My initial explanation for this was due to the fact that the course was mostly non-majors. Anthropology students were more committed, less likely to cheat, I thought. Non-majors took the course as a novelty, it seemed, thinking it would be interesting but easy. Some were not amused when they found out it was not easy but actually required attending lecture and recitation, and reading, and thinking. Other students loved the class, and over the years, a number have changed their majors to anthropology after taking this class (and other ones my colleagues teach similar to this—“gateway” classes, we sometimes call them). These students, and the overwhelming majority of the students did not cheat, but instead enjoyed a semester devoted to a topic often radically different than that what they usually studied. For some students it was the only time they had written papers in their college career. Others had no idea how to study for the exam. “Its all stories,” they would say. “And do we need to know the theories?” Exactly, and yes. Welcome to anthropology.

Yesterday, a Twitter thread on cheating helped me realize that my non-major explanation for why students cheated in this class was not the only reason. As I pondered cheating on exams, I realized I did not have issues with cheating in the other large lecture class I regularly teach (and none at all in the small, seminar-style classes for junior and senior anthropology majors where all assignments are essays or research papers). This other lecture class is Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, designed specifically for anthropology majors. As titled, the course introduces them to anthropological concepts, theories, and the history of cultural anthropology. On any given semester, this usually means 100-150 students who are eager and excited to be there and to learn. But the difference between the two classes is not just that one class is for non-majors and one is for majors. The other key difference is that I use radically different exam formats in each class. It turns out one style lends itself to cheating, while the other does not.

In my Tibet lecture class, students study for the exam based on their notes and readings. They know the categories of questions that will be on the exam (e.g., multiple choice, Tibetan vocabulary, essays, etc.), and the course material to study (e.g., everything from the mid-term to the last day of class). But they do not know the content of the actual exam until they sit down to take it. This is the sort of exam I regularly took as an undergraduate, and proctored as a graduate student myself. Until, that is, I learned of another exam style, and convinced the professor for whom I was teaching to test it out. My interest in this exam style was pedagogical in that I thought it was a better way to test students’ knowledge. It was a fairer test, and one that asked for learning rather than memorization. I first used this test style as a TA at the University of Michigan in 1995 in a huge (550 student) introductory lecture course. It worked beautifully then, and I have been using it ever since. Here it is:

One week before the exam date, I hand out the exam to the students in the class. It consists of twenty-five multiple-choice questions. I tell the students that they need to determine the correct answer to each of the twenty-five questions, and be able to write an essay explaining why the answer they chose is correct (and the other answers wrong). In essence, they have to “teach” the material back to me and their TAs. They are welcome to study in groups or alone, whatever suits their individual preference, although I recommend working in groups to talk through their ideas and arguments.

On exam day, the students receive the exam but now the twenty-five multiple-choice questions are in scrambled order from the study exam they received the week before. Together with the course TAs, I have also chosen four of the twenty-five multiple-choice questions as essay questions. Of the four possible essays, the students must choose three. They are required to write essays for each of the three questions explaining and defending the answer they chose as correct. The multiple-choice section is worth 25 points, and each essay is worth 25 points for a total of 100.

This exam format requires a rethinking of the multiple-choice question. You need to imagine anew the multiple-choice question as an essay question in disguise. What were the ideas you most wanted students to learn in the class? What questions will give students the best chance to show the real substance of what they have learned? Here are some of the multiple-choice questions I’ve used in the past:

1. Laura Bohannan’s fieldwork story about explaining Hamlet to the Tiv (“Shakespeare in the Bush”) illustrated what anthropological concern?:

          (a) the relevance of grid-group classification

           (b) the difficulties of cultural translation

          (c) the difference between social organization and social structure

          (d) the universal importance of liminality in rites of passage

          (e) the move away from the ethnographic present

If writing an essay on this question, students would have to identify (b) as the correct answer, explain the concept of cultural translation, and why this was Bohannan’s chief concern in “Shakespeare in the Bush.” They would next need to say why the other answers were incorrect. For example, they might explain (d) in relation to the rise of symbolic anthropology and the writings of Victor Turner they had read for class, and thus as key to 1960s anthropology but not the point of the Bohannan article.

2. Using Arjun Appadurai’s outline of global cultural flows, which “scape” provides the main backdrop for the Miss Tibet pageant?

          (a) ethnoscape

          (b) technoscape

          (c) finanscape

         (d) ideoscape

         (e) mediascape

Here students would need to explain the correct “-scape” in the context of globalization and the Miss Tibet beauty pageant, while also explaining each of the other scapes, and why they were not the main issue involved in the pageant.

3. Which of the following statements about gender is true?

          (a) Gender is represented and constructed in the same way across cultures

          (b) A linear relationship exists between sex and gender

          (c) Gender is biologically based

          (d) Gender systems vary across cultures

          (e) Gender can only be analyzed using feminist anthropology

For this question, students would need to identify and explain the correct answer (d), while also successfully explaining why the remaining answers are not true. We would expect them to use ethnographic or theoretical materials from course lectures and readings to illustrate their points.

4. An anthropologist comes to Boulder to study “Hipster Farming: Class and Privilege in Boulder’s Locavore Movement.” Based on the title of her project, what theory is likely to be the main one she is using?

          (a) Feminism

          (b) Poststructuralism

          (c) Cultural ecology

          (d) Marxist anthropology

          (e) Practice Theory

Working with theory is a key learning goal in my Introduction to Cultural Anthropology lecture course. This question requires the students to teach back to us each of these five theories, as well as choosing which one best fits a project on class and privilege. I teach them that contemporary cultural anthropology is theoretically plural. That is, we do not (usually)  use single theoretical models in our research and writing (as we did in earlier eras in the discipline), hence the need to underline the word “main” in the question. In an essay on a question like this, students are often able to give fairly sophisticated takes on how many of these theories could be relevant to the research along with identifying the main theory.

5. Which statement best matches what a Structuralist would say?

          (a) “Each part of culture matches a universal human need”

           (b) “Performance is part of conforming to normative ideas and behaviors”

          (c) “Myths are evidence that there are universal binary divisions in human thought”

          (d) “Gender is a social construction”

          (e) “A search for meaning rather than law is best done through interpretation”

Another theory question, this time working in the opposite direction: identify the theory from the claim made. They know one is structuralism, but all other theories they must come up with, match, and explain on their own.

Not all of the multiple-choice questions translate to essay questions. Here are three that require knowledge of concepts and texts, but that I would not use as one of the essay options:

6. Among the Awlad ‘Ali, a patron/client relationship gives what to each participant?

           (a) Honor/dignity

           (b) Gender/sexuality

           (c) Wealth/independence

          (d) Land/cattle

          (e) A wife/a daughter

7. Among the Azande, which of the following events would witchcraft explain?

           (a) A balcony collapsing while people were standing on it

          (b) A double rainbow

          (c) Earning a bad grade on a test for which you did not study

         (d) The exchange of cattle between age-mates

         (e) A coconut falling from a tree while you are a safe distance away

 8. Which system of marriage would best describe the system in which a woman can marry more than one husband who must be part of another group?

         (a) Endogamous polygamy

         (b) Endogamous monogamy

         (c) Exogamous polygamy

        (d) Exogamous polyandry

        (e) Exogamous polygyny

Students tell me they are often able to divide the questions into three groups—definitely a candidate for an essay question, definitely not a candidate, and maybe a candidate. This also helps them focus and refine their studying and knowledge.

That is the exam. I’ve used it successfully in my Introduction to Cultural Anthropology lecture course for two decades. Students find it fair, and like having the exam ahead of time. They tell me it gives them a sense of control, and an ability to focus their learning on what matters, and to make sure they know the material. Knowing to teach rather than to regurgitate is a different type of knowing. Pedagogically, I find this exam structure invaluable, but I now realize it also discourages cheating. Students have the exam ahead of time, and by the time the exam date arrives should have determined the correct answer to each of the multiple-choice questions. This, combined with the fact that is a course of motivated students who are mostly anthropology majors, leads to zero instances of (caught) cheating using this exam format in my class.

But, is it cheat proof?

It is as close as I have gotten. In the context of a room full of 100+ students taking an exam with paper and pen at the introductory level, I think this is pretty good. Pedagogically in terms of testing the students on the ideas I most want them to learn and take from the class, it is excellent. And in terms of dissuading cheating, it certainly seems to work.

I want to note that I did not come up with this exam structure. I don’t know who did. I found the original idea for this format in a box of teaching ideas kept in the TA lounge of the University of Michigan anthropology department. Many of us loved to talk about ideas for our classes and assignments and exams, as well as share hard copies of handouts we used. One day I discovered this exam format on a handout in the box. It was so long ago—twenty-two years ago—that I no longer have the original write-up of the exam format, nor do I recall where it was from other than perhaps a university in Ohio. If anyone reading this knows who came up with this exam format, please do let me know. I would love to thank them.

If anyone else out there has a great exam format for a large, lecture class, let’s hear it. Sharing ideas for teaching is always welcome here.