College Cheating With A Clicker

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - More than 1,000 colleges in the U.S. use student response systems, usually called clickers -- devices that look like TV remotes that unfortunately have increased classroom cheating.

While the intention is to check in those who attend large lecture-hall classes, students have been answering for absentee friends. If professors use clickers to call on students to answer questions, cheating has been detected also. Some students have been seen with four clickers, until they're discovered.

To discourage cheating, some faculty use the clicker answers for only 5% of a grade. Others walk around their classrooms, removing the extra clickers from desks. The best defense against cheating seems to be encouraging students to remember honor codes and remind them that cheating is a violation.

While there are good reasons to eliminate clickers, one positive use of the devices is in response to multi-choice questions in class, where a professor uses student responses to gauge comprehension.

Reported By Dr. Marciene Mattleman, KYW Newsradio