[kaitai]

You can find out with a less accusatory attitude, as well, if there has never been questionable behavior before. "Tell me about your process. Can you show me any notes or drafts? Discuss this paragraph with me. Without looking at the paper, can you explain what you're trying to say with this argument?"

Whether they wrote it themselves comes out pretty quickly, even if they won't admit to cheating. If a student can't explain his or her work, then you have a basis for giving a lower grade or pressing on the cheating accusation.

[gravypod]

We tried that recently with one of our students. You can definitely tell who is a cheater right off the bat based on their attitude in class. The kind of student who is driven to understand the world around them is not the kind of student who needs to cheat to obtain this knowledge.

After the recent midterm we gave out for one of my students I received two copes of the exam, one had a 20pts higher grade. Due to errors made on our side of the line it seemed as if the student had taken the exam, left a room, and taken it again at another room to score higher. We thought as soon as we saw him that he was a nice kid and so we should go lighter on him. All it did was freak the kid out. He couldn't make full sentences without stuttering because he thought we knew he was cheating.

I think this falls on a fault of our own. We didn't ask the right questions--the professor and I. We asked "did you take two copies of the exam" and he said yes, we then asked "did you change rooms" and he didn't respond, he just looked confused. We took him to my boss and my boss just gave him the exams and said "can you explain this". After that the kid went and explained exactly what happened.

I don't know if it's coming across correctly but basically we lead him into telling us he cheated. We "knew" that he cheated when it was really an error on our side. My boss was level headed and just said that we would start an investigation into cheating if he cannot explain himself and tell us what happened that day. When given the change rather then asked leading questions he was better able to articulate himself. It's my opinion now that asking any questions is a horrible idea for confronting a cheater. You just need to tell them what information you have and how this is going to be bad for them and they can fill in the blanks otherwise you will have accidentally lead them into a trap where they say they did something that they obviously didn't do as in the case of this student.