Cheaters, beware: Test-givers are monitoring social media postings
How far should school testing systems go to ensure students aren’t cheating on state tests?
The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), the organization responsible for the state tests Washington students began taking this month, published a memo during last year’s field testing of the new assessments.
It urged educators to be vigilant about possible test “security breaches” on social media.
Last year’s memo suggested that kids be invited to join school Facebook pages or follow school Twitter accounts. It suggested asking students who join school Twitter accounts for their names, and searching the news feeds and photo galleries of students with public Facebook pages for possible leaks.
Educators were asked to search for computer screen images showing test items, or photos taken inside testing rooms — including student testing selfies.
This year, SBAC has softened its guidance somewhat. But it hasn’t totally abandoned social media watchdog efforts.
The organization, which is based at UCLA, said it will have college student clerks and an SBAC communications specialist monitor social media Mondays through Fridays only, from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. They will be looking for hashtags such as #smarterbalanced or #commoncore that might clue them in about relevant postings.
If they spot test questions being posted by students on public accounts, they will contact the state education agency.
State officials are then advised to contact the student’s school. Schools will get in touch with parents and students and deal with the situation according to their disciplinary rules, requesting that students remove test item postings.
SBAC Deputy Director Luci Willits said she’s too new to the organization to know whether the strategy refinement came about as a result of complaints from last year’s field testers.
“That is not our policy now,” she said of the field test security memo.
Test security is important to maintaining the integrity of the test, according to SBAC. If students post test items online, those items may have to be removed from future tests.
“If a student has an open social media account and is posting test questions, they are hurting other students by not allowing them to have an authentic testing experience,” Willits said.
She said that if teachers spot students using cellphones during a test, they should take away the cellphone.
Willits said that about 4 million students nationwide participated in last year’s field tests of the Smarter Balanced assessment. She said there were only about 75 reported instances of security breaches.
This year, she said, the number is lower. But testing is not yet complete for the year.
Washington state testing director Robin Munson said students sign an agreement before they take the SBAC test that pledges them to maintain test security.
She said she has received fewer than five security alerts this year, as testing gets underway in Washington.Cheaters, beware: Test-givers are monitoring social media postings | Education | The News Tribune:
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