How to stop your institute from using proctoring tool?

     One of the changes that we are experiencing now after this pandemic is almost everything has become online including writing the exam. As usual, some students are happier about that and some of them are not. Educational institutions are spending huge amount of money to prevent them from cheating. I sometimes believe that major change can be brought by making a very small change. Can a very small change be used to prevent students from cheating? I believe it can be done by adding just one more question to the question paper.

Dan Ariely, Professor at Duke University, conducted an experiment in which he divided the participants into three groups. The participants were asked to solve the questions within 5 minutes. At the end of the test, first group would submit the answer sheet and get $10 for each question answered correctly. First group answered around 3.1 questions correctly on average. Second group were asked to recall 10 books they have read before taking up the test. Also, given the opportunity to cheat. They have to complete the test and at the end of the test they were given the correct answer to check with their own answer. They have to throw their own answer sheet into the shredder (which was fake) and go to the proctor and say the number of questions answered correctly and get the money for each question answered correctly. On average, they answered 4.1 questions correctly.

    Now, the important group and the third group were asked to follow the same procedure as of the second group but to recall the Ten Commandments before taking up the test. They also were given the opportunity to cheat like second group but none cheated. Even the non-Christian students never cheated. You should also note that Ten Commandments say nothing about cheating but it does convey us to commit to honesty. According to our culture, we may convert the question to “Did Abdul Kalam cheat in exam?” I am not sure this will work but I believe this will work. Only way to know is by conducting the experiment by asking this question. If this method proves to be effective, why spend so much money on software that prevent students from cheating and causing unwanted tension to students?