Image and quote from: Japan Times March 4, 2010
On Thursday, police arrested a 19-year old Japanese student in connection with an internet scandal that has rocked their University System. According to The Japan Times, the police believe the lone student uploaded questions from the Kyoto University entrance exam onto one or more cell phones during the February entrance exams. It is not entirely clear what happened, but the school believes the questions were uploaded to a popular website and someone with the “aicezuki” was asking for answers to the questions while the exam was in progress.
This is a huge story for the learning world and especially for Japan who puts their education system on a pedestal. It made me wonder whether something like this could happen on the SAT’s or ACT’s. Interestingly enough, the possibility of someone cheating on standardized tests for college is astonishingly low due to testing policies. Something the standardized tests should look into is updating their punishment for cheaters who are caught.
With technology becoming a prominent part in the U.S. education system, cell phone use during exams has become a hot button topic. Both the ACT and SATs did well by prohibiting the use of any technology other than what they specifically say you can use. According to the ACT website, Prohibited technology includes:
any electronic device other than a permitted calculator (examples include timer, cell phone, media player, PDA, headphones, camera).
In addition to this, the ACT website specifically states one proctor will be looking online to screen for anyone uploading questions online for personal use.
The other thing to keep in mind would be the testing conditions. Both standardized tests do a good job of making sure there is someone at all times monitoring situation. For example, when I took the ACTs, I went to a room where 50 plus people sat on long tables next to each other. What made cheating discouraging was there were a number of different people walking up and down isles at all times.
What kind of punishment exists for those who break the rules? Unfortunately not a lot exists for someone who breaks the rules and cheats. Last year Washington Post reporter Valerie Stauss asked the College Board who owned the ACT what would happen to someone who cheated on a standardized test. Aside from taking the student aside, questioning them, and deleting a test score nothing else would be done to the student. I don’t know if such a policy is good for the College Board, however, I do believe the testing center should change their policy in order to set an example for others.
Both the ACT’s and SATs have good policies during the test and should keep those policies in place. They should however take a look at whether they should change their policy about punishing cheaters. The issue in Japan is one that will continue to unfold for awhile. Hopefully the student has learned his lesson and understands cheating is no laughing matter.
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