or writing a computer program. Exams are always proctored in person and done via paper and pencil.

I will note that, ironically, the most "valuable" institutions to have on one's rsum are much more likely to have courses which sound like that problematic scenario, while the least "valuable" ones are going to sound like the environment where cheating is rare. If I can get on a pedestal for a moment, the fact that generally R1s systematically disincentivize their tenure track professors from caring about teaching in general, have giant course sizes that depersonalizes everything, and that many R1s refuse to hire teaching-track professors and give them salary, job security, and college governance parity with their research-oriented counterparts, is a large reason for many of the issues in higher ed, including this cheating one.

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