I agree it is not necessary to jumble the order. For face to face exams for which I do not have security concerns, I do not jumble order. But, one way to reduce cheating is to jumble question order and answers, at least for a portion of the class (if the exams are face to face). Once I've made the decision to do that for one portion of the class, I feel it is necessary to do it for the other portion for the reasons you mention. I now do mostly computerized testing (nearly always proctored). Because of the vertical orientation of the monitors, they are more visible to other test takers. Therefore, it becomes necessary to deliver the exam questions in random order to every student, so they can't have any thought that a fellow student has a decent chance of working on the same question. I also present the questions one at a time and do not allow backtracking to previous questions. The students dislike those features for good reason. They lose out on the meta-strategy for answering a question by using clues from other questions.
Paul On May 4, 2012, at 5:56 PM, Gerald Peterson wrote: I never have followed any order...just put them in order I create them. Over time, after using variations of same exam, then order may get mixed up. G.L. (Gary) Peterson,Ph.D Psychology@SVSU On May 4, 2012, at 4:35 PM, Carol DeVolder <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hi, As I sit here trying to do anything but grade or write exams, a thought occurred to me. Often, when one constructs an exam over several chapters, the questions are mixed up so that those over the same chapter aren't grouped together. Is this really necessary? It seems that it merely serves to add one more layer of confusion to the process. Or am I the only one who does this? Carol -- Carol DeVolder, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology St. Ambrose University 518 West Locust Street Davenport, Iowa 52803 563-333-6482 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13445.e3edca0f6e68bfb76eaf26a8eb6dd94b&n=T&l=tips&o=17629 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-17629-13445.e3edca0f6e68bfb76eaf26a8eb6dd...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-17629-13445.e3edca0f6e68bfb76eaf26a8eb6dd...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263003&n=T&l=tips&o=17631 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-17631-13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-17631-13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=17642 or send a blank email to leave-17642-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
