Textbook Test Banks and Online Exams

[HigherEd7]

In the past, I have used the test banks that come with the textbook, it was brought to my attention that students can access the test banks online from different sites such as Quizlet. I started to develop my questions, which are very time consuming and students are still doing exceptionally well on the exams and finishing in record time.
I have talked to a few colleagues who still use the test banks and they feel that if students are cheating by using an online site to look up the test banks it's their loss, and I know some that take the time to change the test bank question up a little to save time. 

What are others doing in a situation like this when it comes to using the test banks or developing test questions?

[Aster]

I have talked to a few colleagues who still use the test banks and they feel that if students are cheating by using an online site to look up the test banks it's their loss

No, those educators are just lazy butts who can't be bothered to create their own assessments. Which basically means that they cannot be bothered to do their own job.

If you know that a test bank is badly compromised, you just don't use it. It's that simple.

[HigherEd7]

I have talked to a few colleagues who still use the test banks and they feel that if students are cheating by using an online site to look up the test banks it's their loss

No, those educators are just lazy butts who can't be bothered to create their own assessments. Which basically means that they cannot be bothered to do their own job.

If you know that a test bank is badly compromised, you just don't use it. It's that simple.

Thank you for your response. Do you have any tips for writing your own multiple choice questions?

[clean]

It depends on the discipline. However, you can start with the test bank. IF they have questions like, "Which of the following is true?"  then take the original correct answer and change it so that it is false, making one of the incorrect ones true. 
merge 2 correct answers and add a choice, "Both A & B are correct" (make sure that you dont shuffle the answers).

If there are any calculations, change on of the numbers, leaving the original correct answer where it is. 

MC questions are easy to create with a glossary.  Type the definition of one term, and then place 4 of the terms as choices.  This can make 4 different questions as you rotate the stem of the question.

Be sure to add "All of the Above" And "none of the above" as choices.

It does not necessarily take a lot of time to modify the test bank.

For fairness, let the students know that YOU know that the test banks have been compromised and that they should NOT study test banks.  I go as far to warn them that IF they see the 'correct answer' from something that they studied online, that there is a pretty good chance that it is the ONLY answer NOT to pick!!

I teach finance, so it is easy to modify a balance sheet (for ratio tests), or to change an interest rate or a time period.  6.8% becomes 8.6% and answers recalculated (again, leaving the original correct answer among the choices. )  Also, to cover yourself, add a 'none of the above' just in case you made an error! (Also, make sure that some correct answers ARE 'none of the above')

Good luck!

[OneMoreYear]

Also, to cover yourself, add a 'none of the above' just in case you made an error!

This strategy was a lifesaver when I was teaching classes as a grad student and was often writing questions at 1am before the exam the next day (not that I'm recommending that practice to the OP).  I'd review all of the questions as the students were taking the exam, making sure I'd actually put the correct answer in the answer choices for theoretical questions and I'd done the math correctly for quantitative questions, then made any adjustments to the answer key (oops, the right answer to that question is actually "none of the above") before sending off the scantrons.

[Aster]

Other simple tricks to modify old test questions.

1. Flipping the question in reverse. For example, "Select the chemical element with 7 electrons," and rearranging that to "How many electrons does this chemical element have?"

2. Rearranging the order of the existing multiple choice responses. Many cheating students on multiple choice exams only memorize the answer bubble letter, and not the answer itself. This is perhaps the second lamest way to alter an existing exam question, but it is effective on a major subset of cheaters. For online exams, sometimes you can program "random answer order" automatically.

3. Rearranging the order of the test bank questions. This is the #1 lamest way to counter cheating, but it works with the same subset of multiple-choice cheaters who only memorize answer code letters. If you have an online exam, you can also usually program "randomized question order" in automatically.

[Hegemony]

Another good way to devise multiple-choice questions is to have some fill-in-the-blank questions. "A well-known variety of poem with 14 lines is called a(n) ________________."  Then when students give the wrong answers, next year use those wrong answers as the incorrect options in a multiple-choice question.  That is, if wrong answers include "haiku," "limerick," and "sestet," you write a question:

A well-known variety of poem with 14 lines is called a
a. haiku
b. sonnet
c. limerick
d. sestet

[kiana]

Another good way to devise multiple-choice questions is to have some fill-in-the-blank questions. "A well-known variety of poem with 14 lines is called a(n) ________________."  Then when students give the wrong answers, next year use those wrong answers as the incorrect options in a multiple-choice question.  That is, if wrong answers include "haiku," "limerick," and "sestet," you write a question:

A well-known variety of poem with 14 lines is called a
a. haiku
b. sonnet
c. limerick
d. sestet

Oh, this is brilliant and I love it.

[the_geneticist]

I always write my own questions.  Test bank questions are also typically based on memorizing definitions (easy to memorize, easy to cram).  I like to give students a figure/diagram/graph and ask questions about it.  Super easy to swap out the graph or write variations on the questions on my end.  Students have to apply their knowledge to do well.

Example: graph of goldfish weights over time with 2 types of food.

Question:  Examine the above graph.  Based on what you have learned, these data _______ the null hypothesis "There is no difference in fish weight gain between fish fed Brand A or Brand B food".  Therefore, diet _____ an important variable in fish weight gain.
A. support; is NOT
B. support; is
C. do NOT support; is NOT
D. do NOT support; is

Looking at days 5-10, what is a the average rate of weight gain during this time for Brand A?
A. 10 grams
B. 0.5 grams/day
C. 5 days
D. not enough information to answer

[Aster]

Yeah, two-part answers are really great options for multiple choice formats. I started adopting them 5-ish years ago and they've proven to be very adaptable.

Linked question sets are also excellent ways to be efficient, although you can't click the "randomize question order" option anymore on your assessment software. I use linked questions a lot on paper exams.

[Biologist_]

It depends on the discipline. However, you can start with the test bank. IF they have questions like, "Which of the following is true?"  then take the original correct answer and change it so that it is false, making one of the incorrect ones true. 
merge 2 correct answers and add a choice, "Both A & B are correct" (make sure that you dont shuffle the answers).

If there are any calculations, change on of the numbers, leaving the original correct answer where it is. 

MC questions are easy to create with a glossary.  Type the definition of one term, and then place 4 of the terms as choices.  This can make 4 different questions as you rotate the stem of the question.

Be sure to add "All of the Above" And "none of the above" as choices.

It does not necessarily take a lot of time to modify the test bank.

For fairness, let the students know that YOU know that the test banks have been compromised and that they should NOT study test banks.  I go as far to warn them that IF they see the 'correct answer' from something that they studied online, that there is a pretty good chance that it is the ONLY answer NOT to pick!!

I teach finance, so it is easy to modify a balance sheet (for ratio tests), or to change an interest rate or a time period.  6.8% becomes 8.6% and answers recalculated (again, leaving the original correct answer among the choices. )  Also, to cover yourself, add a 'none of the above' just in case you made an error! (Also, make sure that some correct answers ARE 'none of the above')

Good luck!

Some good suggestions, but...

I never use "all of the above" or "none of the above" as answers. In science, we often teach a simplified version of a pathway or process to undergraduate students. Someone who really understands the complexity of the field could quibble with some right answers or argue that there is some partial truth to one or more wrong answers, so I prefer to ask for the "one best answer" or the "most correct answer" as an acknowledgement that biology is often messier than what is in the textbooks. Maybe that doesn't apply equally to other fields or I'm just too much of a stickler...

I also never give an answer choice that says "A & B" but I frequently combine options by writing both parts out completely.

For instance:

Q. Which animals have fur?
A. Cats have fur and frogs have fur
B. Cats have fur but frogs lack fur
C. Cats lack fur and frogs lack fur
D. Cats lack fur but frogs have fur

That makes it easier to shuffle answer choices to make up multiple exam versions and makes it very clear what each answer choice means.

If each of the individual options takes several words to specify, this can lead to a long set of answer choices to read. A lot of the standard advice on multiple choice tests tells us to minimize cognitive load on students by minimizing the complexity of question stems and answer choices so they don't get bogged down reading the exam, but I think that's hooey. If giving them a complicated stem and long answer choices tests their ability to read process information in addition to their memory of content or concepts, I think it makes a better exam.

[quasihumanist]

If giving them a complicated stem and long answer choices tests their ability to read process information in addition to their memory of content or concepts, I think it makes a better exam.

But then students complain that the exam is unfair because smarter people have an advantage.

[downer]

As someone who used the text banks provided by publishers regularly for my online courses, I'd make a few points.

1. My students generally do badly in them. And generally the ones who do well are the ones who also demonstrate understanding in other ways. So I still find them a reasonable way to assess students.

2. Occasionally students who are doing badly in the rest of the course do well in the tests. This raises suspicions of some sort of cheating. I will send out reminders about the dangers of cheating and that helps.

3. Students who cheat in tests won't understand the material as well and that shows in their other work. So they will generally do badly anyway -- often failing or dropping out.

4. If you are worried about students cheating on publisher supplied tests, it is easy to make small edits to the questions with minimal work, forcing students to think about the answers even if they have found some kind of crib sheet online.

5. You can use a scattering of publisher supplied questions to add to your own questions. That can lighten your load.

6. Making up good test questions is difficult. The quality of publisher supplied questions varies greatly but some are quite good. Sometimes they will be better than the ones that you can come up with. It can take a few semesters going through your own test questions and improving them before you are really happy with them.
5. Making up tests is often extremely time consuming.

[pepsi_alum]

I think it also depends on your instructional objectives and course design. I've given up on high stakes exams in my online classes. My university is not willing to invest in programs like Respondus Lockdown or Proctorio to discourage cheating. So I assume the questions will get out no matter what I do. I do write my own questions in addition to the published-provided ones, but I don't spend a huge amount of time on it.

The only multiple-choice questions I give in my online classes are weekly reading quizzes designed to make sure that students are looking the reading. Each quiz is worth about 2% of the overall course grade (for a total of 14-20% total of the semester grade), which is just enough to make students take them seriously. The summative assessments in my classes are a midterm essay and final essay. If students haven't done the quizzes or cheated thier way through them, it's unlikely they'll be able to handle the essay prompts. That's their choice. This works for my field, though I can see how this wouldn't work for those of you in STEM disciplines.

[the_geneticist]

If giving them a complicated stem and long answer choices tests their ability to read process information in addition to their memory of content or concepts, I think it makes a better exam.

But then students complain that the exam is unfair because smarter people have an advantage.

Are your tests timed?  If so, you are putting folks who are simply slower readers at a real disadvantage.  That doesn't mean they aren't smart, but it makes time spent reading weigh heavily on their score.  They may be doing very well and then simply run out of time to answer all the questions. Now, in some fields, reading speed is a very necessary skill (e.g. law), but that's not true for most jobs.  It's also unfair to English-language learners to "hide" a simple question in a complex story.