A paper-based cheat-resistant multiple-choice question system with automated grading

Abstract

This paper focuses on how to reduce cheating and minimize errors while automatically grading paper-based multiple-choice questions (MCQ) by making the whole process relatively fast, less expensive, more credible, and fairer especially when the number of examinees and number of questions are large. Credibility is obtained when techniques and best practices are introduced in the design process of MCQ. Fairness is obtained by personalizing evaluation through permutation of answers and questions. The distance introduced in personalization has led to the modification of the traditional automatic grading process where an application mapping the test number with its responses in the grading software is loaded automatically at each start of the grading process. On the extracted header fields, 2DFFT is applied as well as the reduction of computed coefficients to obtain the corresponding final local characteristic in the representation. The minimization of image processing errors is then obtained by training a support vector machine (SVM) for handwriting optical character recognition (OCR) using the Mixed National Institute of Standards and Technology (MNIST) dataset with 99.5% accuracy. The tests are carried out in several subjects at Fotso Victor University Institute of Technology (UIT) in Bandjoun and the ColTech of the University of Bamenda and teachers as well as students after investigation have confirmed that our method reduces cheating and improves the error rate during grading with fewer complaints.